I just had an impulse; the system disgusts me, it acts like there is no past at all, no need for continuity of what have been told to people earlier (“we are surrounding Bakhmut”—what, for two months now?); okay rant mode off.

The deal is, I don’t want to specifically read Russian media and I’m biased to YES so bet cautiously. I’ll read only my preferred media that I can stomach and that I trust to a degree, looking for circumstantial evidence if there would have been a forced (I mean, more forced than usual) barrage of “we are nice! we have it! we do progress! it’s all according to plan! we’re potent!” or not.

As the question is stated, I’ll resolve to N/A if for some obscure (or victorious) reason Bakhmut is still Ukrainian at the end of April. (By the end of May I’ll likely forget what I’ve managed to read.)

Conditional on me not forgetting about this, I’ll resolve to YES as soon as I see there was a barrage mentioned, say, two days long (so that it would mean it was worthy to talk about as an epiphenomenon by non-pro-Russian media).

I think 80…90% YES is a reasonable starting estimate; they’re very strained to use any excuse as a mythology tool; I even wonder why are they not inventing things non-stop yet. I think way more people are in distrust of them than they could be afraid to lose if they start outright hallucinating up stories.