‘A narrative has evolved, particularly among Ukraine’s Western supporters, that the Russian army is a paper tiger, that it’s soldiers are a rabble of unmotivated conscripts and that its generals are inept’.
Evolved? There is another word that would more aptly describe the utterly relentless promotion of a narrative that continues to frame this conflict as imminently ‘winnable’ by the Ukrainians and it’s western supporters – Zelensky being one of the main proponents. It’s usually referred to as propaganda…
Hopefully, as essays similar to this one continue to reach a wider audience, wiser heads will prevail and a negotiated settlement will be reached and the lives of under-equipped and under-trained Ukrainians soldiers lives will be spared.
You need to explain why you believe that Putin will stick to any negotiated settlement and why you believe that these are – to use a phrase – his “final territorial demands”. Remember, his stated view is that Ukraine “is not a real country” and has no right to exist.
It may be convenient to patch up some negotiated settlement. But wise ? Really ?
Indeed, a negotiated ceasefire line has to be backed up by some kind of implicit MAD. The Korean war resulted in a ceasefire when both sides realised that neither could hold on to the other’s territory for long. It was clear Turkey was only interested in the Northern half of the territory so some kind of ceasefire was possible there, for example.
Firstly, not Putin, Russia.
Secondly if Russia, sorry “Putin” believe Ukraine has “no right to exist”, they hid that sentiment very well for decades, till 2014.
And finally, why would Russia stick to any “negotiated settlement?’
The West made it very clear: no negotiation.
We will extend NATO to Ukraine, and the nice, sweet Azov militia will grind Russian minorities. You better accept it.
When Russia turned out to have way more self respect and nationalism than Britain or Europe could ever hope to possess, the reaction was stark.
No negotiation.
We will bulldoze your economy, humiliate your country, harass ordinary Russians, provide arms that will kill thousands of Russians.
If Russia loses, there will be no negotiation.
The problem is, when you have raised the equivalent of a 16th century pirate black flag…
You better hope your enemy loses.
If after all these sanctions, massive numbers of soldiers dead, economic cost…if Russia wins, they decide the terms. No negotiation, no settlement.
Putin is Russia right now. That’s what autocracy gets you.
It is truly sad that there are still people who believe that Russian/Putin are the “good guys” here. But at least in the West your are free to believe such things without persecution and journalists are not murdered for doing their jobs.
The support for Ukraine is both logical, and emotional, because we can see a nation’s people plunged into misery because of one decision by one man.
As it happens, it does seem as though the Russian army contains a rabble of unmotivated soldiers ad inept generals, but I’ve never underestimated the likelihood that Putin will slug it out, and the Russian army has greatly superior artillery, and the willingness to use it to destroy with little chance of retaliation, unhindered by the kind of public criticism heaped upon Western leaders. I doubt the willingness, capability, and available time for the West in providing the means of retaliation. In retrospect, these elements should have been provided along with Operation Orbital.
I also have no doubt that Putin won’t negotiate with any genuine willingness to allow continuation of a free Ukraine. Any period of negotiation will allow more stock-piling of artillery shells, and any negotiated settlement will provide for the next jumping-off point, as happened with Crimea and Donbas.
Was this negotiated settlement the one where Ukraine joins NATO, a cleanly elected pro Russian prime minister has to flee for his life, Ukraine gets to eradicate Russian language and suppress the Russian speaking Donbass, and the US openly supplies arms to the Azov?
And you say the Russians refused? Truly, appeasement doesn’t work.
With mr. Putin you got to take his offer as early as possible or have clear path to win. (It’s not me, I heard it somewhere). Look at the timeline:
2014 Stop harassing Russian-Ukranians in Donbas and Crimea (ignored, war @Donetsk, Crimea is spared from the same bloody fate)
2015 (Minsk) Go federal with some fed rights to regions (ignored, Ukrainian offense compain of 2015 to Donbass, Russian language is forbidden in schools, etc)
(sometime) Ukraine changes constitution from neutral to NATO-allied.
2017-2020 All previous (Minsk) but mainly: Go back to neutral (ignored, NATO pulls into the country)
Dec 2021 repeated but now appealing to NATO as well (ignored)
Feb 2022 Donetsk recognized (still offering negotiations but ignored). Now Donetsk is recognized officially in much wider (old ones) borders than 2014-2021
Kherson region is lost by Ukraine
Access to Azov sea is lost (Mariupol)
What is next?
Kherson, Zapor(whatever spelling) and Dniepr regions lost and added to Russia
Odessa/Mykolaev – same fate and access to Balck sea is lost
Kharkiv
to be continued
When I say “lost” it means : lost practically forever. All the plans to “retake” Crimea are truly optimistic. It’s offically a constitutional region of Russian Federation (or Empire if you want). That means retaking by force will surely trigger nuclear response. It’s all official, not a fantasy. Any thoughts to “retake” Texas, uh?
The point is: ealrer is the better – for Ukraine of course, NATO looks like having a bit different plans.
When Zelensky was voted in as President of Ukraine, he announced that he was going to negotiate with Russia about the Donbas region and Crimea. He was told by his own army (Azov batt) that if he did that, they would kill him. That’s the nice sweet Azov battalion part of the Ukraine army.
It wasn’t just propoganda, because that implies self aware manipulators twisting data to misinform others. You have to realise that the West has a contempt and bigotry towards Russians, and they actually believe they are just a modern, militarised version of three Stooges (of course they blundered a lot as well all through their “special operation”)
The Russian army is very different to the US. Thet are infantry light, with a massive artillery component. And what happened initially was that they held back their artillery. It’s as if the US attacked, not a rag tag bunch of militants but a well trained, prepared, entrenched army – and didn’t use their air force to just blast everything in sight, with no consequence for civilian casualties.
Now that’s changed. The other thing that’s changed is the Russkies, instead of gallivanting to Kiev or butting their heads on fortified defences, are doing what they do best – all the stuff they learnt from Guderian and Manstein, and then perfected in 1944. Encirclement and cauldrons, but not with panzers but masses of heavy artillery.
And only yesterday Ukrainian artillery was randomly shelling the centre of Donetsk. Pointless, in the context of the current conflict.
J Bryant
1 year ago
Fascinating article and certainly not a perspective to be found in the msm. I wonder if the author took video footage during his trip to Ukraine and whether Unherd will show it.
I haven’t seen any reporting about the ability (or inability) of the Russians to intercept the heavy weapons being delivered to Ukraine. There must be a limited number of routes where heavy weapons can be delivered.
I have no idea how, or if, this conflict will ever end, but I do notice it isn’t playing so prominently in the US news and I’m sure Zelenskyy knows that.
Wasn’t the vibe I got – more “it’s interesting to read something a little more sober than the clearly one sided propaganda we’re getting from our MSM.”
In the U.K. it’s also dropping down the news agenda though we do get some decent analysis on some newscasts, particularly re the current risk of encirclement.
I read a headline a couple of days ago that Russian media is saying we’re starving in the U.K. One of our headlines read that Putin is actually dead and his public appearances are by a body double.
With that level of journalism, Aris and others are the only means of getting some idea of where this might be going.
It would appear fairly certain “it won’t be over by Xmas.”
certainly the turning of the tide in the east has been very discernible in the “msm” in Britain for at least 6 weeks…..this claim that there is any sort of equivalence in the misinformation is the biggest paper tiger of the lot….albeit I can’t speak for USA
Paul O
1 year ago
“Ukraine’s stunning and unexpected string of victories over the Russian invaders in the first phase of the war may have bred a sense of complacency in well-meaning outside observers”
For anyone getting their news from sources other than the MSM none of this is news.
This has been a war of rampant propaganda on BOTH sides.
I would have thought more people in Europe and America would have been more discerning, and been able to see straight through the lies, but sadly the bulk of the population has unquestioningly believed everything they’re being told, no matter how farfetched or dubious.
Is it really surprising though? Every war since the beginning of time has seen both sides play a propoganda campaign and hide information to boost morale.
With the exception of the UK’s nano-war in Northern Ireland 1969-97, where we are still prosecuting our own former soldiers*, even if it means killing them in the process
(*Veterans for US readers.)
(** 80 year old, Corporal Major Derek Hutchins, late of The Life Guards, R.I.P.)
This has nothing to do with “censorship” or “propaganda.” It is dependent on just reading a map.
When Russia withdrew first from Kyiv and then Kharkiv, it indicated two failures. When Ukraine withdrew from Lyman and Severodonetsk, it indicated the same.
Sorry, nobody’s hiding anything–at least on most MSM channels other than in Russia. Most western reporters are obviously supportive of Ukraine, but that’s doesn’t affect their reporting.
That we get far less from the Russian side is simply because Russia won’t allow western reporters inside Russia. Indeed, the few pro-Russian internet sites are little more than a joke, and mostly operate with Kremlin permission.
No war’s progress is clear until after the fact–because nobody can grasp anything so complex in real time. But whatever the outcome, we’ll all know about it eventually.
When Russia sent troops against Kiev and Kharkiv the purpose was to tie down vast numbers of Ukraine’s troops. That worked well, tactically. And so now they pretty much have the entire Donbass region.
The population in the “West” has been trained by two years of covid to believe everything they are told. Some of them still wear a mask when driving alone in their own car.
John Stone
1 year ago
Kissinger told Zelensky last week that he would have to negotiate and give up land at the repellant Davos meeting. It ought to have been obvious to competent journalists that underneath the big talk and the phoney photographic record that Putin was pretty much on course. Meanwhile, billions upon billions have been squandered on this idiocy – and frankly we are not being told why. It is our money but accountability is broken: back in February Starmer ordered that MPs must not criticise NATO, but why in heavens not? With Covid this is stupidest thing in my lifetime – frankly a complete fake with all elected politicians and the MSM on-side.
martin logan
1 year ago
I suspect any truthful reporting on the other side would reveal identical scenes.
So it might be well to actually examine the military facts:
–Russia previously tried to take Kyiv, then Kharkiv, then all of Donbas. Now the Russians are concentrating on a single town in a small finger of Ukrainian-held territory.
–Russia seems to be almost out of cruise missiles, and PGMs. So it is forced to use dumb bombs and the occasional ballistic rocket. But guess who’s getting more of these?
–This is almost entirely an artillery offensive now, using rail-borne munitions. That in turn is dependent on the fact that the Ukrainians do not yet have the long range artillery to reach Russian rails.
–Russia is now forced to bring out 50-year old tanks without modern armour or sighting equpt–a fatal disadvantage in any tank duel.
–Any new Russian equpt will require chips. Since nearly all of these come from Taiwan and South Korea, who have embargoed Russia–well, you get the idea.
–Finally, if the Russians have to expend this much manpower and materiel on one rather small city in Luhansk Oblast, taking the rest of Donetsk Oblast is going to require much more. So where is it coming from?
There are actually many serious military observers who can give you a better appreciation for this complex conflict: The Institute for the Study of War, Michael Kofman’s War on the Rocks, Tom Cooper on Facebook, to name a few.
It’s fun to gripe about the MSM, and probably makes people feel oh so superior. But if you want to understand where this war may go, start reading observers who understand war.
Maybe your summary is correct Martin, but if this is what these serious military observers are saying then it is nothing more than what the western MSM are saying.
There are many other serious military observers, and political commentators, and analysts who are saying very different things, and have been all along, but you won’t read any of their comments in western media or hear from the Davos crowd. Anyone who differs even slightly from the given narrative is being censored.
I don’t think The Institute for the Study of War is being “censored.”
There is such a thing as “groupthink,” where everyone studies the same facts and, knowing what everyone else is saying, come to the same conclusion. But it’s far less common in western nations than in nations like Russia, which helps explain Putin’s many failures so far.
The notion that someone or something is “censoring” all of these observers is quite absurd. It’s little more than Sub-Marxist drivel.
Martin, you just forgot to repeat that line from Sun/Mirror that Russians lost more than 1/3 of their forces. I compare Ukrainian sources with Western and some pro-Russian. I do it for 40 years, comparing sources. I must say in times of Newsweek/Pravda 1980s the weed was not so strong.
Jeff Watkins
1 year ago
Unfortunatly I think this is a really accurate account. The Russians are now clearly winning and they will achieve their objectives probably in next couple of weeks which is to take the whole of Kherson, Luhansk and Donbas. Together with Crimea these four areas have a population of about 9.4 million. MSM reporting has been abysmal.
See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsTJo9SkQ8 for a more accurate analysis.
The Russians now hold all the cards rouble has gone up, they are flush with cash reserves and they are holding the world to ransom for basic resources such as platinum, wheat, timber, nickel etc
Well let’s see. I think overconfident predictions of either side’s imminent victory is overblown. We don’t know if/how land-lease will change the situation, whether the Russians can cut those supplies or whether a slog-like advance in Donbas sets them up for a full-blown counterattack like Germany after the Spring Offensive in early 1918. Maybe Ukrainian morale will collapse after facing their first major defeats – the way Kherson was taken suggests this may have happened there before.
Personally I see a protracted stalemate as being more likely as both sides are burning through men and material and may find it hard to sustain any kind of large offensive. Both sides have the capacity to conscript hundreds of thousands more fighters to the frontlines. But I’ll also admit that I could be wrong and either side could come up with a surprise victory.
Last edited 1 year ago by Sam Sky
Eric Kottke
1 year ago
I was afraid of this. This is the first article I’ve seen that describes the terrain, which is of critical importance. I was in the US Army years back, mainly in tank units. I was in training exercises against people with the weapons we hear about now (Javelins). My takeaway: the Javelin is a deadly weapon in urban areas and forests (i.e. Kiev suburbs). Like all anti-tank weapons, it is in deep trouble in wide open areas with little cover. In that terrain it is exposed for what it is, a man with a tube that takes a few minutes to reload (a tank needs a few seconds), and can be killed by anything: artillery, machine guns, rifles, tank shells, anything). In that terrain tanks can mass like ships at sea, by the dozens, with one battalion, followed by another, followed by another, etc. Clearly the Russians are going back to the tried and true in favorable terrain. My guess is the Russians will slowly succeed, but once they get to big cities like Kharkov, it will turn into an endless hell like Beirut in the 80’s. The new Russian army is clearly overly dependent on tanks and just doesn’t have enough infantry to take a big city. A quick look at their demographics tells you they don’t have the infantry and they are not going to get it either. By that point the Ukrainians are going to outnumber them. Rule of thumb when I was in the military was that you need 10:1 advantage to win in offense against competent, uniformed defenders in a city. The first go the Russians clearly didn’t think they were in that sort of situation.
He’s wrong, and my belief is based on Putin’s own words; reabsorb Ukraine within Russia, gaining great strategic strength from it’s geography and it’s resources which, when aggregated with Russia’s, give it the kid of economic clout already provided by fossil fuels, and perhaps even more important in the coming years.
After that, there are more independent states which will qualify.
It is no secret Ukraine can’t defeat Russia. Scott Ritter, Col Macgregor, Col Black, Varoufakis and even Peter Zeihan have spoken of the challenges. They can’t all be “Russian Stooges”. Russia will likely take the east and south coast.
Hopefully they will stop there. Europe will not intervene and when winter bites we will purchase Russian energy. When Egyptians starve we will purchase wheat from Russians not because it is “just” but because there are no alternatives.
Ukraine shouldn’t have to give up territory but northern Cypress should probably belong to the Greeks and 1 million Uighurs shouldn’t be in detention camps.
Neither Americans, British, Poles, French. Or Germans will go to war to save Ukrainians. Neither will they fight to save Finland in or out of NATO.
Free Nations
1 year ago
The news has been accurate. Outsiders had thought Russians would walk through the Donbas in a week and maybe the eastern half of Ukraine in a month. 3 months later, Ukrainians surprised all by holding off assaults from 5 sides and yielded only the vulnerable Donbas. Exactly what has been reported week after week. The Ukrainians will likely pull back from Donbas to preserve troops, regroup with more heavy NATO weaponry arriving and mount a grinding counter offensive in the next 6 months. The open terrain will make it hard for Ukrainians to advance but will also show up Russian positions for longer range Western artillery and precision munitions to pick off. The real big battles are still to come. Logistical support and economics are going to play a critical role. If NATO could afford to give Ukraine $40b a year (10% of its usual pre-war military budget and half the Russian one), it will bleed Russia sufficiently to force Moscow to withdraw one way or another in 1-2 years. A long war will open up Russia’s south-eastern flank to the Chicoms and that is the real geopolitical danger for Russia. Moscow knows it.
rick stubbs
1 year ago
No doubt this is accurate on the ground color reporting re the deteriorating civilian condition. However, it is very likely the Russian strategic advance will still be slow and painful compared to their quick pull back from Kiev and Kharkiv. They had to retreat there to concentrate forces on Donbas where nearly all the marbles are now waged. The UKR only needs a stalemate there that inflicts heavy casualties. The RU has to mass up forces to break through in any meaningful advance. That leaves them very vulnerable to longer range, precision US/NATO artillery now arriving.. Outranged artillery gets shot up too. Plus antitank weapons can neutralize attacking RU armored forces once they close with UKR lines and even more so once they break through. Infantry can still kill unsupported armored forces already thinned by precision artillery and UKR have an advantage there.
Roussinos is a war reporter. He is neither a military analyst nor a former officer. Plus he has no experience reporting on large scale mobile armored warfare. It is an accurate take re local conditions off the front line but not sure how well that reflects the military balance of forces and defense terrain barriers the RU faces,
Many thanks. Sounds like he ‘had a change of heart’.
Earl King
1 year ago
Putin, if he has 100% control is like every other despot in history. He doesn’t care about anybody. His troops, Ukrainian troops, his civilians, Ukrainian civilians. He’d be fine to kill everyone. He doesn’t believe in anything except the power of the Russian State in his control.
That sounds awfully like our beloved Tony Blair Esq.
James Kirk
1 year ago
Ask someone who survived the London Blitz how they thought the war was going at the time. Ask someone in Canada, Hawaii or Africa today how the Ukraine fight is going. Pretty sure of the German POV.
I’d like to know how the resupply is going and if held up why. I’m getting the feeling Ukraine is quietly being thrown under the bus by the EU and I wouldn’t trust Democrat USA if they gave me the winning lottery ticket.
1939 again?
Perry de Havilland
1 year ago
“and the longed-for long-range artillery from the West is yet to be signed off, let alone arrive.” Ukraine already has FH70 & M777 155mm artillery in action at the front, there are many videos out there showing them. They need more but your statement is simply incorrect.
Carlos Danger
1 year ago
There seems to be a deal here, as Donald “Art of the Deal” Trump and Henry Kissinger both suggest. The deal would be Crimea and the Donbas in return for peace. Not a bad deal in many respects.
It’s a complicated situation, but Ukraine has long been split between east and west. Might as well make the worst of the split official.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea was more a drain on Ukraine’s treasury than anything else. Few (perhaps 2%) Crimeans want to return to Ukraine. Does anyone realistically expect that to happen?
The Donbas is not so clearcut, but those there who wanted to keep ties with Russia were being persecuted by Ukraine nationalists. Even if Russia were driven out of the Donbas that would never cease to be a problem.
Go back to the Minsk accords and end the war. “As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.”
Last edited 1 year ago by Carlos Danger
Neven Curlin
1 year ago
Yet another one-sided on-the-ground report with one clear message: Please, send more heavy weapons and we will be as victorious as we were so unexpectedly at the beginning of the conflict (three times this is repeated). It’s so blatantly transparent.
I’d be much more interested in reading how people in Ukraine would answer the following questions:
Are you happy with your government and president Zelensky? Should they perhaps have grandstanded less and worked harder at implementing the Minsk agreements? Weren’t they elected because they promised peace in the Donbass?
How about the influence of radical nationalists? Should they be kept in check more, instead of allowing them to drag the entire country into this useless conflict? Is neonaughtyism a problem that Ukrainian institutions can’t handle?
Do you feel the Ukrainian people is sacrificed for a US neocon foreign policy agenda to balkanise the former Soviet Union?
Do you feel that all the help that is being sent, is reaching its destination, or is it all siphoned off in your utterly corrupt country?
Is this war really worth it all?
None of this. Only contrived human interest stories so the readers can identify and connect emotionally, and remain firmly behind the idea of sending more and heavier weapons, further escalating the conflict and prolonging the suffering.
It’s not as bad as the neonaughty whitewashing Patrikarakos engages in so unashamedly (and editors letting it pass), but really, you can all stay in your cosy home offices with your protective masks on if you’re going to keep pushing this propaganda-lite stuff. Or is it the perks of the ‘war reporter’ label you enjoy so much?
I’m reading these articles just to see how long Unherd will stay on this track to nowhere. For a news website that is willing to let all kinds of lobbyists do their bit for ‘balance’, I find the reporting on the war in Ukraine really quite weak and unbalanced. Where’s the edge that I saw during the early stages of the COVID pandemic which convinced me to become a paying member?
You seem to have overlooked the simple fact that Russia launched an unecessary and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Whatever faults Ukraine has, there is simply no excuse for that and no way the West/NATO can or should accept it.
Ukraine is fighting for the right to be a free and independent country and the possibility for a better future in which they become less corrupt. Conquest by Russia is not a solution – they’re more corrupt and the source of most of the problems.
We could indeed spend time arguing about whether Ukraine or the West’s actions brought on the Russian invasion. But it’s beside the point. A crime requires both motive and opportunity. Ukraine might have contributed to the opportunity. But Putin’s motive to commit the crime was always there. And he’s the criminal here.
If after everything that has happened, you are still unsure about whether Putin’s Russia in a threat to its neighbours and international peace, a trip to Specsavers may be in order.
Friedrich Tellberg
1 year ago
Although it is true that Ukrainian military losses do not get much attention in Western media (which is a shortcoming), there is maybe some nuance to add to this story. According to the assessment of The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia sends lots of its resources to the Battle of Severodonetsk at the cost of other lines of efforts (see esp. its reports of May 29 and May 30, understandingwar.org). Maybe this concentration on Severodonetsk is due to their wish to complete the conquest of Luhansk oblast (it is the only important city in that district still under Ukrainian controll). The price they are paying to take Severodonetsk is, according to ISW, not in proportion with the strategic benefits. The ISW also points to waning moral and professionalism (many junior ranking officers sacrificed in frontline battles; commanders forbidding the use of vehicles to evacuate wounded soldiers or to provide supplies to advanced points).
In short, what the ISW is suggesting is that the Battle of Severodonetsk could well fail to give any momentum to a Russian assault and, at the contrary, lead to attrition and depletion of resources and thus reducing the Russian capability to launch any further major attacks in the months to come.
Time will tell … (as always).
Fran Martinez
1 year ago
Maybe the Russians only wanted to capture the east? After all just because Russia says it doesn’t mean it is a lie.
Bill Roggio told us a while ago that this was the case. Then the Russian embassador said the same thing. But people wanted to say that the West won in Kyiv.
I mean most military analysts said this from the start – but the assault on Kiev did suggest a more wider plan that was prehaps forced back by reality into that which military experts saw as the most rational (and seems to be working now).
Indeed, Putin sent in his best tank units and Spetsnaz as a diversion. HIs pointless loss of thousands of Russians was purely to lull us into a false sense of security.
One finds many examples of military leaders purposely destroying their own units to fool the enemy.
Can’t think of any–so they must be there.
Russia consciously sent in a comparatively tiny force to Kiev – it did its job – Donbas is now in their hands.
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago
The weapons promised by Germany are sure to arrive before snow falls.
arthur brogard
1 year ago
You’re a bit late with all this and clearly more than somewhat biased and utterly failing to iterate the only real message: Put down your guns !
the first and only thing to do is stop the fighting.
the Ukrainian people are being murdered by their own ‘government’ and the USA.
There is no way out of this that makes the Ukrainian people any better off.
It is criminal to suggest the Ukrainians fight on. Hold the line, sue for immediate peace is all. let the jawjaw commence.
It was criminal to urge them into war as USA and UK did and it is doubly criminal to send them masses of fairly useless materiel of war as USA and UK did and it is triply criminal to urge them to continue.
What is the worst that can happen to Ukrainian people under Putin if the lost the whole bloody country to him – which he doesn’t want?
I’ll tell you: they’d be better off than under the maniacs that have the place now even without a war.
The point is simple: there is nothing in this for the Ukrainian people and there never was. Is there ever, in war anything for the people?
Well yes, many of them, sometimes, in cases like Nazi insanity, say, pogroms, ethnic cleansing. See any of that here?
The Ukrainians were led by mischief making criminals to make war on Russia and now they’ve got a bloody nose and it’s going to get bloodier.
They can save themselves by stopping now.
We maybe can never save ourselves. We are firmly in the grip of these insane warmongering criminals.
Sam McGowan
1 year ago
The handwriting has been on the wall all along. Zelensky and his government of TV producers has been putting out propaganda and hoping the West, specifically the United States, would come riding to their aid on white horses. That’s not going to happen and the Russian army Keiv painted is turning out not to exist. Ukraine is supposed to have a million-man army while there are some 230,000 Russian troops in the country yet they’ve lost most of the Black Sea coast and are now losing Donbas. If Ukraine wishes to survive as a nation, their only hope is a negotiated end.
M. Gatt
1 year ago
Please point out the ” stunning victorys” of Ukraine. Journo’s like you should be ashamed of yourselves for promoting the fallacy that Ukraine was at any point ‘ winning’ anything other than the propaganda war
Martin Zehr
1 year ago
This gives a voice to the war that has been lacking up to now. It does not presume to define the rhyme or reason for the Russian intervention. Its story rests within the Donbass and a conflict that has been buried in the dead letter files until now. When it addresses the politics underlying the intervention, we can hear the voices of those under siege. The realities of war are singular and the product of the experiences of people enduring the dramas and tragedies of war.
Lena Bloch
1 year ago
The question of Donbas is being solved by Ukraine and the NATO-US-UK precisely like the question of Palestine. Donbas without people for people without Donbas. Who cares for people in Donbas region if they feel like brothers to Russia. They cannot be human beings if they want brotherhood with Russia. It’s just a piece of land that belongs to Ukraine. If it is not empty, then make it empty.
Utter delusional nonsense. It is Russia that is pursuing the scorched earth policy in Ukraine and trashing the place. It is Russia that wants to displace existiong populations. Shameful apologism for the indefensible Russian invasion.
Hate to say it, but the Ukrainians got played. Ask yourself, Cui bono, who benefits. Now, America, my country, has good intel on Russia’s military strength, a growing market for oil and weapons and Europe clawing for protection. The damage from the established corruption in America is just starting. Trump would have preempted all this with solid negotiations if the established corruption in the media and parties hadn’t manufactured Russia-gate. The Europeans need to wake up.
Last edited 1 year ago by Derrick Hand
John Dowling
1 year ago
President Zelensky vowed to retake the Donbas and Crimea from Russian control and started a massive artillery barrage that caused the Donbas residents to flee. 3 days later the Russians invaded. Now, who started the war?
Indeed, Zelensky “did it” when Putin had massed an unprecedented invasion force on his border. It shows how evil the UkroNazis are.
Just as Rudolf Hess claimed that Hitler’s victims “hypnotized him to kill them,” so Zelensky hypnotized Putin into invading Ukraine.
Pro-Ukrainian censorship and propaganda is everywhere in our society!
‘A narrative has evolved, particularly among Ukraine’s Western supporters, that the Russian army is a paper tiger, that it’s soldiers are a rabble of unmotivated conscripts and that its generals are inept’.
Evolved? There is another word that would more aptly describe the utterly relentless promotion of a narrative that continues to frame this conflict as imminently ‘winnable’ by the Ukrainians and it’s western supporters – Zelensky being one of the main proponents. It’s usually referred to as propaganda…
Hopefully, as essays similar to this one continue to reach a wider audience, wiser heads will prevail and a negotiated settlement will be reached and the lives of under-equipped and under-trained Ukrainians soldiers lives will be spared.
You need to explain why you believe that Putin will stick to any negotiated settlement and why you believe that these are – to use a phrase – his “final territorial demands”. Remember, his stated view is that Ukraine “is not a real country” and has no right to exist.
It may be convenient to patch up some negotiated settlement. But wise ? Really ?
Indeed, a negotiated ceasefire line has to be backed up by some kind of implicit MAD. The Korean war resulted in a ceasefire when both sides realised that neither could hold on to the other’s territory for long. It was clear Turkey was only interested in the Northern half of the territory so some kind of ceasefire was possible there, for example.
Firstly, not Putin, Russia.
Secondly if Russia, sorry “Putin” believe Ukraine has “no right to exist”, they hid that sentiment very well for decades, till 2014.
And finally, why would Russia stick to any “negotiated settlement?’
The West made it very clear: no negotiation.
We will extend NATO to Ukraine, and the nice, sweet Azov militia will grind Russian minorities. You better accept it.
When Russia turned out to have way more self respect and nationalism than Britain or Europe could ever hope to possess, the reaction was stark.
No negotiation.
We will bulldoze your economy, humiliate your country, harass ordinary Russians, provide arms that will kill thousands of Russians.
If Russia loses, there will be no negotiation.
The problem is, when you have raised the equivalent of a 16th century pirate black flag…
You better hope your enemy loses.
If after all these sanctions, massive numbers of soldiers dead, economic cost…if Russia wins, they decide the terms. No negotiation, no settlement.
Putin is Russia right now. That’s what autocracy gets you.
It is truly sad that there are still people who believe that Russian/Putin are the “good guys” here. But at least in the West your are free to believe such things without persecution and journalists are not murdered for doing their jobs.
Correct, journalists are murdered in Turkey by our good friends and allies, the Saudis.
That’s right! Assange is not murdered, he’s kinda alive.
I be very surprised if anyone here thinks that they’re ‘good guys’, but neither are they so foolish as to think that Ukraine and the US are good guys.
The support for Ukraine is both logical, and emotional, because we can see a nation’s people plunged into misery because of one decision by one man.
As it happens, it does seem as though the Russian army contains a rabble of unmotivated soldiers ad inept generals, but I’ve never underestimated the likelihood that Putin will slug it out, and the Russian army has greatly superior artillery, and the willingness to use it to destroy with little chance of retaliation, unhindered by the kind of public criticism heaped upon Western leaders. I doubt the willingness, capability, and available time for the West in providing the means of retaliation. In retrospect, these elements should have been provided along with Operation Orbital.
I also have no doubt that Putin won’t negotiate with any genuine willingness to allow continuation of a free Ukraine. Any period of negotiation will allow more stock-piling of artillery shells, and any negotiated settlement will provide for the next jumping-off point, as happened with Crimea and Donbas.
A negotiated settlement has already been tried a few years ago – the evidence is it appeasement doesn’t work with the Russians
Was this negotiated settlement the one where Ukraine joins NATO, a cleanly elected pro Russian prime minister has to flee for his life, Ukraine gets to eradicate Russian language and suppress the Russian speaking Donbass, and the US openly supplies arms to the Azov?
And you say the Russians refused? Truly, appeasement doesn’t work.
Cleanly elected, yes. Ousted by a western inspired putsch, yes. But to call him pro-Russian is to gild the lily massively.
It was Ukraine that refused to implement the Minsk accords.
With mr. Putin you got to take his offer as early as possible or have clear path to win. (It’s not me, I heard it somewhere). Look at the timeline:
What is next?
When I say “lost” it means : lost practically forever. All the plans to “retake” Crimea are truly optimistic. It’s offically a constitutional region of Russian Federation (or Empire if you want). That means retaking by force will surely trigger nuclear response. It’s all official, not a fantasy. Any thoughts to “retake” Texas, uh?
The point is: ealrer is the better – for Ukraine of course, NATO looks like having a bit different plans.
When Zelensky was voted in as President of Ukraine, he announced that he was going to negotiate with Russia about the Donbas region and Crimea. He was told by his own army (Azov batt) that if he did that, they would kill him. That’s the nice sweet Azov battalion part of the Ukraine army.
I’ve seen the video of them telling him this. Lovely people.
It wasn’t just propoganda, because that implies self aware manipulators twisting data to misinform others. You have to realise that the West has a contempt and bigotry towards Russians, and they actually believe they are just a modern, militarised version of three Stooges (of course they blundered a lot as well all through their “special operation”)
The Russian army is very different to the US. Thet are infantry light, with a massive artillery component. And what happened initially was that they held back their artillery. It’s as if the US attacked, not a rag tag bunch of militants but a well trained, prepared, entrenched army – and didn’t use their air force to just blast everything in sight, with no consequence for civilian casualties.
Now that’s changed. The other thing that’s changed is the Russkies, instead of gallivanting to Kiev or butting their heads on fortified defences, are doing what they do best – all the stuff they learnt from Guderian and Manstein, and then perfected in 1944. Encirclement and cauldrons, but not with panzers but masses of heavy artillery.
And only yesterday Ukrainian artillery was randomly shelling the centre of Donetsk. Pointless, in the context of the current conflict.
Fascinating article and certainly not a perspective to be found in the msm. I wonder if the author took video footage during his trip to Ukraine and whether Unherd will show it.
I haven’t seen any reporting about the ability (or inability) of the Russians to intercept the heavy weapons being delivered to Ukraine. There must be a limited number of routes where heavy weapons can be delivered.
I have no idea how, or if, this conflict will ever end, but I do notice it isn’t playing so prominently in the US news and I’m sure Zelenskyy knows that.
Wasn’t the vibe I got – more “it’s interesting to read something a little more sober than the clearly one sided propaganda we’re getting from our MSM.”
In the U.K. it’s also dropping down the news agenda though we do get some decent analysis on some newscasts, particularly re the current risk of encirclement.
I read a headline a couple of days ago that Russian media is saying we’re starving in the U.K. One of our headlines read that Putin is actually dead and his public appearances are by a body double.
With that level of journalism, Aris and others are the only means of getting some idea of where this might be going.
It would appear fairly certain “it won’t be over by Xmas.”
What heavy weapons?
FH70 & M777 155mm Artillery.
certainly the turning of the tide in the east has been very discernible in the “msm” in Britain for at least 6 weeks…..this claim that there is any sort of equivalence in the misinformation is the biggest paper tiger of the lot….albeit I can’t speak for USA
“Ukraine’s stunning and unexpected string of victories over the Russian invaders in the first phase of the war may have bred a sense of complacency in well-meaning outside observers”
For anyone getting their news from sources other than the MSM none of this is news.
This has been a war of rampant propaganda on BOTH sides.
I would have thought more people in Europe and America would have been more discerning, and been able to see straight through the lies, but sadly the bulk of the population has unquestioningly believed everything they’re being told, no matter how farfetched or dubious.
Is it really surprising though? Every war since the beginning of time has seen both sides play a propoganda campaign and hide information to boost morale.
With the exception of the UK’s nano-war in Northern Ireland 1969-97, where we are still prosecuting our own former soldiers*, even if it means killing them in the process
(*Veterans for US readers.)
(** 80 year old, Corporal Major Derek Hutchins, late of The Life Guards, R.I.P.)
This has nothing to do with “censorship” or “propaganda.” It is dependent on just reading a map.
When Russia withdrew first from Kyiv and then Kharkiv, it indicated two failures. When Ukraine withdrew from Lyman and Severodonetsk, it indicated the same.
Sorry, nobody’s hiding anything–at least on most MSM channels other than in Russia. Most western reporters are obviously supportive of Ukraine, but that’s doesn’t affect their reporting.
That we get far less from the Russian side is simply because Russia won’t allow western reporters inside Russia. Indeed, the few pro-Russian internet sites are little more than a joke, and mostly operate with Kremlin permission.
No war’s progress is clear until after the fact–because nobody can grasp anything so complex in real time. But whatever the outcome, we’ll all know about it eventually.
When Russia sent troops against Kiev and Kharkiv the purpose was to tie down vast numbers of Ukraine’s troops. That worked well, tactically. And so now they pretty much have the entire Donbass region.
The population in the “West” has been trained by two years of covid to believe everything they are told. Some of them still wear a mask when driving alone in their own car.
Kissinger told Zelensky last week that he would have to negotiate and give up land at the repellant Davos meeting. It ought to have been obvious to competent journalists that underneath the big talk and the phoney photographic record that Putin was pretty much on course. Meanwhile, billions upon billions have been squandered on this idiocy – and frankly we are not being told why. It is our money but accountability is broken: back in February Starmer ordered that MPs must not criticise NATO, but why in heavens not? With Covid this is stupidest thing in my lifetime – frankly a complete fake with all elected politicians and the MSM on-side.
I suspect any truthful reporting on the other side would reveal identical scenes.
So it might be well to actually examine the military facts:
–Russia previously tried to take Kyiv, then Kharkiv, then all of Donbas. Now the Russians are concentrating on a single town in a small finger of Ukrainian-held territory.
–Russia seems to be almost out of cruise missiles, and PGMs. So it is forced to use dumb bombs and the occasional ballistic rocket. But guess who’s getting more of these?
–This is almost entirely an artillery offensive now, using rail-borne munitions. That in turn is dependent on the fact that the Ukrainians do not yet have the long range artillery to reach Russian rails.
–Russia is now forced to bring out 50-year old tanks without modern armour or sighting equpt–a fatal disadvantage in any tank duel.
–Any new Russian equpt will require chips. Since nearly all of these come from Taiwan and South Korea, who have embargoed Russia–well, you get the idea.
–Finally, if the Russians have to expend this much manpower and materiel on one rather small city in Luhansk Oblast, taking the rest of Donetsk Oblast is going to require much more. So where is it coming from?
There are actually many serious military observers who can give you a better appreciation for this complex conflict: The Institute for the Study of War, Michael Kofman’s War on the Rocks, Tom Cooper on Facebook, to name a few.
It’s fun to gripe about the MSM, and probably makes people feel oh so superior. But if you want to understand where this war may go, start reading observers who understand war.
Maybe your summary is correct Martin, but if this is what these serious military observers are saying then it is nothing more than what the western MSM are saying.
There are many other serious military observers, and political commentators, and analysts who are saying very different things, and have been all along, but you won’t read any of their comments in western media or hear from the Davos crowd. Anyone who differs even slightly from the given narrative is being censored.
I don’t think The Institute for the Study of War is being “censored.”
There is such a thing as “groupthink,” where everyone studies the same facts and, knowing what everyone else is saying, come to the same conclusion. But it’s far less common in western nations than in nations like Russia, which helps explain Putin’s many failures so far.
The notion that someone or something is “censoring” all of these observers is quite absurd. It’s little more than Sub-Marxist drivel.
How long did you live in Russia?
Martin, you just forgot to repeat that line from Sun/Mirror that Russians lost more than 1/3 of their forces. I compare Ukrainian sources with Western and some pro-Russian. I do it for 40 years, comparing sources. I must say in times of Newsweek/Pravda 1980s the weed was not so strong.
Unfortunatly I think this is a really accurate account. The Russians are now clearly winning and they will achieve their objectives probably in next couple of weeks which is to take the whole of Kherson, Luhansk and Donbas. Together with Crimea these four areas have a population of about 9.4 million. MSM reporting has been abysmal.
See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfsTJo9SkQ8 for a more accurate analysis.
The Russians now hold all the cards rouble has gone up, they are flush with cash reserves and they are holding the world to ransom for basic resources such as platinum, wheat, timber, nickel etc
Well let’s see. I think overconfident predictions of either side’s imminent victory is overblown. We don’t know if/how land-lease will change the situation, whether the Russians can cut those supplies or whether a slog-like advance in Donbas sets them up for a full-blown counterattack like Germany after the Spring Offensive in early 1918. Maybe Ukrainian morale will collapse after facing their first major defeats – the way Kherson was taken suggests this may have happened there before.
Personally I see a protracted stalemate as being more likely as both sides are burning through men and material and may find it hard to sustain any kind of large offensive. Both sides have the capacity to conscript hundreds of thousands more fighters to the frontlines. But I’ll also admit that I could be wrong and either side could come up with a surprise victory.
I was afraid of this. This is the first article I’ve seen that describes the terrain, which is of critical importance. I was in the US Army years back, mainly in tank units. I was in training exercises against people with the weapons we hear about now (Javelins). My takeaway: the Javelin is a deadly weapon in urban areas and forests (i.e. Kiev suburbs). Like all anti-tank weapons, it is in deep trouble in wide open areas with little cover. In that terrain it is exposed for what it is, a man with a tube that takes a few minutes to reload (a tank needs a few seconds), and can be killed by anything: artillery, machine guns, rifles, tank shells, anything). In that terrain tanks can mass like ships at sea, by the dozens, with one battalion, followed by another, followed by another, etc. Clearly the Russians are going back to the tried and true in favorable terrain. My guess is the Russians will slowly succeed, but once they get to big cities like Kharkov, it will turn into an endless hell like Beirut in the 80’s. The new Russian army is clearly overly dependent on tanks and just doesn’t have enough infantry to take a big city. A quick look at their demographics tells you they don’t have the infantry and they are not going to get it either. By that point the Ukrainians are going to outnumber them. Rule of thumb when I was in the military was that you need 10:1 advantage to win in offense against competent, uniformed defenders in a city. The first go the Russians clearly didn’t think they were in that sort of situation.
Perhaps Henry Kissinger is correct?
He’s wrong, and my belief is based on Putin’s own words; reabsorb Ukraine within Russia, gaining great strategic strength from it’s geography and it’s resources which, when aggregated with Russia’s, give it the kid of economic clout already provided by fossil fuels, and perhaps even more important in the coming years.
After that, there are more independent states which will qualify.
Hopefully the next few weeks will tell.
It is no secret Ukraine can’t defeat Russia. Scott Ritter, Col Macgregor, Col Black, Varoufakis and even Peter Zeihan have spoken of the challenges. They can’t all be “Russian Stooges”. Russia will likely take the east and south coast.
Hopefully they will stop there. Europe will not intervene and when winter bites we will purchase Russian energy. When Egyptians starve we will purchase wheat from Russians not because it is “just” but because there are no alternatives.
Ukraine shouldn’t have to give up territory but northern Cypress should probably belong to the Greeks and 1 million Uighurs shouldn’t be in detention camps.
Neither Americans, British, Poles, French. Or Germans will go to war to save Ukrainians. Neither will they fight to save Finland in or out of NATO.
The news has been accurate. Outsiders had thought Russians would walk through the Donbas in a week and maybe the eastern half of Ukraine in a month. 3 months later, Ukrainians surprised all by holding off assaults from 5 sides and yielded only the vulnerable Donbas. Exactly what has been reported week after week. The Ukrainians will likely pull back from Donbas to preserve troops, regroup with more heavy NATO weaponry arriving and mount a grinding counter offensive in the next 6 months. The open terrain will make it hard for Ukrainians to advance but will also show up Russian positions for longer range Western artillery and precision munitions to pick off. The real big battles are still to come. Logistical support and economics are going to play a critical role. If NATO could afford to give Ukraine $40b a year (10% of its usual pre-war military budget and half the Russian one), it will bleed Russia sufficiently to force Moscow to withdraw one way or another in 1-2 years. A long war will open up Russia’s south-eastern flank to the Chicoms and that is the real geopolitical danger for Russia. Moscow knows it.
No doubt this is accurate on the ground color reporting re the deteriorating civilian condition. However, it is very likely the Russian strategic advance will still be slow and painful compared to their quick pull back from Kiev and Kharkiv. They had to retreat there to concentrate forces on Donbas where nearly all the marbles are now waged. The UKR only needs a stalemate there that inflicts heavy casualties. The RU has to mass up forces to break through in any meaningful advance. That leaves them very vulnerable to longer range, precision US/NATO artillery now arriving.. Outranged artillery gets shot up too. Plus antitank weapons can neutralize attacking RU armored forces once they close with UKR lines and even more so once they break through. Infantry can still kill unsupported armored forces already thinned by precision artillery and UKR have an advantage there.
Roussinos is a war reporter. He is neither a military analyst nor a former officer. Plus he has no experience reporting on large scale mobile armored warfare. It is an accurate take re local conditions off the front line but not sure how well that reflects the military balance of forces and defense terrain barriers the RU faces,
Rumour has it that AR did a stint at Sandhurst. What happened?
His Linkedin profile talks about his time at Sandhurst and his time in the TA: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aris-roussinos-b0393a57/details/experience/
Many thanks. Sounds like he ‘had a change of heart’.
Putin, if he has 100% control is like every other despot in history. He doesn’t care about anybody. His troops, Ukrainian troops, his civilians, Ukrainian civilians. He’d be fine to kill everyone. He doesn’t believe in anything except the power of the Russian State in his control.
That sounds awfully like our beloved Tony Blair Esq.
Ask someone who survived the London Blitz how they thought the war was going at the time. Ask someone in Canada, Hawaii or Africa today how the Ukraine fight is going. Pretty sure of the German POV.
I’d like to know how the resupply is going and if held up why. I’m getting the feeling Ukraine is quietly being thrown under the bus by the EU and I wouldn’t trust Democrat USA if they gave me the winning lottery ticket.
1939 again?
“and the longed-for long-range artillery from the West is yet to be signed off, let alone arrive.”
Ukraine already has FH70 & M777 155mm artillery in action at the front, there are many videos out there showing them. They need more but your statement is simply incorrect.
There seems to be a deal here, as Donald “Art of the Deal” Trump and Henry Kissinger both suggest. The deal would be Crimea and the Donbas in return for peace. Not a bad deal in many respects.
It’s a complicated situation, but Ukraine has long been split between east and west. Might as well make the worst of the split official.
The Autonomous Republic of Crimea was more a drain on Ukraine’s treasury than anything else. Few (perhaps 2%) Crimeans want to return to Ukraine. Does anyone realistically expect that to happen?
The Donbas is not so clearcut, but those there who wanted to keep ties with Russia were being persecuted by Ukraine nationalists. Even if Russia were driven out of the Donbas that would never cease to be a problem.
Go back to the Minsk accords and end the war. “As for me, I cease not to advocate peace. It may be on unjust terms, but even so it is more expedient than the justest of civil wars.”
Yet another one-sided on-the-ground report with one clear message: Please, send more heavy weapons and we will be as victorious as we were so unexpectedly at the beginning of the conflict (three times this is repeated). It’s so blatantly transparent.
I’d be much more interested in reading how people in Ukraine would answer the following questions:
None of this. Only contrived human interest stories so the readers can identify and connect emotionally, and remain firmly behind the idea of sending more and heavier weapons, further escalating the conflict and prolonging the suffering.
It’s not as bad as the neonaughty whitewashing Patrikarakos engages in so unashamedly (and editors letting it pass), but really, you can all stay in your cosy home offices with your protective masks on if you’re going to keep pushing this propaganda-lite stuff. Or is it the perks of the ‘war reporter’ label you enjoy so much?
I’m reading these articles just to see how long Unherd will stay on this track to nowhere. For a news website that is willing to let all kinds of lobbyists do their bit for ‘balance’, I find the reporting on the war in Ukraine really quite weak and unbalanced. Where’s the edge that I saw during the early stages of the COVID pandemic which convinced me to become a paying member?
You seem to have overlooked the simple fact that Russia launched an unecessary and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Whatever faults Ukraine has, there is simply no excuse for that and no way the West/NATO can or should accept it.
Ukraine is fighting for the right to be a free and independent country and the possibility for a better future in which they become less corrupt. Conquest by Russia is not a solution – they’re more corrupt and the source of most of the problems.
We could indeed spend time arguing about whether Ukraine or the West’s actions brought on the Russian invasion. But it’s beside the point. A crime requires both motive and opportunity. Ukraine might have contributed to the opportunity. But Putin’s motive to commit the crime was always there. And he’s the criminal here.
If after everything that has happened, you are still unsure about whether Putin’s Russia in a threat to its neighbours and international peace, a trip to Specsavers may be in order.
Although it is true that Ukrainian military losses do not get much attention in Western media (which is a shortcoming), there is maybe some nuance to add to this story. According to the assessment of The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia sends lots of its resources to the Battle of Severodonetsk at the cost of other lines of efforts (see esp. its reports of May 29 and May 30, understandingwar.org). Maybe this concentration on Severodonetsk is due to their wish to complete the conquest of Luhansk oblast (it is the only important city in that district still under Ukrainian controll). The price they are paying to take Severodonetsk is, according to ISW, not in proportion with the strategic benefits. The ISW also points to waning moral and professionalism (many junior ranking officers sacrificed in frontline battles; commanders forbidding the use of vehicles to evacuate wounded soldiers or to provide supplies to advanced points).
In short, what the ISW is suggesting is that the Battle of Severodonetsk could well fail to give any momentum to a Russian assault and, at the contrary, lead to attrition and depletion of resources and thus reducing the Russian capability to launch any further major attacks in the months to come.
Time will tell … (as always).
Maybe the Russians only wanted to capture the east? After all just because Russia says it doesn’t mean it is a lie.
Bill Roggio told us a while ago that this was the case. Then the Russian embassador said the same thing. But people wanted to say that the West won in Kyiv.
Eventually reality is unavoidable though.
I mean most military analysts said this from the start – but the assault on Kiev did suggest a more wider plan that was prehaps forced back by reality into that which military experts saw as the most rational (and seems to be working now).
Indeed, Putin sent in his best tank units and Spetsnaz as a diversion. HIs pointless loss of thousands of Russians was purely to lull us into a false sense of security.
One finds many examples of military leaders purposely destroying their own units to fool the enemy.
Can’t think of any–so they must be there.
Russia consciously sent in a comparatively tiny force to Kiev – it did its job – Donbas is now in their hands.
The weapons promised by Germany are sure to arrive before snow falls.
You’re a bit late with all this and clearly more than somewhat biased and utterly failing to iterate the only real message: Put down your guns !
the first and only thing to do is stop the fighting.
the Ukrainian people are being murdered by their own ‘government’ and the USA.
There is no way out of this that makes the Ukrainian people any better off.
It is criminal to suggest the Ukrainians fight on. Hold the line, sue for immediate peace is all. let the jawjaw commence.
It was criminal to urge them into war as USA and UK did and it is doubly criminal to send them masses of fairly useless materiel of war as USA and UK did and it is triply criminal to urge them to continue.
What is the worst that can happen to Ukrainian people under Putin if the lost the whole bloody country to him – which he doesn’t want?
I’ll tell you: they’d be better off than under the maniacs that have the place now even without a war.
The point is simple: there is nothing in this for the Ukrainian people and there never was. Is there ever, in war anything for the people?
Well yes, many of them, sometimes, in cases like Nazi insanity, say, pogroms, ethnic cleansing. See any of that here?
The Ukrainians were led by mischief making criminals to make war on Russia and now they’ve got a bloody nose and it’s going to get bloodier.
They can save themselves by stopping now.
We maybe can never save ourselves. We are firmly in the grip of these insane warmongering criminals.
The handwriting has been on the wall all along. Zelensky and his government of TV producers has been putting out propaganda and hoping the West, specifically the United States, would come riding to their aid on white horses. That’s not going to happen and the Russian army Keiv painted is turning out not to exist. Ukraine is supposed to have a million-man army while there are some 230,000 Russian troops in the country yet they’ve lost most of the Black Sea coast and are now losing Donbas. If Ukraine wishes to survive as a nation, their only hope is a negotiated end.
Please point out the ” stunning victorys” of Ukraine. Journo’s like you should be ashamed of yourselves for promoting the fallacy that Ukraine was at any point ‘ winning’ anything other than the propaganda war
This gives a voice to the war that has been lacking up to now. It does not presume to define the rhyme or reason for the Russian intervention. Its story rests within the Donbass and a conflict that has been buried in the dead letter files until now. When it addresses the politics underlying the intervention, we can hear the voices of those under siege. The realities of war are singular and the product of the experiences of people enduring the dramas and tragedies of war.
The question of Donbas is being solved by Ukraine and the NATO-US-UK precisely like the question of Palestine. Donbas without people for people without Donbas. Who cares for people in Donbas region if they feel like brothers to Russia. They cannot be human beings if they want brotherhood with Russia. It’s just a piece of land that belongs to Ukraine. If it is not empty, then make it empty.
Utter delusional nonsense. It is Russia that is pursuing the scorched earth policy in Ukraine and trashing the place. It is Russia that wants to displace existiong populations. Shameful apologism for the indefensible Russian invasion.
Hate to say it, but the Ukrainians got played. Ask yourself, Cui bono, who benefits. Now, America, my country, has good intel on Russia’s military strength, a growing market for oil and weapons and Europe clawing for protection. The damage from the established corruption in America is just starting. Trump would have preempted all this with solid negotiations if the established corruption in the media and parties hadn’t manufactured Russia-gate. The Europeans need to wake up.
President Zelensky vowed to retake the Donbas and Crimea from Russian control and started a massive artillery barrage that caused the Donbas residents to flee. 3 days later the Russians invaded. Now, who started the war?
Indeed, Zelensky “did it” when Putin had massed an unprecedented invasion force on his border. It shows how evil the UkroNazis are.
Just as Rudolf Hess claimed that Hitler’s victims “hypnotized him to kill them,” so Zelensky hypnotized Putin into invading Ukraine.
Pro-Ukrainian censorship and propaganda is everywhere in our society!
Pitiful. Quite apart from the fact that you cannot invade your own country.