As Russia hosted a cringe-worthy event to drum up support for the war, eagle-eyed viewers noticed something hidden during Putin’s speech.
As Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine enters its 24th day, an event held in Moscow to promote the war is causing embarrassment for Vladimir Putin.
On Saturday, President Putin hosted a reportedly cringe-worthy concert with a slew of problems including the feed cutting out and one Russian taking to the stage to sing an anti-war song.
It comes as the UN Migration Agency puts the number of Ukrainians displaced in their own country because of the war at 6.5 million. A further 3.2 million Ukrainians have fled overseas, with the majority of them — 2 million — now in neighbouring Poland.
The death toll is still not known but Russia has fired 1,080 missiles at Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24, a senior US defence official told BBC.
Meanwhile, British intelligence has concluded that Russia’s operations “have changed”, and it is now pursuing a “strategy of attrition”.
The fighting has now reached the city centre of Mariupol, in the country’s south, which has been enduring bombardment for days on end. Russia says it is “tightening the noose” on the city of 430,000.
And elsewhere, US President Joe Biden has spoken to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, warning of the “consequences” China will face if it aids Russia.
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Read on for the latest updates.
Hidden message during Putin’s speech
On Saturday, Putin hosted a concert in the heart of Russia’s capital city.
Local police claimed the city’s Luzhniki stadium, which hosted the World Cup final in 2018 and also today’s concert, was packed with 200,000 people, though its capacity is only 80,000.
There are reports that people were paid by the government to attend.
Also somewhat awkwardly, one-time Eurovision Russian hopeful Polina Gagarina took to the stage to belt out a tune by 1980s band Kino which is reportedly an anti war song.
In his speech, Putin repeated the false pretence that Russia was waging war in Ukraine to protect people from genocide in the country’s east.
The feed abruptly cut out. The Kremlin later clarified that the broadcast was “interrupted due to technical problems on the server”.
The TV station was then forced to run the entire speech again from the top.
Eagle-eyed viewers spotted a more subliminal message in his surroundings as well, featuring the letter Z – which is painted on Russia’s military vehicles in Ukraine.
In the past three weeks, the letter Z has become widely known as the Russian military’s identifying symbol in Ukraine. It’s painted on tanks and other military vehicles, and has been adopted by some civilians to indicate their support for the war.
A Russian Olympian even emblazoned a Z on his shirt as he went to collect a medal alongside a Ukrainian athlete.
The exact meaning of the Z is ambiguous, though the Russian Ministry of Defence has described it as an abbreviation of the phrase “for victory”.
At the event Vladimir Putin hosted in Moscow overnight, it was noticeable that various large banners around him displayed words featuring Z as their first letter.
The banners read “For a world without Nazism“, “For Putin” and “For Russia”. In Russian, the first letter of For is a “Z”.
Some suggested a bit of subliminal messaging was going on.
Heroic way 1 month old baby was saved in shelling attack
Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications has shared the story of a heroic mother as parts of the country continue to be shelled by Russian invaders.
Early on Saturday, Ukrainian authorities released an image of a mother scratched and covered in blood, with her head bandaged.
She had sustained those injuries by using her body as a shield to spare her one-month-old baby from a shelling attack in Kyiv, the country’s capital city.
The baby appears unscathed while the mother also luckily survived the attack.
It comes as the city of Mariupol has been enduring heavy shelling all day Friday.
Meanwhile, dozens of victims have been reported in Mykolaiv from its March 18 shelling and airstrike attack.
Mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevich, said the city had no time to sound air raid sirens, according to The Kyiv Independent.
Russians ‘tightening the noose’ on Ukrainian city
Russia’s defence ministry announced on Friday night AEDT that Russian and pro-Russian forces were “tightening the noose” around the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, according to Russia‘s RIA Novosti news agency.
Separatists in eastern Ukraine have been aided by Russia’s military have been “fighting against nationalists”, the defence ministry reportedly said.
The southern city, with a population of 430,000, has been enduring heavy bombardment for several days now.
The fighting has spread into the city’s centre.
Mariupol’s mayor Vadym Boichenko told the BBC that fighting was “really active”.
“Tanks and machine gun battles continue,” he said. “Everybody is hiding in bunkers.”
Tragically, a theatre that Mariupol residents were using as a shelter was bombed on Thursday.
At least 130 managed to escape but a further 1300 are still stuck inside, according to the BBC.
Russia now pursuing ‘strategy of attrition’
Russia has switched up its military strategy which could be bad news for Ukrainians in the long run.
So far, Ukrainians have frustrated their attackers because they are fighting back more ferociously than was expected, thwarting Russian efforts to take major cities key to their invasion.
But this has reportedly caused a major shift in Putin’s tactics — they are now reportedly focusing on tiring out their opponent.
British Chief of Defence Intelligence Lieutenant General Jim Hockenhull warned that Russian forces had changed to a “strategy of attrition”.
This is could considerably increase the number of casualties among Ukrainians, with Lieutenant Hockenhull ominously adding this new strategy will entail ”reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower.”
“This will result in increased civilian casualties and the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure,” he added.
China’s surprise stance on Russia
US President Joe Biden has warned his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that he will face “costs” if Beijing rescues fellow authoritarian ally Russia from intense Western sanctions aimed at punishing Moscow‘s invasion of Ukraine.
But in an almost two hour teleconference on Friday, Mr Xi told Mr Biden that while “the world is neither peaceful nor tranquil … the Ukraine crisis is not something we want to see,” according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Conflict and confrontation are not in the interests of anyone,” Mr Xi reportedly said to Mr Biden.
“China and the US have a responsibility to work for peace.”
The call marked the first official contact between the US and Chinese presidents since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.
It was seen as a critical test of whether Mr Biden can convince China to stay on the sidelines of the conflict in Ukraine, and to turn down Russian requests for military or economic aid.
Russia’s economy has been brought to its knees after the West imposed strict sanctions and investors are concerned the same would happen in China if the nation sided with Russia.
For its part, the White House said Mr Biden laid out to the Chinese leader the “consequences” of any support for Russia in its war against neighbouring Ukraine.
“He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians,” the White House said in a statement
— Megan Palin in the US