How well have the people of the four annexed territories in Ukraine embraced their new overlords in Moscow? Vladimir Putin offered some insight into that question today by declaring martial law in all four areas, starting tomorrow. The Duma followed up his declaration with legislation that will silence any dissent and criminalize any travel and public gatherings not expressly approved by military commanders.

It’s “liberation, Kremlin style,” comrade!

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared martial law Wednesday in the four regions of Ukraine that Moscow annexed and gave additional emergency powers to the heads of all regions of Russia.

Putin didn’t immediately spell out the steps that would be taken under martial law, but said his order was effective starting Thursday. His decree gives law enforcement agencies three days to submit specific proposals and orders the creation of territorial defense forces in the four annexed regions. …

The upper house of Russia’s parliament was set to quickly seal Putin’s decision to impose martial law in the annexed Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. Draft legislation indicates it may involve restrictions on travel and public gatherings, tighter censorship and broader authority for law enforcement agencies.

The glorious war progresses smoothly, tovarisch. Don’t forget that Putin’s argument for annexation was that these areas rightly belonged to Russia in the first place. If that’s the case, why do these annexed territories need to get treated any differently than their Russian counterparts? Martial law makes this look much more like an occupation than a liberation.

Not only that, but Putin held plebiscites in which he claimed that more than 90% of the residents wanted annexation. If that’s the case, why impose restrictions on speech, public gatherings, and travel in those areas? After all, these orders apply to the entirety of the four annexed areas, not just those areas where active combat is either taking place or is in close proximity. The takeaway here is that the Russians fear the local populaces, rather than trust that they see Russians as comrades, in or out of arms.

Helluva liberation you’ve got there, Vlad.

Russians continued raining shells and drones down on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, which hasn’t forced any changes on the Ukrainian counteroffensives thus far. It has accelerated Western support for anti-missile systems, however, which may soon make this new Russian/Iranian strategy another bust. That includes systems specific to drone defense, NATO’s secretary-general promised yesterday:

NATO will deliver air defence systems to Ukraine in coming days to help the country defend itself against the drones, including those from Iran, that Russia is using to target critical infrastructure, the alliance’s secretary-general said on Tuesday.

Ukraine said attacks by swarms of drones had destroyed almost a third of its power stations over the past week after Russia stepped up its attacks on infrastructure far from the front line after suffering a string of military setbacks at the hands of Ukrainian troops.

Addressing a security conference in Berlin, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the answer to the attacks was for the allies to step up their deliveries of air defence systems.

Long War Journal has a lengthy analysis of the impact the Iranian drones will have on the war, which they count as strategically negligible while still a powerful form of terror. Even that may quickly fade as Ukraine gets better defense systems to counter those tactics. In fact, the Iranians may well question whether to keep supplying Russia with such materiel, especially their more recent models, which will expose their capabilities to NATO and allow them to develop more effective countermeasures to them.

At best, this is a short-term strategy, likely in the hope of forcing concessions from Kyiv in the inevitable negotiations to end the war. The nuclear threat didn’t work and may have backfired on Putin, so this escalation is an alternative. It is also adding to the war-crimes list being compiled by NATO and the UN. That may not seem like much at the moment, but Russian generals will remember what happened to Serbian generals like Mladic and Krstic and Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic a few years after the Bosnian war concluded.

Anyway, things aren’t going swimmingly at home, either. The bad news out of Ukraine is getting into the media in Russia, and even the Kremlin’s propaganda is backfiring. Take a look at this talk show in which a former Russian legislator offers a barely veiled criticism of Tsar Vlad the Last for “opening Pandora’s Box” in Ukraine:

Watch: this is how Russian state TV deals with those who dare to contradict the approved rhetoric: they're hammered and threatened by other participants to the point of reversing their position. Beware that the origins of the clip they discussed were intentionally misrepresented. pic.twitter.com/NVMl68wh50

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 18, 2022

Russian pundits recently argued fiercely on state television while discussing graphic footage from the Ukrainian war, with one ultimately accusing the other of “working for Ukraine.” …

Boris Nadezhdin, a former member of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, noted that Ukrainians are sharing similar footage on social media and alleging that the atrocities were committed by Russian soldiers.

“You could endlessly show this footage, but if you endlessly open up the Ukrainian Telegram channels, you will find megatons of the same videos, just in reverse,” he said.

This prompted Sidorchik to raise his voice in anger. “What? Are you serious?” he yelled. “Is there a single confirmed one? Will you be held responsible for your words? What you just said is fake about the armed forces of the Russian Federation.”

When Nadezhdin said he was “not trying to assert whether it’s true or not,” Sidorchik yelled, “You just voiced it with your disgusting tongue!”

As the heated exchange continued, Nadezhdin told Sidorchik to “calm down,” to which he replied, “I’m about to calm you down, dearest!”

“This footage is horrific, [those] who did this are war criminals, undoubtedly. I just want to say that those who started this special military operation opened up Pandora’s box,” Nadezhdin said.

That would be Vladimir Putin, and everyone watching knows that. How soon will it be before Putin declares martial law in Moscow?