Putin and Lavrov living in cloud cuckoo land

Sometimes you have to wonder who is briefing whom in the Kremlin. Ukraine-based Russian journalists reporting from the frontlines are saying that Russian troops are on the run and losing ground in the east and south. It's so bad for the Russians in Kherson in the south that they are being driven into a geographic cul-de-sac with nowhere to hide. Either they will have to surrender en masse or they will die fighting. Thousands could perish. Yet back in Moscow Putin and his stooge Sergey Lavrov, the so-called foreign minister, are saying that all the land recently lost to the Ukrainians will be recovered and the four provinces supposedly annexed will be fully restored to Russian control and become part of the Russian motherland for ever. Is the defence minister Sergei Shoigu getting false reports from Ukraine and briefing Putin that everything is going smoothly or is he living in the same cloud cuckoo land as his boss and Lavrov? If the whole world knows that Russia is losing ground and troops in eastern and southern Ukraine, why are the Kremlin leaders so convinced that it is all going to change for the better soon? Sending more troops isn't going to help. They will just get slaughtered especially if they are the 300,000 extra recruits being mobilised who are being sent to fight with inadequate training and rusty old AK47 rifles. And there's no point in bombing the provinces to hell because there will be nothing left to annexe. So Putin and Lavrov, we are not fooled by your optimism. You are the ones being fooled or fooling yourselves. So good luck in cloud cuckoo land.