PUTIN'S GENERALS INVENT VICTORIES WHILE UKRAINE CLAIMS TO HAVE SMASHED AN ENTIRE RUSSIAN DIVISION 🇺🇦🇷🇺 While Russian state television celebrates questionable battlefield victories, Ukrainian forces are said to have carried out a major operation against Russia's 144th Division, capturing 270 soldiers and disrupting a formation involved in an attempted encirclement in Donetsk. The operation, known as Vivaldi, was allegedly kept secret until its conclusion. Accounts describe the Russian division as effectively destroyed, although the scale of its losses and the condition of the formation have not been independently established. Russian military commentators have meanwhile accused their own commanders of staging territorial victories. They describe soldiers being sent into Ukrainian-held settlements to raise Russian flags for brief propaganda videos, sometimes at the cost of their lives, without establishing lasting control. State television has reportedly portrayed stabilisation of the front as the result of a successful "media counteroffensive." An extraordinary choice of words for an army whose territorial claims are being challenged even by its own supporters. The contradiction extends deep into Russia. In Moscow, two men were reportedly arrested over a train-spotting website that published photographs of Putin's armoured train, now treated as sensitive infrastructure. Meanwhile, Ukrainian drone attacks have been associated with fires at St. Petersburg's oil facilities and data centres, as well as disruptions to electrical infrastructure. Russian television allegedly devoted just 30 seconds to the fires before spending more than an hour covering a burning car in Paris. Residents have also questioned why air-raid sirens failed to sound during the attacks. Officials reportedly feared that activating them would cause panic. In Rostov, the governor advised residents to check their smartphones to determine whether a siren indicated a genuine threat. Russia's political establishment has produced some equally remarkable developments. Colonel General Alexander Lapin, whose command came under criticism following Russia's loss of Lyman in 2022, was reportedly approved as Tatarstan's deputy prime minister by an 87-to-1 vote. His new responsibilities include support for veterans of the war. At the same time, figures cited for Russia's proposed 2027 budget suggest defence spending could account for approximately 35% of national expenditure, placing enormous pressure on civilian priorities, including healthcare, education and social programmes. Some regional authorities have reportedly reduced death benefits for soldiers' families from two million rubles to just 100,000. Ukraine is also said to have struck the Druzhba oil pipeline roughly 230 miles inside Russia, continuing its campaign against infrastructure associated with Moscow's war economy. At sea, Russian shadow fleet tankers have reportedly adopted new names, including Sapphire and Jet, while crews have installed protective wire cages against potential drone attacks. But amid the military claims and political absurdities, one account stands apart. Near the Oskil River, Ukrainian infantryman Kostiantyn Vlasenko reportedly survived 491 days isolated behind enemy lines. After a drone strike severely wounded both his legs, the account describes him amputating his own lower limbs to survive. He was eventually evacuated by a heavy hexacopter drone in what has been described as an unprecedented aerial battlefield rescue. The extraordinary details, including the duration of his isolation and the claimed first-of-its-kind evacuation, still require independent confirmation. If established, his survival would represent a remarkable example of human endurance under conditions almost impossible to imagine. There is a bitter contrast running through these accounts: Russian commanders accused of manufacturing victories for television, officials restricting information about attacks on their own cities, and Ukrainian soldiers continuing to fight under extraordinary circumstances. And behind the competing claims, the same war continues to consume soldiers, infrastructure and national resources on a staggering scale.