ISW: Putin launches new media campaign

What the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) points out in its report:

the false narrative that the West cannot support arms supplies to Ukraine because of limited production is being promoted;

renewed nuclear threats, announcing that Russia will deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus by 1 July;

Analysts point out that the aim of the information campaign is to create the impression that further Ukrainian resistance and Western support for Ukraine are futile.

Putin says Russia will build more than 1,600 new tanks by the end of 2023, but Russia's only tank factory (Uralvagonzavod) produces 20 per month.

At this rate, it will take more than six years to reach Putin's goal.... The Kremlin will probably continue to remove old tanks from storage and may try to upgrade some of them to meet its declared quota. Even Putin's declared (and unrealistic) production targets are in fact close to the minimum level needed to compensate for Russia's battlefield losses," the analysts stressed.

They also believe that the announcement of the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus does not increase the risk of nuclear war.

Putin is trying to heighten Western fears of nuclear escalation by deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus... He probably tried to deploy Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus even before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022... but abstained in order to preserve the possibility to deploy them as part of a future Russian information operation to manipulate the West," the report said.