Why draw attention to the fact that Russian troops are at a stalemate in the Donbass with the front lines barely moving, when the original game plan seemed to be that Kyiv would fall in a week? Even Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu admitted today at a conference in Uzbekistan that the operation is slowing down. A fleet of Russian tanks marched through the Kiev-Ukraine war more recently All in the name of avoiding civilian casualties, he said. All in the name of international humanitarian law. At the international military games in Moscow, a two-week extravaganza — part military exhibition, part Olympics — saw crowds watch as teams from a variety of “friendly” nations competed in a tank biathlon. This involved tanks racing each other and shooting at targets, bone-crushing explosions piercing the 32-degree heat, the kind of explosions Ukrainians are used to now. Children climbed over tanks. Teenagers posed for pictures next to them. A grandmother tried her hand at a Kalashnikov. Russia is a very militarized society, that’s normal. All in what’s known as Patriot’s Park an hour outside Moscow, where the military recently completed a massive camouflage-colored cathedral—a living symbol of the intersection of church, military, and state that has merged into the missionary language around Russia’s special military operation. In an exhibition area, groups of military personnel toured exhibits from the battlefield. Weapons and military equipment are on display, with flags indicating which Western nations the equipment is said to have come from. A mannequin dressed as a Ukrainian soldier hugged a captured British man. On his exposed skin, the curators had drawn a collection of Nazi tattoos, apparently to capture the endlessly repeated (and false) state narrative that this is a struggle against the Nazis. In one corner, a TV screen played another motif favored by state television: two male Ukrainian soldiers kissing, an attempt to portray Ukraine’s military as full of everything that is antithetical to conservative Russian values. Also at this six-month landmark away in the city of Yekaterinburg, opposition politician and former mayor Yevgeny Roizman was arrested. Read more: Boris Johnson pictured in Kyiv with Zelensky UK no fuel imports from Russia in June Experts predict what will happen next in Ukraine war The charges against him are now criminal, following a series of fines for repeated violations of Russia’s law on discrediting the armed forces. Mr Roizman told Sky News previously that he would never leave Russia, he loved his country. “But Ukraine is standing,” he said then. “We are witnessing the birth of a nation.”
