Disconnected From Reality: Why Vladimir Putin’s assessment of events is becoming increasingly inaccurate, and why he is insisting on it more forcefully

Vladimir Putin’s assessments of the situation in Russia and of the theatre of operations in Ukraine are diverging ever more sharply from both reality and the views held by ordinary Russians and the Russian elite. Putin continues to insist that the Russian army is advancing along the entire front, while portraying the damage inflicted by Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure as limited and readily manageable.

In reality, the Russian army is not succeeding on the ground. A close examination of Putin's description of the battlefield reveals deliberate manipulation. To substantiate claims of Russian military success, he relies on the same arguments he was making six or seven months earlier in an effort to exaggerate the momentum of Russia's offensive at the end of 2025.

However, even today – six months later – these claims remain inconsistent with the facts. On the contrary, the pace of Russia's advance in May and June was the slowest since 2023, pointing to a systemic crisis in the model of warfare that Russia has employed against Kyiv over the past two and a half years.

Putin’s meeting with ‘combatants’ in June highlighted yet another disconnect. While Putin emphasised that infantry assault units remain the decisive element of the military campaign and are capable of delivering the required outcome, members of those units attempted to convey a different message. They argued that the Russian military's capabilities have been undermined by its technological lag behind Ukraine in drone warfare and that the army's centralised approach to introducing innovation has proved ineffective, widening rather than narrowing this gap.

Thus, the false picture of the Russian army’s successes ‘on the ground’ does not exist in isolation within Putin's discourse. Rather, it serves to sustain an entire universe of assumptions about the war that are familiar and comfortable for him, together with the associated principles of governance and decision-making. This system of assumptions, however, is fundamentally at odds with the transformation of warfare now being driven by new technologies.

Drifting apart: Putin against everyone else

The widening gap between Vladimir Putin’s assessments of the current situation, as expressed in his public speeches, and the assessments of virtually everyone else, including experts, Western policymakers and analysts, ordinary Russian citizens and, in private, even members of Russia's ruling elite, has become one of the defining features of Russian political life. Putin pointedly ignores or denies developments that dominate the information agenda and are the subject of widespread public, expert and policy debate: Ukraine's decisive advantage in tactical drone warfare, the stagnation of the front, the effective isolation of Crimea, and the fuel crisis caused by Ukraine's successful campaign of strikes against Russian oil refineries.

In the alternative reality constructed through Putin's public statements, Russian forces are instead advancing confidently along the line of contact in every direction, as he repeatedly insists. Ukrainian strikes on Russian infrastructure, by contrast, are portrayed as causing only limited damage and serving primarily to distract attention from Russia's battlefield successes. According to Putin, the disruption caused by these attacks will be rapidly brought under control, while fuel supplies to Russian regions and Crimea have already been fully restored. 'Everything is operating steadily and with a substantial margin of safety’, Putin asserts, expressing confidence that Russia will achieve its objectives not only in capturing the whole of Donetsk region but also in securing ‘Little Russia’.

These statements come as Russians spend hours in traffic queues while trying to leave Crimea or refuel on journeys that have increasingly become logistical ordeals. Public opinion, insofar as it is reflected in survey data, does not align with Putin's narrative. According to the regular survey conducted by the polling organisation FOM on the most memorable events of the past week, carried out between 19 and 21 June, 51% of those surveyed gave substantive answers, with some naming more than one event. As a result, 35% of all mentions related to Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow and other Russian regions, together with the fuel crisis. By contrast, only 16% referred to the 'special military operation' in general or to Russian military successes, themes that broadly supported Putin's preferred narrative. In other words, his version of events was outweighed by the less favourable mainstream of public opinion by roughly two to one.

Most memorable events of the week, 15–21 June 2026, % of responses, including refusals

Vladimir Putin and Russian society appear to be on two ice floes drifting in different directions. Does Putin himself believe what he says? And to what extent does this distorted picture reflect his state of mind and affect managerial practices and decision making?

Frontline ‘canned reports’ versus the frontline crisis

In an interview with Kremlin pool correspondent Pavel Zarubin on 28 June, Putin set out in detail his own picture of what is happening at the front. The last time he described the situation in comparable detail, across each direction and with references to settlements, was in a series of speeches in November–December 2025, when the Russian military authorities were conducting a ‘cognitive offensive’ designed to create the impression of a qualitative breakthrough by Russian forces (→ Re:Russia: Victory on Credit). A comparison of statements made six months apart makes it possible to assess the informational repertoire of Putin’s verbal counteroffensive and, to a significant extent, the real state of the front over this period.

For instance, on 28 June, Putin stated that in Lyman the Russian army had ‘only 149 houses left out of 11,000 to liberate’. As early as September 2025, the Russian military claimed that they were completing the encirclement of Lyman, and at a meeting at the end of December they reported to Putin that they had 'entered' the city and were 'systematically clearing pockets of resistance in enemy strongholds'. Putin himself, however, claimed during his ‘Direct Line’ programme on 19 December that the Russian army controlled 50% of the city’s urban area. And, in May 2026, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov stated that 85% of the city was under Russian control. The city itself covers just 26 square kilometres. Thus, even if one accepts the claims of the Russian command, Putin’s own statements imply that over six months the Russian army has still not managed to take full control of the remaining half of the city. At the same time, some Ukrainian OSINT projects report that, as of 22 June, Russian troops had still not entered Lyman.

In his conversation with Zarubin, Putin also said that Russian forces were 'between 2.5 and 4 km from the western edge' of Kupyansk, implying that its capture was close. Yet seven months earlier, on 27 November 2025, Putin insisted that the 'enemy grouping' in Kupyansk had been 'fully eliminated, the city is completely in our hands'. He repeated this claim twice in December, at the 'Russia Calling!' forum and during the 'Direct Line' programme. It is unlikely that Putin has entirely forgotten his previous statements, which suggests that he has been deliberately using the same informational ‘canned phrases’ over the past six months to construct a favourable picture of Russian advances.

In reality, the situation in Kupyansk remains complex. At one point Russian forces did enter the city through infiltration, but appear to have subsequently been pushed back or destroyed. Russian command later denied this in February 2026, insisting that the city remained under Russian control. Putin repeated these denials in his interview, claiming that Ukrainian counterattacks had failed. At the same time, according to data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces currently control only part of the Kupyansk agglomeration and are advancing towards the city from the east and south-east as of 27–28 June. According to DeepState maps, they are still approximately 6 km from the city. Even within Putin’s own version of events, however, progress appears more limited than was claimed six months ago.

Finally, in the latest interview Putin spoke about the encirclement of a Ukrainian grouping of around 5,000 troops 'on the left bank of the Oskil River' (mistakenly referring to the river as the Russian city of Stary Oskol) and added that its fate 'will be similar to what happened in the Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi area'. The alleged encirclement near Kupiansk-Vuzlovy was repeatedly discussed by Russian military officials and Putin between August and December 2025. At a meeting with the president on 29 December, Gerasimov claimed that it had already been half destroyed. Ukrainian and independent sources did not confirm the existence of any encirclement. Moreover, on 27 October 2025, Putin claimed that Ukrainian forces had been surrounded in both Kupyansk and Pokrovsk, and on 29 October he even invited foreign journalists to the combat zone in Pokrovsk so that they could document the encirclement. It later emerged that Russian forces at the time controlled only a smaller part of the city, and fighting continued for a considerable period. The encircled Ukrainian forces were subsequently no longer mentioned by Russian command. Thus, the story of an 'encircled Ukrainian grouping' has become a kind of recurring motif in Russian leadership statements.

These examples suggest that, as in November–December 2025, Putin’s claims resemble a deliberate disinformation campaign designed to shape a false perception of the frontline situation. However, in late 2025 this campaign accompanied an intense Russian offensive and was intended to amplify its effects through exaggerated successes (according to calculations by Deepstat based on DeepState OSINT data, in November–December the Ukrainian side lost control of almost 950 square kilometres). In May–June 2026, however, the Russian offensive appears to have largely stalled. The only sector where any meaningful progress is observed is around Kostiantynivka, although Putin’s claim that Russian forces control 96% of the settlement is clearly inconsistent with reality.

Overall, according to Deepstat’s calculations, in June Russian forces advanced by 75 square kilometres along the entire front line, following an advance of 14 square kilometres in May. Over two months they therefore captured less than 100 square kilometres, compared with 1,000 square kilometres in May–June 2025 and 500 square kilometres in May–June 2024. This is, in aggregate, the worst result since late 2023, when the Russian army was tasked with reaching the borders of Donetsk oblast. It points to a crisis in the model of attritional warfare that Russia has pursued against Kyiv over the past two and a half years. Putin’s interview therefore appears to be a pre-emptive verbal intervention designed to counter these disappointing results with an alternative version of reality that sustains the narrative of Russia’s eventual military victory ‘on the ground’.

Land and sky: two perspectives on the ‘assault troops’

If Putin’s narratives about the successful advance of the Russian army appear to be a fairly deliberate act of manipulation, relying on the assumption that audiences no longer remember his own statements from six months earlier, the second part of his discussion of the war and the means of achieving victory reflects something different: a genuine disconnect in his understanding of the factors that now determine the course of military operations.

This disconnect was clearly evident during the ‘meeting with servicemen participating in the special military operation’, which Putin held on Russia Day, 12 June. Conceived as a ceremonial event intended to demonstrate the closeness of the senior military leadership to the needs of the front and to ordinary participants in the war, the meeting also carried an explicit propaganda message, articulated by Putin in his opening remarks: 'Throughout history, assault units have put the final full stop to every battle and every military conflict. It is the infantry, the assault troops, that ultimately secure the fulfilment of combat objectives.'

This commitment to the traditional Russian and Soviet offensive doctrine, which relies on superiority in manpower and displays little sensitivity to casualties, the doctrine of 'meat assaults', is fully consistent with the broader picture that Putin has presented in his public statements. In this view, the decisive factor is the advance of Russian ground forces, while the air war and strikes against Russian infrastructure are merely distractions that create additional but ultimately non-critical problems.

The meeting on 12 June, however, took an unexpected turn. Of the nine assault troops who spoke, seven raised the absence of one or another technological capability essential for effective operations in drone warfare. More broadly, they pointed to the technological shortcomings of the Russian military and the inability of the defence industry to respond to the rapidly changing requirements of the battlefield. Putin and Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, who was also present, insisted that all the necessary technological solutions already existed and were simply being scaled up. Yet, as with their portrayal of Russian advances at the front, these responses appeared designed more to conceal the real situation than to describe it accurately.

Predictably, one of the central issues raised by the servicemen was the urgent need for a Russian equivalent of the broadband satellite system Starlink, which underpins the technological advantage of Ukrainian drone operations. According to Putin, Russia already possesses a low Earth orbit satellite constellation that 'is no worse than Starlink and perhaps even surpasses it in some respects', and it is continuing to expand. The system in question is ‘Rassvet’, which has been under development since late 2020 by ‘Bureau 1440’, a company belonging to ‘IKS Holding’ (the company’s website states that it is ‘developing a low-Earth orbit satellite system for broadband data transmission’, with satellites operating at an altitude of 800 km and designed to provide internet speeds of up to 1 Gbit/s with latency of up to 70 milliseconds).

In July 2023, ‘Bureau 1440’ reported a successful ‘communication session with the first three satellites’, and in March 2026, it announced that 16 production satellites had been launched into orbit (one of which appears to have been lost). In accordance with the ‘Internet Access Infrastructure’ programme under the ‘Data Economy’ national project, the number of satellites is set to reach 156 by 2026, 292 by 2027, and 318 by 2028. The service is scheduled to launch in 2027. However, the March test launch itself was delayed, having originally been planned for December 2025, while the dates of subsequent launches have not been disclosed. This may indicate implementation difficulties, particularly with serial satellite production under sanctions. By comparison, Starlink currently operates thousands of satellites, while Amazon’s competing Leo project has around 200 (as of March 2026; the launch of the consumer service is scheduled for 2026).

Another critical limitation is that ‘Rassvet’ was originally designed to provide broadband internet to the Russian Far North and to support transport infrastructure. One of Starlink's major advantages is its lightweight terminals, weighing around 3 kg, which can be mounted directly on strike drones and carried as portable equipment. The terminal prototype developed by ‘Bureau 1440’, which the company presented, is designed for installation on trains and weighs around 15 kg. As a result, even under the most optimistic assumptions, a genuine Russian equivalent to Starlink is unlikely to become available for at least another 18 to 24 months. Such an answer would hardly have reassured the participants in the June meeting. Instead, Putin avoided giving any concrete timetable, saying only that 'we have such a system... the issue is scaling it up, which takes time, but it has been created and it is functioning.' Which, of course, does not correspond to the actual state of affairs and amounts to a misleading characterisation of the project.

In the version of the war promoted by Putin, Russian assault units are capable of continuing their offensive even without a domestic broadband satellite communications system. The ordinary servicemen attending the meeting, however, appeared to harbour serious doubts about that proposition.

Laboratory of the past: the Ministry of Defence versus the ‘garage defence industry’

The same pattern of responses was repeated throughout the 12 June meeting. One of the long-standing complaints among pro-war military bloggers has been the Russian army's lack of heavy satellite-guided drones comparable to Ukraine's Baba Yaga drones, a generic nickname used by Russian troops for several types of Ukrainian heavy unmanned aerial vehicles, including Vampire, R18, Kazhan, Nemesis and others. Just days before the meeting, the Telegram channel ‘ZAPISKI VETERANA’ wrote that 'the Russian Armed Forces simply have no equivalents to heavy hexacopters such as the Ukrainian Vampires and Baba Yaga.' In response to a serviceman's question, Putin and Belousov again insisted that a technical solution already existed in the form of Product 80 (the S-80 heavy quadcopter developed by the Dnipro grouping), and that the only remaining issue was mass production.

However, the existence of a technical design solution in this area has been stated on numerous occasions. For instance, in December 2025, following field trials, the first test batch (around 100 units) of 'Berdysh' drones, with a payload capacity of 20 kg and a range of 25 km, developed by Uralvagonzavod, was sent to the front. Furthermore, back in August 2024, RIA Novosti reported that the company Groza had developed the Night Witch strike drone, described as an improved analogue of the Ukrainian Baba Yaga. In November 2025, Russian forces supposedly also received the heavy ‘Mangas’ hexacopter. Judging by the numerous complaints from the pro-war community, however, none of these systems has entered mass deployment.

The discussion followed the same pattern when addressing the delivery of UAVs comparable to the enemy's fibre optic drones equipped with artificial intelligence, as well as the chronic shortage of electronic warfare (EW) systems. Each time, Putin and Belousov responded by insisting that 'very active work' was under way. The defence minister assured participants that deliveries of tactical EW systems to the front had almost been organised and that the Ministry of Defence would soon 'fully meet the needs of assault units for portable electronic warfare systems'. Servicemen also complained about the lack of net guns for intercepting drones, shotgun ammunition for automatic weapons and personal thermal imagers. In every case, they emphasised that suitable technical solutions already existed, but that production had not been scaled up to meet frontline demand. For example, several models of Russian pistol-mounted net launchers (‘Pauk-30’, ‘Pauk-B’ and others), which the manufacturer markets as ‘a portable device for defence against drones, designed for special operations forces, the protection of positions, the escort of convoys and the defence of personnel against attacking FPV drones’. Since March 2026, Ukraine has been mass-producing a similar anti-drone device called ‘Chipa’.

The discussion reached a more fundamental level when one participant proposed legalising the procurement of modules capable of identifying Ukrainian Hornet drones operating in the 8–12 GHz frequency range. Russia's inability to field electronic warfare systems capable of countering drones operating at frequencies between 9,000 and 10,000 MHz has become one of the key factors behind the dramatic shift in the balance of power in the 'low sky' and the loss of Russian control over the land corridor to Crimea (→ Re:Russia: The Zone of Absolute Death). However, Putin firmly rejected the proposal, making it clear that the testing and large-scale introduction of innovations must remain the exclusive responsibility of the Ministry of Defence. As he put it, 'the Ministry's task is to select the best solution and provide it to you for use as quickly as possible'.

The discussion effectively continued a broader debate that has been unfolding within the pro-war community over the role of the 'garage defence industry', small private firms developing technological solutions for the front. Military bloggers have repeatedly criticised Russia's defence procurement system, particularly when comparing it with Ukraine's much faster mechanism for introducing military innovations. Ukraine's Brave1 weapons marketplace, described by Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov as an 'Amazon for war', allows developers to sell new technologies directly to frontline units. Combat formations, in turn, receive electronic reward points for verified destruction of enemy targets, which they can use to purchase additional equipment (→ Re:Russia: Positional Deadlock).

The pro-war community, together with the assault troops themselves, as demonstrated during the Kremlin meeting, advocates a similar model linking small suppliers directly with combat units in Russia. During the early stages of drone warfare, such small-scale manufacturers existed and supplied experimental batches to the front, as noted ‘Important Stories’ documented in a 2023 investigation. Over time, however, they were displaced by large state-owned enterprises. As early as 2024, Russian drone manufacturers complained that they were unable to secure funding under state contracts due to difficulties in coordinating contracts with the Federal Treasury. In 2026, independent defence companies also came under pressure from law enforcement agencies. In May, law enforcement agencies carried out an inspection at one of the key drone manufacturers in the Urals, the ‘Laboratory of the Future’ research organisation.

The misleading picture of Russian military success on the ground that features so prominently in Vladimir Putin's rhetoric is therefore not an isolated phenomenon. Rather, it sustains an entire conceptual universe of familiar and comfortable assumptions about warfare, together with the management principles and policy choices that flow from them. Within this framework, the outcome of the campaign depends above all on the advance of assault units, supported by a sufficient supply of expendable manpower. Strikes against infrastructure can supposedly be offset by allocating additional resources and reserves, while restricting the publication of information about the cost and production volumes of scarce equipment. Military innovation and rearmament, meanwhile, are assumed to be centralised processes that should remain the exclusive monopoly of the state.

Yet this worldview is fundamentally at odds with the transformation of warfare driven by new technologies. In the emerging military environment, dominance in the 'low sky', enabling sustained attacks on an opponent's logistics and infrastructure, neutralises advances on the ground and undermines the advantages of numerical superiority. Innovation, meanwhile, increasingly depends on a bottom-up model, in which rapidly changing frontline demand continuously shapes technological supply.