Sometimes very exciting announcements made in the immediate wake of a military action turn to slightly less glowing achievements once the smoke has begun to clear. No, I’m not talking about the destruction of the landing ship Minsk and significant damage to the Kilo-class submarine Rostov-on-Don. In spite of Russian propaganda that all is very hunky and most extremely dory, visual evidence supports reports of severe damage to both ship and boat. Your Russian Navy Bingo cards are safe.

But today, what seemed to be a $1.3 billion follow-up shot to the attack on the Crimea dry docks may be a little less successful than it first seemed. Or at least, a little more complicated. The same goes for what seems to be at least the thousandth report that Russian defenses at Bakhmut had collapsed and that Ukraine was advancing at will.

That’s not to say that both events involved in these reports don’t represent some very good news (they do). It’s just that one or both may not be quite as good as early reports.