Putin’s DELUSIONS of GRANDEUR... REALITY Hits HARD

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Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join  Systemic misreporting across the Russian command chain has created a severe information gap, detaching Kremlin decision-making from battlefield realities in Ukraine. From exaggerated territorial claims in Donetsk to disproven encirclement reports in Kharkiv, falsified briefings mask mounting casualties and slow rates of advance. Discover how internal misinformation, maximalist demands, and severe attrition continue to shape the war's trajectory.  ⏱️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - ISW Assesses Putin "Divorced from Reality" by Systemic Military Lying 01:40 - CIA Director Ratcliffe Warning and Envoys Witkoff and Kushner Peace Push 03:52 - "Beautiful Reports" Culture and Putin's Fixation on Battlefield Minutiae 05:29 - Dissecting Exaggerated Donetsk Advance Claims and Unrealistic Deadlines 07:28 - Mathematical Reality: 2.36 Sq Km Daily Advance Pushes Donbas Capture to 2032 10:31 - Debunking Claims in Sumy & Sviatohirsk Controlled by Ukraine 11:37 - Falsified Control Claims at Kazachya Lopan, Pysarivka, and Novokostiantynivka 12:51 - The "Vovchansk Cauldron" Myth and Drone Kill Zone Realities 14:52 - Dual Dangers: Russian Strategic Ruin & Sleepwalking into NATO War  Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join  #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow  SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/WdhF4usU

Transcript

00:01If you listen to Putin, you'd think that Russia is on the rampage in Ukraine.

00:05When he delivers any sort of report, it usually involves claims that another settlement has fallen

00:10and that the collapse of Ukraine's defense is inevitable.

00:13But Putin has created his own reality.

00:16He labors under delusions of grandeur as his soldiers are torn to pieces on the battlefield.

00:21Putin's battlefield fiction is meeting a harsh and brutal reality.

00:25And the craziest thing is that he doesn't even seem to know it.

00:28Surrounded by liars and self-serving snakes, Putin is allowing his delusions to be fueled

00:34to the point where they have crippled Russia's ability to wage war.

00:38In an explosive Russian campaign assessment, the Institute for the Study of War, or ISW,

00:44has claimed that Putin is completely divorced from reality

00:48due to the culture of lying among Russia's military commanders.

00:52Russia's president has nobody but himself to blame for the delusions that now warp his mind.

00:57Putin is the man who has created such a massive culture of fear inside Russia that his own commanders,

01:02who should be offering honest assessments, are more concerned with saving their own skin

01:06than they are in revealing reality.

01:09They know the truth could set them free falling out of open windows, so they lie.

01:13And Putin, ever desperate to have his ideas and approach validated, swallows all of it up and asks for more.

01:18This unwillingness to see what should be right in front of him is doing Putin more harm than good.

01:24What he sees as power projection is, in reality, a path that takes Russia further away from peace and is

01:30crippling its army inside Ukraine.

01:32Before we go on, we're real people producing researched and fact-checked military reporting.

01:38If you want to support that, subscribe, share your thoughts below, and consider becoming a member for exclusive content we

01:44don't publish publicly.

01:45We have seen plenty of evidence of how Putin's delusions are causing him to fail Russia in recent days,

01:51as the US seems to be trying to break through Putin's haze to deliver him the dose of news that

01:55he needs to hear.

01:56That was one of the main purposes of the unexpected visit that CIA director John Ratcliffe made to Moscow toward

02:02the end of August.

02:03Ratcliffe tried to warn Putin that his own intelligence agencies are lying to him about Russia's progress in Ukraine,

02:09as well as to deliver a warning about escalation against NATO, especially in Russia's current state.

02:15Putin would have none of it.

02:16As the New Voice of Ukraine reports, Putin cancelled his own meeting with Ratcliffe after reading the contents of the

02:22message that he'd brought to Russia.

02:23We don't know what that message actually said.

02:26Ratcliffe had met with intelligence officials who would have been responsible for delivering the message to Putin,

02:30and they may have adjusted the content to keep Putin away from the truth that they've been trying to hide,

02:35yet more delusion created.

02:37And now, there is a suggestion that Putin believes that Ratcliffe's visit was a sign of American weakness rather than

02:44a warning.

02:45Ratcliffe's visit set the table for the arrival of America's special envoys Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner in Russia.

02:50In September, the two envoys visited both Ukraine and Russia in an attempt to restart peace talks between the two

02:57nations.

02:57Putin was first up, followed by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky.

03:01The envoys reportedly pushed for trilateral meetings, and Zelensky seemed to agree, CNN reports.

03:07The same outlet reports that both envoys left the talks feeling confident of achieving a good resolution.

03:13However, that simply doesn't seem possible for the simple reason that it appears Putin delivered the same maximalist demands for

03:19peace that he's been making since talks began.

03:22Ukraine must cede Donetsk, resulting in the Donbass being handed over to Russia.

03:27Without that, there can be no peace, Putin claims.

03:30It's here that Putin's delusions become so deep that you would hit the wreck of the Titanic before reaching the

03:35end of them.

03:36The demand to cede is being made by a man who thinks he holds all of the cards in Donetsk.

03:41He doesn't, and we'll explain why in a moment.

03:43First, what we're seeing in all of this is a man who is the victim of the system of misinformation

03:47that he has created around himself.

03:50As the ISW puts it, the Russian military systematically misinforms Putin about the state of the frontline,

03:56in part due to the pervasive culture of lying within the Russian armed forces that mill bloggers refer to as

04:02beautiful reports.

04:03The sweeping advances that serve as the backbone of Putin's claims that Ukraine should cede simply aren't happening,

04:10meaning that Putin has no real idea of what's happening on the battlefield.

04:14Putin is now in the strange position in which he is so obsessed with the Ukraine war that it has

04:18taken over every aspect of his thinking,

04:20yet at the same time, he knows so little about what's actually happening due to his own commanders that the

04:25obsession is worthless.

04:26And this isn't a new phenomenon. The Atlantic wrote about it on July 1st, noting a scripted TV interview where

04:32Putin appeared actively bored by questions about governing Russia,

04:35and instead insisted on speaking about battlefield minutiae, the point where he even named a specific street in Donetsk,

04:42where he claimed that Russian forces had gained some ground.

04:45Nobody can actually confirm this street was taken, least of all Putin.

04:49But the fact that Putin brought it up at all may also show us that it's not just the exaggerated

04:54gains that his commanders are reporting that are the problem.

04:57Putin himself seems to think that even the smallest gains are worthy of national attention,

05:02telling us that he is grasping for any positive news that could support his demands for peace.

05:07This is all happening at a time when 81% of Russians claim they want an end to the war,

05:12per a survey carried out by the Kyiv-based Institute for Conflict Studies and Analysis of Russia in May 2026.

05:18And so we come back to Donetsk. It's here that Putin's delusions are at their strongest.

05:24When he's not naming individual streets that Russia has supposedly captured, Putin is making much grander claims.

05:30For instance, September 1st saw Putin claim that Russian soldiers had captured 270 square kilometers of Donetsk in August,

05:37as part of Russia's attempts to advance on Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.

05:41On top of that, Putin said a large grouping of Ukrainian troops had been surrounded.

05:45It all sounds very impressive until you realize that none of it is true.

05:49Here's the dose of reality that Putin needs. Several doses, actually.

05:54Starting with the territory capture claims, Putin's statement is around 180 square kilometers off.

06:00That's according to the ISW, which says that Russia managed to occupy 90.35 square kilometers in Ukraine,

06:06not the 270 that Putin claims. Bear in mind that the ISW's figures cover all of Ukraine, not just Donetsk.

06:14Even if we take the successful infiltrations into account, which the ISW doesn't classify as true occupation,

06:20because you can't occupy anything with a couple of soldiers who are hiding and hoping that drones don't find them,

06:25Russia still only captured 123.53 square kilometers, which is less than half of what Putin claimed.

06:32It only gets worse from here for Putin. He has set 15 deadlines for the fall of Donetsk since the

06:38beginning of the invasion,

06:39and not a single one of them has come close to being met.

06:42Right now the deadline is December 31st, despite the fact that all of the fortress belts still needs to be

06:47claimed.

06:48Even in Konstantinivka, where Russia has made its best progress in Donetsk, the fighting still rages after 11 months,

06:55and it will be a long time until the city falls.

06:58Still, let's take Putin's December 31st deadline as given.

07:01That means Russia has a little under four months to claim the 19% or so of Donetsk that remains

07:06to be captured.

07:07That just isn't going to happen.

07:09At least not if Russia's rate of advance stays anywhere near what it is right now.

07:13But before we explain more, this is a reminder that you're watching the military show.

07:17If you haven't subscribed yet, now's the perfect time to hit the button.

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07:25The ISW reports that Russia's rate of advance across the entire Ukraine theater was 2.91 km2 per day in

07:32August.

07:33Donetsk, which is where Russia has deployed its priority forces, has an even slower rate of advance than the average

07:382.36 km2 per day.

07:40At this rate, it would take Russia until October 2nd, 2032 to seize the rest of Donetsk,

07:47which is so long that it would happen after the next State Duma elections, which will follow those set for

07:52this fall.

07:52By October 2nd, 2032, Putin will be five days away from turning 80.

07:57He might not even be alive by the time that Donetsk falls unless Russia can manage some massive turnaround,

08:02with an army that has spent four and a half years being sapped of its most skilled professionals in Ukraine's

08:07meat grinder.

08:08Speaking of the scale of death, Russia is making some massive trades in blood,

08:12just to get its hands on small scraps of territory that it's taking in Donetsk and the rest of Ukraine.

08:17We see that in the daily casualty rates.

08:20On September 5th, Russia lost 1,390 soldiers to death, injury or capture.

08:25On September 6th, it was 1,540 soldiers.

08:29These numbers aren't outliers.

08:31They've become standard for Russia, meaning Putin's forces regularly trade well over 1,000 casualties for between two and three

08:38square kilometers every day.

08:40So not only are those soldiers moving slowly, but their advance is unsustainable unless Putin decides to mobilize to make

08:46up for the sheer scale of Russia's losses.

08:49And by the way, all of this is happening without considering the urban battles to come in Donetsk.

08:53Whatever advances Russia has made, it hasn't pushed into the Fortress Belt cities in any considerable fashion.

09:00The territory is being taken on the outskirts, often dozens of kilometers away from those cities.

09:05If you think the rate of advance is slow now, just wait until those soldiers finally make it into the

09:09Fortress Belt cities themselves,

09:11where urban combat awaits, and the already slow pace will reduce to an absolute crawl.

09:16Every urban battlefield in the Fortress Belt is an attritional nightmare filled with drones and perfect for ambushes.

09:23Ukraine's soldiers know these streets, Russia's forces don't, and it would be no surprise to see Russia losing upwards of

09:292,000 soldiers per day once they reach the Fortress Belt cities.

09:33When Putin calls on Ukraine to cede Donetsk, this is the reality that needs to be presented to him.

09:38Ukraine would love to declare peace, but it's in no rush, as it knows that it will take six years

09:44or more for Putin to obtain by force what he wants to gain through negotiation.

09:48And even beyond that, Ukraine has no reason to even consider ceding this territory to Russia.

09:53Why?

09:54Again, the ISW has the answer.

09:56Putin is unlikely to stop at Donetsk, even if it were handed over to him today.

10:00Russia's leader would just see that as a sign of Ukraine's weakness, meaning he would push for more and more

10:05until he has all of Ukraine.

10:06It's better for Ukraine to leave Putin lost in his own delusions as it tears Russia's forces to shreds on

10:12the battlefield.

10:13Donetsk may be the epicenter of misinformation that is being shovelled into Putin's head by his commanders.

10:18However, there are plenty of other regions and settlements about which Putin has made grand claims that have turned out

10:24to be utterly untrue.

10:26We'll start with Sumy.

10:27On September 1st, Putin claimed that Russia's forces were creating a security zone along the border between Russia and Ukraine

10:33inside the Ukrainian region of Sumy.

10:35Over the past month, 14 settlements have come under the control of the Russian forces, including Kazachia Lopan.

10:41And yesterday, the city of Svyatohirsk, Putin declared.

10:45The claim about Svyatohirsk simply isn't true.

10:48On September 7th, a video was published on Telegram by Ukraine's 3rd Army Corps commander Andrey Biletsky.

10:53It showed Ukrainian soldiers in the Svyatohirsk city center as Biletsky declared.

10:59I want to address Russia's military and military political leadership.

11:02Take off your clown noses and colorful wigs.

11:04Don't make fools of yourselves.

11:06The 60th mechanized brigade of the 3rd Army Corps has full control of the city.

11:11In fact, this is our rear area.

11:12That mention of the city being a rear area means that Ukraine's control extends several kilometers beyond the settlement's borders,

11:19telling us that Russia is nowhere near achieving what Putin claimed had already happened on September 1st.

11:25If Putin is wrong about this city, the odds are high that he's wrong about at least some, if not

11:29all, of the other 14 settlements he claims.

11:32As the Kyiv Post points out, none of Putin's claims could be independently verified.

11:36Next, we head to the Kharkiv region, which is where Kazachalopan is located.

11:41Remember, Putin claimed that the settlement was also under Russian control.

11:44Has been since August, if you believe what Russia has to say.

11:47But it looks like Putin had been fed even more false information.

11:51There is still plenty of fighting in and around this village, but there is certainly no occupation.

11:56On September 2nd, Ukraine's 14th Army Corps declared that Ukraine still fully controls the village in a telegram post,

12:02where they said,

12:02The latest statements by Russian propagandists and Putin personally about the capture of Kazachalopan in the Kharkiv region traditionally do

12:11not correspond to reality.

12:12The settlement is under the control of the Ukrainian defense forces.

12:16Apart from taking the village over, Russia has suffered heavy losses in its attempts, amounting to 178 soldiers dead and

12:22another 210 wounded.

12:24You are probably noticing a trend here.

12:26Putin makes a claim, Ukraine denies and then provides proof that Russia's leader is talking out of his rear end.

12:31And we have seen something similar in several other parts of Sumy.

12:35Russia has claimed over the past few weeks that it has captured the settlements of Pisarivka and Novokonstantinivka.

12:41Neither claim is true.

12:42Ukraine's cursed group of forces denied the latter claims on August 25th.

12:46And it doesn't seem as though Russia has made any progress in Novokonstantinivka since.

12:50And it just keeps on going.

12:52Putin has also claimed that Russia has managed a major victory by encircling 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers in northeastern Kharkiv

12:59over a 460 square kilometer pocket of territory.

13:02Beyond there being no credible evidence to suggest that this pocket exists or that there is a Ukrainian grouping of

13:08that size being surrounded by Russian forces,

13:10this particular claim even drew backlash from Russian military bloggers.

13:15Rybar, who has over 1.5 million Telegram followers and is one of Russia's most influential pro-war bloggers,

13:21says that the far more likely situation is that the territory Russia's soldiers were trying to attack in Kharkiv likely

13:27contained very few Ukrainian ground troops,

13:29a point where those troops don't even hold the territory at all.

13:33That doesn't mean Russia holds it either.

13:35Instead, what is happening is that the territory is filled to the brim with Ukrainian drones, along with other defenses.

13:42Russia has encircled a kill zone, not a Ukrainian troop gathering.

13:46And that means any attempt made to close the circle Putin claims has formed will just lead to mass casualties

13:51for Russia and barely any for Ukraine.

13:54Yes, Russia might eventually occupy the territory, but only after untold hundreds if not thousands of Russian troops meeting their

14:01ends due to Ukraine's drones.

14:04Perhaps the best rebuke comes from the armed forces of Ukraine,

14:07which highlights what Putin's claims about the so-called Vovchansk cauldron are really all about.

14:12The inflating of an information bubble called Vovchansk cauldron has been going on for the past three months.

14:17The enemy media is creating a victorious backdrop.

14:20The main thing is to hold fake elections and manufactured public support to the Russian state, especially in the border

14:26areas of the Belgorod region, Ukraine declares.

14:29This about sums it up.

14:31Putin is just repeating what his commanders are telling him because he likes what he hears,

14:34and he believes that saying it often enough will lead to a good result in upcoming elections.

14:39We don't know if Putin actually believes any of the words that are coming out of his mouth regarding all

14:43of these claims.

14:44Frankly, Putin probably doesn't even know if he believes them.

14:47He just says what he's told by people who create false narratives because they know that Putin doesn't really want

14:52to see reality.

14:54The battlefield fiction is real in Putin's mind because he wants it to be, and that makes this fiction dangerous

14:59on two levels.

15:01For Russia itself, Putin having no idea what's happening to the point where he regurgitates easily disproven lies actively harms

15:07Russia's ability to wage war.

15:09How is the country's military supposed to be effective when Putin has essentially tricked himself into thinking that a failing

15:15strategy is producing results?

15:17There is a widespread culture of lying in the Russian military, and it's only going to lead to more Russian

15:22deaths in Donetsk,

15:23as well as the complete failure of Putin and his negotiators to recognize their real position whenever they come to

15:29the table for negotiations.

15:30Those negotiations will crumble every single time because Russia insists on them being based on a version of reality that

15:36nobody but Putin can see.

15:38So, more soldiers will die, and Russia's dire economic situation will only get worse, all because of Putin.

15:45Ukraine, Europe, and NATO won't mind those bad outcomes of the battlefield fiction, even if Ukraine would prefer to negotiate

15:51a fair peace based on reality.

15:53Far more worrying for all three is the second danger, which is that Putin's delusions may now be so grand

15:58that he actually believes that Russia has established itself as a powerhouse that is capable of taking on and defeating

16:04NATO.

16:05Putin seems to believe the lies, and he's not telling those lies on purpose if the ISW is right, and

16:11it's Russia's military commanders who are feeding him this information.

16:13As Putin purges more members of Russia's elite, especially those who might contradict the fake reality he's allowed to be

16:20created for him,

16:21it only gets worse to the point where Putin might genuinely think that Russia is so strong that it can

16:26attack a NATO nation through conventional warfare and actually succeed.

16:30Vladimir Putin may be sleepwalking into a global war.

16:34Rationality has disappeared, and the only way to stop Putin now is to force him into absorbing doses of reality.

16:39The US tried, Ukraine is doing it every day.

16:43Every example we've shared in this video shows it, and another dose of what's really happening in Ukraine has been

16:48delivered at the Kinburn spit.

16:50Russian forces are surrounded on this small scrap of territory, and they're being starved out by a brilliant Ukrainian strategy.

16:56Find out more by watching our video, but before you go, this channel is built by real people who care

17:01about getting the story right.

17:03Subscribe, join the conversation below, and consider becoming a member to support human-made military reporting and unlock exclusive content.

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