JRL NEWSWATCH: “As 2023 draws to a close, Putin wants the world to think he is winning” – CNN
“… [I]f Putin is running as a wartime president, he has to massage the facts. Russia does not fully control the Ukrainian regions it claimed in September 2022; the war on the ground has been extremely costly in terms of Russian lives and equipment; and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has taken a serious beating. … [T]he war has … come home to Russia. In recent months, Ukrainian drones have struck deep inside Russian territory. Saturday saw more than 20 killed in one of the deadliest incidents of the war for Russian civilians. While Kyiv maintains some level of deniability, such attacks have had some unsettling psychological effect – particularly when drones managed to breach the airspace around the Kremlin …. But the biggest blowback from war in Ukraine occurred in June, when … Prigozhin launched an insurrection … and marched on Moscow. … Putin clearly wants the world – as well as his electorate – to believe that he is winning, and he is counting on support for Ukraine to waver. …”