An article yesterday on the BBC website followed by one on CNN today pointed out the snowjob being given the Russian people. While we are seeing images of cities being targeted by Russian missiles, people in Russia are being told all is good, except for those crazy Ukrainians who are killing their own citizens.
BBC: “Ukraine: Watching the war on Russian TV – a whole different story”
CNN: “I spent an entire day watching Russia’s propaganda network. Here’s the warped reality I saw presented to viewers”

I was also struck by the “starting point” demands of Russian for their peace talks today. Typically one might expect that such meetings would be a dialogue, with each side making compromises to achieve an agreeable solution. And, with this being the second of such talks, the beginning positions should like reflect some moderation from where things stood at the beginning of the first set of talks. Unfortunately, that’s just a rational view of things and doesn’t describe the Russian position at all. Their demands: Crimea is ours, those separatist regions are independent countries (once they take over the rest of their oblasts), you Ukrainians give up all your weapons so we feel safe, and stop letting Nazis run your country and attack your people. In other words, Russia wants everything in their war propaganda to be acknowledged and addressed. Which can never happen, since none of those things are real, and in the case of that last point, you can’t “stop” doing something that doesn’t even exist.

Since Russia is demanding their own reality, I don’t see these talks going anywhere.