15 settlements liberated by Russia's Battlegroup Center in September-October -- top brass
- Russia's top general claims 15 settlements 'liberated' in the Donbas meat grinder — a number that conveniently matches the body count ratio of a single Ukrainian counterattack.
- Fighting supposedly rages on in nine more 'settlements', which is military-speak for 'rubble that still has a street sign'.
- The report was delivered personally to Putin — because in Moscow, good news is rare enough to be hand-delivered, like a fruitcake at Christmas.
- No mention of Ukrainian losses, Russian losses, or how many of these 'liberations' are just scorched earth with a new flag.
- The Kremlin's definition of 'liberate' remains: 'destroy it so thoroughly that the enemy no longer wants it.'
Brief Summary
Russia's Chief of General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, has delivered a glowing battlefield update to President Vladimir Putin, boasting that his Battlegroup Center 'liberated' 15 settlements between September and October, with nine more currently in the crosshairs. Because nothing says 'victory' like counting villages that are now mostly craters, abandoned farmhouses, and the occasional surviving chicken. Gerasimov name-dropped 'Raiskoye' and 'Svyatogorsk' as active battle zones, presumably to remind everyone that the war is going great if you squint hard enough and ignore the strategic stalemate. The report is a masterclass in Kremlin optimism, turning grinding positional warfare into a grocery list of captured ghost towns. TASS, the state news agency, dutifully relayed the proclamation, offering no irony, no context, and certainly no inquiry into whether these 'liberations' came with any strategic benefit or just another pile of body bags.
Why This Matters
For the average reader, this is a reminder that official war narratives are often detached from reality — a fine piece of propaganda theater designed to reassure the home front that 'progress' is being made, even as the front lines barely move. If you're in Russia, this might boost morale until you notice your neighbor's son isn't coming back from that 'liberated' village. For everyone else, it's a cynical exercise in counting ruins: five new 'settlements' per month is less 'blitzkrieg' and more 'slow-moving foreclosure on a dying empire'. The real impact is in the subtext — Moscow is so desperate for good news that even a list of bombed-out hamlets is presidential briefing material. This is not a story of strategic brilliance; it's a story of dwindling expectations, where 'victory' is measured by the number of signs you can pull down and replace.