War in Ukraine May 6, 2023 – 06:00 Security Council in the Kremlin, May 9 celebrations canceled in many cities. A Ukrainian site: “Kiev used Patriots, shot down a Kynzhal”. The government denies it. From the Kremlin they hastened to clarify that the security council convened yesterday in Moscow was not an “emergency room” but an appointment on the agenda for days, a ritual summit that takes place every week or so, given that the last one was celebrated on April 21st. However, it is impossible not to give a particular meaning to the meeting chaired by Tsar Vladimir Putin and which saw the permanent members of the council confront each other, which we could define as the body of political guidance for the war of aggression against Ukraine. In fact, its members include premier Mikhail Mishustin, the president of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko, the president of the Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, the secretary of the same security council Nikolay Patrushev and his deputy Dmitry Medvedev, the ministers of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov, of the Interior Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Sergei Shoigu of Defense, the director of the FSB, the Muscovite secret services, Alexander Bortnikov and that of the Srv (foreign services) Sergey Naryshkin and the Kremlin chief of staff Anton Vaino. The leaders of the leaders, all together passionately discussing a war that is not going as they hoped in the Kremlin: the great offensive that should give the decisive push to the Kiev government appears far, very far away. Instead, the Ukrainian counter-offensive appears close, very close, even if the outcome is uncertain. Weapons stocks are running low, the army is demotivated, war logistics are engulfed. And then there is the shame of the drone dropped on Wednesday by Kiev on the Kremlin, which plastically demonstrated the vulnerability of the heart of Putin’s power and yesterday prompted Lavrov to speak of a “terrorist attack” following which “any self-respecting country you should refrain from talking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.” Under the propaganda nothing. Or at least very little. To galvanize the depressed troops fighting a war that in many cases they do not hear, Minister Shoigu yesterday visited the southern front and, a statement said, “inspected the readiness of the military equipment and weapons sent to the units of the armed forces Russia” and asked one of his deputies, Alexey Kuzmenkov, to “keep under special control matters concerning the continuous and regular supply” of “all necessary weapons and military equipment”. The impression remains that in Moscow the attack on the Kremlin marked the beginning of a new phase of the war, made up of anguish and headaches. It is no coincidence that in many Russian and Crimean cities, twenty-one until yesterday, the parades scheduled for May 9, Victory Day, have been canceled for no apparent reason. This word, victory, which is preferred not to be used in today’s Russia. And while yesterday the Moscow authorities ordered the evacuation of the locality of Energodar, near Zaporizhzhia, where Europe’s largest nuclear power plant is located in view of the probable Ukrainian counter-offensive, yesterday the yellow of the Patriot was also celebrated. In the morning, the Ukrainian site Defense Express had reported the first shooting down of a Russian Kynzhal hypersonic ballistic missile over the skies of Kiev by the American Patriot missile system, also posting a photo of the debris that fell on the capital’s stadium. News denied a few hours by Yuri Ignat, spokesman for the air force command of the Ukrainian armed forces: “There was a possibility of use, but no ballistic missiles were registered”. In short, if not yesterday it will be at the first opportunity. The appointment is only postponed.
