Last week a Russian radio station conducted an interview with an official in Kherson, one of the four regions
illegally annexed by Russia as part of its invasion of Ukraine.
Like virtually all media in Russia, the station, Radio Rossii, follows an unspoken rule of hewing to the Kremlin’s line about the “special military operation” launched in February going more or less according to plan. That the
spetzoperatsiya is a full-blown war, or that the war is going poorly, is a taboo topic within Russia.
Which made what happened next all the more remarkable. In the midst of the interview with the pro-Russian official in Kherson, one of the hosts asked, in a halfway hopeful tone, a question he all but answered: “So the situation is fine?” Only he did not quite get the expected — and required — response.
“The situation is difficult,” the Kherson administrator glumly admitted.
The telephone line went dead. The interview was over. Perhaps a faulty line had been at work, but given how little dissent is tolerated in Russian media outlets, the moment was revealing all the same