Have you spoken to any Moscovites about living standards recently? Like this is so stupid. I would not trade for Russia's brutal treatment of dissidents but we don't exactly have a great record on that front in Western countries…
I actually agree that it was a planned dressing down for optics sakes but the attempt is to try to get Zelenskyy out of the way for Trump / Putin direct deal to settle Ukraine matter and the success of this strategy will depend on whether the MAGA media hype will drown out the soft power enjoyers in terms of messaging.