White House Delivers Insulting Take on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
As the Russian government continues to try to spin their abject failures in Ukraine as all a part of the plan, their constant moving of the goalposts suggests that things are quite awry in the Kremlin…and the world knows it.
In fact, there is little doubt that the entire debacle is embarrassing for Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose troops have made a sport of deserting their deployments, telling their superiors to go kick rocks, and accidentally nuking themselves.
Now, in the face of all of this buffoonery, the White House has a new descriptor for the Kremlin’s imbecilic invasion: A “blunder”.
The White House has called Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine a “moral outrage” being perpetrated by a “butcher” who is committing “war crimes.” But on Wednesday it found a new way to describe the attack on Ukraine, now heading into its second month.
“It is increasingly clear that Putin’s war has been a strategic blunder,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said at a press briefing — only her second for the administration — that came after the public release of an intelligence assessment alleging that Putin’s generals were hiding the war’s mismanagement from him.
And there appeared to be a point to all of this as well:
The intelligence declassified earlier that day helped “underscore that this has been a strategic blunder for Russia,” Bedingfield said. The assessment also subtly shifted the blame toward the Kremlin’s generals, making the implicit argument that even though it was Putin who started the war, it was his inner circle’s bad advice that perpetuated the conflict, which has immiserated millions of Ukrainians and left Russia isolated and potentially on the brink of economic calamity.
Advertisement - story continues below“Our aim is to show that this has been a strategic blunder for Russia. Ultimately, this is going to leave them weaker; it is not going to leave them stronger,” Bedingfield said, describing the invasion as a “terrible decision” that has led to “persistent tension” between Putin and his generals.
The world had long grown accustomed to a prickly and sensitive Putin, who would lash out at the smallest trespasses against him, but his absolute mess of an invasion here has taken even that old wind out of his sails.
