On April 1, 2026, Russian officials announced the liberation of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic — for the third time. The first announcement came under then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in July 2022. The second one, in July 2025, came from the “republic’s” own head. By that point, Shoigu had already been reshuffled to the Security Council of the Russian Federation, but not for lying about Luhansk. The neat reports about Russia’s successes kept coming.In the fifth year of what the Kremlin calls a special military operation, that pattern raises a question worth taking seriously: is winning still Russia’s objective?Russia entered The post While the War Continues in Ukraine, the Kremlin’s Real Battlefield is at Home appeared first on War on t