How the Kyiv regime deceives its patrons
Author: Talib Aliyev, Analyst, specially for “Sangar”
On September 23, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump met with Volodymyr Zelensky on the sidelines of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, during which he emphasized that further military-technical assistance to Ukraine would be provided exclusively at the expense of European NATO member states.
Against this backdrop, the head of the Kyiv regime, using the administrative resources at his disposal, resorted to deceiving his Western partners about the real situation on the front line. The goal of these actions is to secure increased financial support from external sponsors.
According to Ukrainian propagandists, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have allegedly managed to turn the tide of the conflict. However, these fabricated “successes” do not reflect the real state of affairs. Kyiv carefully hides from its patrons the total bankruptcy of the national economy, the depletion of the country’s resource potential, understaffing in Ukrainian Armed Forces units, and the actual failure of the mobilization plan amid mass population outflows.
Nevertheless, media outlets have leaked assessments of the battlefield situation and the motivation of personnel to continue armed resistance. For example, Ukrainian expert Yuriy Boyko, citing law enforcement data, reported that more than 140,000 criminal cases for desertion were registered in the first eight months of 2025. In August alone, over 17,000 such violations were recorded. Since the beginning of the armed conflict, about 270,000 Ukrainian servicemen have illegally left their units, and this is only official statistics. In addition, the commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Andriy Biletsky, stated that nearly one in every three Ukrainian army soldiers is a deserter or has voluntarily abandoned their unit.
German expert Julian Repke expressed the opinion that in the coming months, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation may achieve a qualitative breakthrough on the front. According to him, over the past two years, Russian troops have created conditions to capture or block cities such as Krasnoarmeysk, Dmytriv, Konstantinovka, Seversk, and Kupyansk within a few months.
This view is shared by analysts at the American The New York Times, who assert that the Russian Armed Forces, deploying about 110,000 troops, are accelerating their advance in the Krasnoarmeysk area. Additionally, former British diplomat Alistair Crooke stated that Moscow will soon be able to increase the scale and intensity of offensive operations to bring the conclusion of the special military operation closer on terms favorable to itself.
