It is hard to distinguish what stunned and shocked the Russians more: the successful interception of the Russian allegedly super invisible and deadly missile Kinzhal by the US Patriot defence system, or the Kremlin’s decision to extend the grain deal by another 2 months.
The interception of the so-called super weapon, the famous Kinzhal missile, publicly categorised by Putin himself as a weapon capable of countering all existing and even future NATO anti-missile systems, turned into an unimaginable disappointment.
After the failure, Russia had to lie its way out by disseminating several different and contradictory myths throughout the public domain. It confused the public with fake success stories and discredited the only true story, rejected by Russian propaganda and proclaimed as Western disinformation.
The horrific truth was that Kinzhal missiles were successfully intercepted by the US Patriot missile system designed in the 1970s.
Kinzhal turned out to be just another famous Tsar Cannon, useless in practice but magnificent in terms of legend.
Searching for a back up narrative
The Kremlin was stunned by Kinzhal’s inability to overcome the US Patriot system and its failure to hit presidential buildings in Ukraine. The Kremlin did not hesitate for long before ordering the arrest of all leading scientists in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk who worked on the alleged Russian Vergeltungswaffen.
With the attack on Kyiv and the strike on the Ukrainian presidential district, the Kremlin wanted to create another superiority narrative that would have enabled them to demonstrate the magnificence of Russian military capabilities.
The Kremlin hoped that a successful strike with the Kinzhal missiles would have convinced Western allies of the need to engage in peace talks on the Kremlin’s terms.
Had the attack been successful, the Kremlin would have claimed that they refrained from using Kinzhal and other powerful military arsenals capable of crushing Ukraine, and military equipment Western allies have been supplying to Ukraine, because the Kremlin was seeking peace in Ukraine and was not looking to destroy Ukraine.
In reality, the Kremlin did not use Kinzhal before because Russia was not prepared. Ever since the fiasco in Ukraine started, Russia has been preoccupied with preparations to launch the first real strike using the Kinzhal missile, hoping that it would be the joker the Kremlin needed to play, and that it would change the course of the war and end Russian humiliation in Ukraine.
Those who have been following Russia are aware of the Kremlin’s remarkable expertise in the production of fake news and lies.
Instead of being eliminated, Zelensky travels the world
Psychic powers are not required to be 100% certain that had the Kinzhal strike ended up as a success, the Kremlin would have proclaimed it as simple retaliation because Ukraine was the first to cross the line by attacking the Kremlin’s compound with drones.
Another fake story was unearthed. Russia has no weapon of retribution the Kremlin was skilfully promoting domestically and internationally. Even President Donald Trump talked about Russian super missiles at one point.
The Russian ideological front has been going wild since the Kinzhal failure. President Zelensky was not overthrown or killed with a powerful weapon. He is traveling around the globe, meeting Western leaders, and uniting world communities around Ukraine and against Russia.
Winning at any cost was always a Russian must-do tradition. Rules are only good when they help Russia advance its interests.
This was the case with the Minsk agreement, which Moscow wanted to use and inject pro-Russian collaborationists from the occupied Donbas region into the Ukrainian parliament, granting them the right of veto.
When Russia cannot impose and dictate its own rules, it will do anything to maintain its current status. Russia knows well how to utilise crises in developing counties against the West to advance its interests.
Many remember the airstrikes and bombing of Syria, which caused the massive flow of migrants to European countries, and helped European parties loyal to Russia to win elections.
The failure of the “food as weapon” strategy
Food shortages in developing countries would have helped Russia to sabotage Western democracies with the flow of illegal migrants.
Such a crisis was expected to spark turbulence and unrest in Western countries, thereby installing alt-right populists and politicians loyal to Russia into Western parliaments and leadership.
The Russian patriotic majority was prepared, and was waiting for the Kremlin to strangle the West using hunger in developing countries. The public hoped it would be a perfect momentum for the Kremlin to punish the West for their help to Ukraine.
Russian nationalist and patriotic influencers, journalists, and even bloggers were savouring and relishing the chaotic consequences in the West after Russia blocked grain supplies from Ukrainian ports.
Yet it ended up being a major disappointment and a shock to the Russian patriotic public when it was announced that Russia had extended the grain deal by 2 more months.
Although many prominent Russian propagandists tried to explain to the Russian people that Russia extended the grain deal in an attempt to help Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was facing a close re-election race against pro-Western and anti-Russian Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the Russian patriotic majority dominantly rejected this explanation.
The genuine Russian and traditional chauvinist worldview often refers to Turks and their politicians as "janissaries" (Ottoman mercenary army).
That's why it is hard to accept why a country like Turkey, defeated by the Russian empire long ago, is suddenly valuable to Russia, and significant enough for the Kremlin to consider in an ongoing Russian war against the West.
The Russian public is confused why Russia neglected the opportunity to strike the West with migrant crises over an unclear attempt to help Erdogan.
A new quest for traitors
Because of that confusion in patriotic circles after the extension of the grain deal, many Russian nationalist influencers have begun spinning suspicions of betrayal and treason. The Kremlin is also looking for traitors. It fits with the Kremlin’s arrest of scientists who worked on the Kinzhal missile.
The Russian patriotic and chauvinist majority and the Kremlin ironically both produce theories and legends just to hide from reality and remain in their imaginary worlds.
Two myths about Russian superiority were shaken in just a few days. The myth of super-weapons and the power of the state to shake the whole world by causing a food crisis.
Confusion and anxiety reigned among the producers of those myths because if they were deprived of them, they would also be deprived of the national delirium they produced to invade a foreign country.
