Yevgeny Prigozhin's comments provided a rare glimpse into Russian expectations of the likely duration of the conflict, from a man whose private army is at the center of some of the fiercest fighting.

That truth is the first casualty of war has become a cliché, writes Frida Ghitis. But it didn’t take a war for Putin’s Russia to launch a stream of falsehoods and disinformation. The deceptions started decades ago and they never stopped. The war allowed the world to see it deployed in real time.