Russian Propaganda Has Been “Successfully Capturing” a Tiny Village in Zaporizhzhia for the Fifth Straight Year
When the so-called “special military operation” is proceeding so flawlessly “according to plan” that the battle for a single small village lasts longer than the siege of Carthage, a perfectly reasonable question arises: what kind of place is this? After more than 1,500 days of continuous assaults, the occupaying forces have achieved roughly one result — advancing a few scorched bushes somewhere beyond the village outskirts.
Mala Tokmachka, a tiny dot on the map of the Polohy district in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, has long since ceased to be merely a frontline position. It has become a place where three different wars unfold simultaneously: a tactical war — for heights and streets; an information war — between propaganda and reality; and a symbolic war — between what the Russian army imagines itself to be and what it actually is.
WHAT KIND OF PLACE IS THIS?
Before the full-scale invasion, Mala Tokmachka was a relatively large and prosperous southern Ukrainian village with a population of around three thousand people. It had processing enterprises, basic social infrastructure, and one of the largest penitentiary institutions in the region.
