This shouldn’t be news. It’s news because the news as usual is getting it wrong. This time, however, it’s about military facts.
If you’ve been watching the commentary on the Ukrainian counteroffensive, you’ll notice nothing but political agendas. It’s pretty misleading most of the time. It’s also usually based on everything but military realities. The Guardian does better than most, but you could have quite an argument about every news item, based on other commentary.
Let’s start with the things that aren’t really being discussed:
Major Ukrainian forces are yet to be committed anywhere.
The current picture of the offensive is a series of small-scale attacks in specific localities, not a major push in any particular direction.
The Russians are shuffling troops around to meet these small-scale attacks. Why?
Russia is conducting lots of local counterattacks on much the same basis which are achieving nothing at all. That’s not news?
There are no indications of Russia pushing back at the locations under Ukrainian attack.
If flanked, the Russian defensive lines are at significant risk of being untenable. These are basic trench lines, based on a mix of dug in positions, minefields, and tree cover from drones.
The Russians deployed extra forces to cover a small breakthrough in a place called Verbove and don’t seem to be achieving much in stopping the Ukrainians. Commentary says the Ukrainians have crossed the first of the three main trench lines. That’s highly debatable but they have made progress.
The Ukrainians say, with some justification, that critics of the counteroffensive are “spitting in the faces of the soldiers”. That’s actually a major understatement. The commentary has been appalling since day one. They’re spitting in the face of the world, too.
If you remember the pundits saying the Russians would win this war in a few weeks, not much has changed. The Wannabe Amateur Hour of commentary has relentlessly recycled just about every military cliche in the last century. It’s about as useful, and credible, as Kremlin press releases.
This is modern war. Those cliches belong in a museum. We have cardboard drones on the rampage. Heard about that? Neither had anyone else until recently. This is Cheap Kill incarnate. These are whole new classes of weapons in real combat situations. It’s absurd to quote from the past. It’s obscene to take random aspects of the counteroffensive and call it news.
There is no reason for the Ukrainians to take losses for the sake of headlines. There’s no reason to screw up a major military operation for the sake of appearances, either.
Social media, that famous four-letter word, is full of the same garbage, based on partisan political positions in the US. Any contact with reality is largely accidental.
There’s a difference between news and shameless spin and innuendo. If you can find that difference in this load of codswallop, congratulations.
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Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
