Putin announced battlefield encirclements that the evidence doesn’t show, but Russia’s real offensive is accelerating elsewhere

At a late-night press conference in Bishkek on September 1, Vladimir Putin said what he believed was happening on the battlefield. Once again, his account clashed with the Russian military’s documented gains. Putin is evidently aware that even troops at the front do not accept his reports, so he cited sources in the General Staff and “other agencies.” He said the picture, as it “appears” to him, is “fairly objective.” He immediately said that Ukrainian units had been encircled in two places…