Vladimir Putin issued one of the strangest diplomatic messages of the year: he announced that the Russian Defence Ministry has not yet informed him about possible new provocations from Kyiv. The president on the 9 May parade, on full-spectrum briefings and on diplomatic talks with Washington, Beijing and New Delhi - but for the war he's running, he doesn't know what's happening.

„The Defence Ministry hasn't informed me yet. When I get back to the office, the military will brief me," Putin said. The sentence is, at the very least, strange for a leader who insists every aspect of the „special military operation" is under his control.

The second part of the message was confirmation that Moscow had warned Washington, Beijing, New Delhi and other capitals in advance about possible consequences of Ukrainian actions around 9 May. Through diplomatic channels - the Kremlin says - those talks led to Trump's proposal for two additional ceasefire days and a prisoner exchange being accepted.

Putin reiterated the key idea of this phase: that the goal of the operation is „the final defeat of Ukrainian forces." At the same time - the war is not supposed to escalate with other states. That's a nearly impossible formula, and Putin knows it. But the moment 9 May passes without a Ukrainian attack on the parade, the rhetoric has to keep the momentum.

Interesting detail: Moscow, Putin claims, sent Kyiv a list of 500 Ukrainian soldiers in captivity. No answer came. „Kyiv vanished from the radar," Putin sums up. When a leader says this publicly, it's not a slip - it's a political message for the domestic audience. Russians are supposed to hear that Ukraine is dodging „humanitarian" gestures, while Putin „is ready" but „can't."

For the Balkans, this education in diplomacy doesn't sound foreign. How often do governments say „we proposed" - without explaining what. How often is „contact through private channels" used as a substitute for real work. The question for the reader: do we really believe that a prime minister or minister doesn't know what's happening on the battlefield when he argues about it all summer on television? Or is that sentence part of the script, not a lack of information?