Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Batman against Joker: Putin is losing this war.

Putin is losing this war, not because he is weak, but because his PR is outdated, old-fashioned, because he's over-confident, and is being driven by anger.
Putin is bombing a Ukrainian TV building, as if we were in the 1970s, and Zelensky is broadcasting to the whole world via Twitter from the palm of his hand. Thus the bombing of the media looks very bad but does not harm the broadcasting capacity of the Ukrainians. Putin does not understand that in his outdated methods he harms himself and glorifies the President of Ukraine even more.

The war is on Twitter and Telegram, not on the ground.

Theoretically, Putin may have justifiable reasons to fight for the demilitarizion of Ukraine, as legitimate self defense. As practically no one knows what those reasons are, thanks to effective Zelensky’s social media campaign, everyone has good reason to be against what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

Putin has lost the heart and minds of his supporters at home and abroad. He has also made President Zelensky, the person who started this war by welcoming NATO to Russia’s borders, and who used to be such an unpopular Ukraine President, into his country's darling and the world’s hero.

In contrast, the President of Ukraine has made Twitter and his iPhone the most powerful weapon in his war against Putin.

No one now even remembers that he - and not Putin - set this war in motion, by welcoming NATO’s nuclear weapons on Russia's borders.

The West must defend Ukraine. That was the commitment given to Ukraine in exchange for its dismantling of its nuclear weapons. The West must honour this commitment also because it’s a good demonstration to convince Iran to give up its nuclear programme with guarantee that no one will attack them.

But the West must also not implicitly declare war on Russia by placing weapons on its border with Ukraine, because there is no reason for Russia to agree to this and not take military action to eliminate this real threat. The West should not do this because the price for this unnecessary provocation of the West against Russia is being paid by Ukraine. When two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.

In round-the-clock talks with world leaders, Zelensky managed to persuade them with surprising speed to impose severe sanctions on Russia, drastic measures that a week ago were unimaginable. Sanctions that punish not only Russia and millions of innocent Russian citizens, but also the citizens of Germany,and the rest of the EU (who will end up paying much more for their food and energy).

In Europe, one of the leaders said about Zelensky: "We have great reverence for him. He is changing Europe". And he is right. Zelensky is winning the war by using weapons that Putin - and the EU leaders - do not understand: social media.

In a flood of phone calls and tweets from besieged Kiev, President Zelensky has managed to persuade the West to impose previously unimaginable sanctions on Russia, against their own citizens interests, with the decision-making also driven by the European publics' reaction to the heroism of his people.

Putin's clumsy efforts have managed to unite all Ukrainians against the Russians, their natural brothers. And to unite the EU against Russia, its strategic trade partner.

Putin is armed with an old-fashioned, outdated propaganda weapons let over from the Cold War. His dysfunctional PR is working against him and not against whoever he is targeting. And this is making him angry, and his anger is pushing him to make tactical and strategic mistakes.

In the age of social media, PR is the weapon that will win or lose a war.

This is the weapon the President of Ukraine has mastered and is deploying to great effect on the world stage. It is also a language and delivery system that Putin clearly does not understand at all. Putin is stuck using old-fashioned Iron Curtain tactics, as if playing only to a private audience of Siloviki sycophants in his Kremlin Court. Unlike his Ukrainian counterpart, he doesn't realise they're both on the world stage, under the harsh glare of the spotlight. The more Putin tries to bully Zelensky, the more popular Zelensky becomes.

Russia’s old-fashioned PR isn’t winning the hearts of his Ukrainian opponents: it's losing the hearts of his international supporters, and creating dangerous opposition at home.

Let's put this in a historical context. The anti-government rebels in Hong Kong for a whole year carried out violent demonstrations and acts of terrorism, much more serious than what the pro-Trump demonstrators in Capitol Hill did in just one day. And that was enough for the Democrats to revoke many of the democratic and civil rights of 84 million Americans. But no one remembers that inconvenient fact. Everyone thinks that the Democrats are really in favor of democracy, only because those who call themselves Democrats have made ingenious use of the public relations power of social networks. In the Hong Kong anti-government saga, China made the same mistakes that Putin is making today: outdated public relations tactics that worked against the China and HK governments, and not against those at whom they were directed. So everyone is still sure that China is the one that abolished democracy in Hong Kong, while in practice Britain had never allowed Hong Kong to be a democracy, so there was nothing to abolish at all.

When Putin fires a missile at a Ukrainian residential building the world is outraged. And rightly so.
When the United States shells hospitals, schools and kills thousands of children in Iraq, everyone applauds, mindlessly accepting the reporting of this as "collateral damage" and the West arresting the journalist who exposed this war crimes in what we wrongly believed was a freedom of press.

When the United States exterminates millions of innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, everyone calls it a victory for the free world and not a crime against humanity. This is the power of public relations as a weapon.

PR was a weapon that was invented by the Soviet Union. It has since been re-invented by the Silicon Valley with new features. It seem that Putin has not learned how to use it, and is holding the loaded rifle with the barrel aimed at his head.

And by Putin pushed to the wall, the world is less safe place.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×