I never cease to be amazed by the utter failure of journalists to assemble facts. I think it boils down to laziness. Why should you do any independent research or thinking that requires you to go to the front lines when you can gobble up and regurgitate pre-packaged talking points? You get paid the same and hell, you might even get a Pulitzer if you are the most enthusiastic purveyor of regime bullshit.
A recent piece in the New York Times, Russia’s Shortfalls Create an Opportunity for Ukraine, Western Officials Say, illustrates this phenomena. Here are the salient points from the article by Julian Barnes and Eric Schmitt:
Now, as the fighting enters its sixth month, critical manpower and equipment problems could again slow Russian operations and give Ukraine’s counteroffensive a better chance to succeed, U.S. and European officials said.
The signs of Russia’s challenges abound: artillery shells missing their targets, intercepts of Russian soldiers complaining they have been given old tanks and a sharply rising death and injury toll in its military ranks. . . .
U.S. and European officials say few powers have conquered a country and destroyed an opposing army with a mostly volunteer force, as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is attempting to do. But Mr. Putin has shown no indications that he wants any sort of full-scale draft, which would amount to an admission to his country that the fight in Ukraine will be a long war, not a short operation.
Russia has committed nearly 85 percent of its fielded army to the fight in Ukraine, drawing on troops from the country’s far east and deployments around the world, a senior Defense Department official said recently. The Russian military, European officials said, has been hard-pressed to bring reservists and new recruits into the fight.
Estimates of how many Russian soldiers have been killed range from 15,000 to more than 20,000, with thousands more injured or missing. Even taking the conservative number, according to U.S. and allied intelligence officials, Russia has lost more soldiers this year than the Soviet Union lost in nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan.
In its search for recruits, Russia has had to lower its standards, Western intelligence officials said. Mr. Putin signed a law eliminating the age limit for Russians to sign their first contract to join the military. Western officials also said they have assessed that the Russian military is lowering health and fitness standards and giving waivers to people with criminal records to join.
Man, talk about the psychological principle of “projection.” The New York Times is ascribing to Russia the very things that are happening to Ukraine. Weird.
Let’s start with the Barnes/Schmitt claim that Russia has committed “85 percent of its fielded army to the fight in Ukraine.” How is your math ability? Russia’s army is 850,000 strong with 250,000 in reserve. What is 85% of 850,000 (think of this as a college entrance exam)? That’s right–722,500. There is ZERO evidence that Russia has that many troops on the ground in the Donbas and southern Ukraine. In fact, Russia is pushing ahead with its “Vostok 2022 (East 2022) exercise scheduled for Aug. 30-Sept. 5 will involve troops on maneuvers at 13 firing ranges of the Eastern Military District.“
There is no way a Russian army decimated by the Ukrainians and hanging on by its fingernails could afford to send remaining troops to the Far East for war games.
The intrepid NY Times’ scribe fail to mention that the bulk of the fighting on the ground in the Donbas is carried out by the militias of Donetsk and Luhansk Republics. Russian forces are handling artillery batteries, flying drones, fixed wing combat jets and rotary wing aircraft (i.e., helicopters). That does not require 700,000 plus troops.
There is no evidence that Russia is sending middle-aged reservists and new recruits to the front to be chewed up as cannon fodder. That honor is reserved for the poor louts in Ukraine who get scooped up by security police and dragooned into service. The video evidence of that is extensive.
If Russian troops really are so beleaguered, so worn down and so dispirited (as claimed by Messrs. Barnes & Schmitt), then why is Ukraine retreating and ceding territory to such a motley crew?
Note the weasel words in one of the opening paragraphs of the Barnes/Scmitt fantasy piece:
critical manpower and equipment problems could again slow Russian operations and give Ukraine’s counteroffensive a better chance to succeed, U.S. and European officials said.
The U.S. and European officials are relying on HOPE–hope that troop shortages and old, worn out equipment slow the Russian advance. A reporter worth a damn should have asked, “what is the evidence of troop shortages?” Russia is not a totalitarian state. Russia has not shut down opposition media and political parties. Ukraine has done that. So where is the social media showing a rising tide of disgruntled Russians being forced to put on the uniform and then being compelled to show up on the front lines without adequate training? I have not seen it. Have you? Please forward if you got it and please, no video game footage. That does not count.
Are you familiar with the refrain, “If if and buts were candy and nuts it would be Christmas everyday.” That seems to be the position of the unnamed U.S. and European officials desperately hoping that Ukraine’s million man offensive against Kherson will succeed. Only several little problems. Ukraine is having a dickens of a time scraping together that mythical million man army. And if they do succeed in rounding up that many sentient fellows, how will they get proper training while Russia continues to hit Ukrainian training bases with missiles, rockets and shells?
And what about those pesky Russian artillery shells that are “missing their targets?” Are we talking most, some or a few? Barnes and Schmitt are an incurious duo. They forgot to ask for that information. Perhaps if they had gone to Pesky and counted the number of incoming Russian shells and then counted up the misses then they would have had quite a story. I can see the headline now, “Russia’s Shitty Shooting–Only 10% of Shells Hit the Target.” Not hard to do that kind of reporting if you get off of your lazy behind, strap on some body armor and report to the front. But Barnes and Schmitt did not do that. However, I will give them credit for reporting from a combat zone. Other reporting does confirm that many parts of New York City are veritable combat zones. It is dangerous to take a subway or just stroll down the street dodging sucker punches and homeless guys urinating with abandon. I guess they rely on that reality to justify getting danger pay.
Late breaking–CBS News apparently awakened from its drunken slumber and decided to report on what Ukraine is doing with the billions of dollars of weapons the United States and NATO are sending to Zelensky and his gang of thieves.
You can watch the full report here (https://www.cbsnews.com/video/arming-ukraine-cbs-reports/?intcid=CNM-00-10abd1h#x). Judging from the clothing the reporter and his colleagues are wearing, the film was shot in April or early May.
That is why I did not subscribed to the stupid New York times or Washington Post! They don’t confirmed and verified their sources, so that is why they won’t have my money as I suspected is going to be the case for millions of thinking human beings…
“If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.” — Scottish proverb
The problem Larry with this Goebbels propaganda machine(on 24/7 it is worse here in Europe) it is dangerous.Today a Nato guy clearly asked on a French news network to ‘kill all Russians anywhere in the world’. More BS: Putin wants to start the biggest civil nuke catastrophy in the world as he bombed the biggest nuclear site in Zapo(fake the ukies did it)….how is that allowed on official tv? And friends told me it is the same BS 24/7 in Britain and Germany.
Just listen to sociopath Stoltenberg (NATO):
https://twitter.com/wallacemick/status/1555945283590160387?fbclid=IwAR1couMI5hHPIlXRV-uVPj0p6QioPn-Fyfl3KbCZ95SiY-JBsOk5JVU2YZ0
Problem is: politico leaders believe their own lies or the lies of these ”anonym sources” somewhere in their Deep State(I guess they have money incentive from weapons producers)?
Then ‘journos’ regurgitate these very same lies again and again.
This makes them take catastrophic decisions in terms of sending weapons(Nato talked today about sending long range missiles and maybe patriots), spending till today our taxpayers money(more than 100 billions total US/UK/EU), vast amount of this money is stole, weapons ending up for some in the middle east or who knows where in Europe?(see cbs news on this)Taking sanctions which mainly destroy their own economy(not so much the one of…Russia)..as they can not lose face, they double down,then triple down etc…they ‘cornered’ themselves.
I’m really not optimistic at all with such incompetent leaders and neocons(US) in power..they will never accept defeat even less capitulation as this now became and existential threath for both Nato and EU(even the euro).
They could take even more catastrophic decisions like boots on the ground and then when many body bags will land in Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London and D C…what will happen?
Worse they could at some point go for a first strike on Russia as some mad brains in the White House(Nuland, Blinken who are on a personal vendetta against Russia, see Nuland visit in Moscow in oct 21, where she threated Russia with open war if…), the Pentagon, Shape Mons, there are people who believe they can win a nuclear war.
As I living in Belgium I’m even thinking about moving to..Lisbon a low risk city in Europe and not a target for a counterstrike.
I’m ret. I have no intention to die for the madness of these psychopaths.
nb: excuse my English this is only my forth language thanks- Good job Larry.
You write English better than many native speaking Americans. Kudos. Excellent commentary.
Lisbon? I would advise you a quieter town in the Center of Portugal. Food’s better, people are nicer and you have good access to north and south of the country. Also quality of life is a lot better.
As for your words, yes, totally agree, the propaganda is stronger in here and our nutcase politicians will make it worse for us… Just take a look at Spain and the recent air conditioning… laws(?). All in the name of Euro solidarity and supporting Ukraine…
On a side note, great analisys and website Larry, keep it up!
Thank for this brilliant and honest commentary.
I studied in Europe in the 1990s and I still visit.
It is difficult for me not to feel sorry to see the level to which Europe, especially its leadership, has sunk.
We may disagree with leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl etc, all we want, but we cannot deny the fact that those were men and women with the education and the cultural sophistication to engage with the rest of the world.
The miserable gaggle that currently run Europe appear like uneducated, uncultured, imbecilic and narcissistic juveniles.
Just take a look at the one who currently serves as German Foreign Minister with her perpetual petulant frown like a recently-jilted teenager. How on earth is she expected to engage with a towering Diplomatic Titan like Lavrov? Even the current Bundkanzelier look like one with the IQ of a Siemen gas turbine. And how did a drunk like Borrel (sounds suspiciously like a Flemish or Dutch Drink) gets to be top Diplomat for the EU?
But, then, was it not said that a people gets the type of government they deserved?
Please, enjoy your day, Sir!
do you know what was the only job that the italian foreign minister ever had before being elected to parliament? he was selling drinks and ice-creams at the san paolo stadium in naples… his nickname is : gigino o’ bibitaro. italians are in good hands…
Agree. The BS here in the UK is like something that Tolkien may have written: just not as good. The main problem is that the purveyors of this nonsense might actually believe it and make decisions based on it. Which is what they do seem to be doing.
Drug dealers have a saying, ‘don’t get high off your own supply.’ Same goes for propaganda. The ones creating the propaganda aren’t supposed to believe the propaganda.
This is an extremely dangerous situation to be in. The Ukrainians could simply feed stories about the Russians fueling their ICBMs for a first strike into the MSM, and these idiots in Washington would start to believe it!
This reminds me of a post from 2012 (!) that perfectly describes our situation:
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2012/09/25/spinney-america-ooda-loop-43560/
> ..the people in America today, like those in the Roman republic, do not appreciate who is responsible for their unaddressed problems. In terms of Boyd’s OODA loop, that ignorance implies their Orientation has hijacked their Observations and people are seeing what they want to see rather than what is. The mass media is complicit in this hijacking. When Orientation trumps Observation, problems will remain unaddressed, except by accident.
> This inevitability helps us to understand why the Rovian political theory of manufacturing “reality” is so dangerous; and it is also why the soothing nature of Obama’s political practices and persona (which also work to protect the oligarchy of American deep state) may be equally dangerous over the long term. One fans the fires of discontent while the other reinforces and perpetuates the deeper forces causing that discontent. Sooner or later things will go boom, and the coming election will do nothing to change the direction of that trajectory, no matter who wins.
In the Media of Record
(a 21st Century Elizabethan sonnet)
“What if?” the science fiction writers ask,
and then propose (as premise for a tale)
a fantasy unequal to the task
of passing off a minnow for a whale.
In revenue producers hope to bask
while in the empty theaters they fail.
No artificial gravity contrives
To keep feet planted firmly on the floor.
No alien intelligence connives
with venal earthlings to invent a spore
that kills its host but somehow still survives.
No drama now. Just one colossal bore.
It seems we’ve lost another war. So be it.
As long as paying customers don’t see it.
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright © 2022
As one trained to call for fire support (i.e., “arty”), I must say that there was never a situation where shells were “missing their target,” as arty shells are first and foremost area weapons to be “adjusted” onto the target “area.” (Albeit there is a “destruct” mission against hard point targets.) Hit the area (or point) or adjust fire until you do.
I suppose when these kids view photos of pockmarked fields they assume each hole represents a “miss.”
If so, they “missed.”
Well, “laziness” aside, it could be worse — like the situation with Germany prosecuting and fining journalist Alina Lipp for exposing the Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass (or, at least reporting the opinions of those living there to her readers in Germany) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4-1qhGvbu4
Just watched the video. Excellent. Brave young woman. I hope she comes out of it ok. Also hope the video gets a lot more views. The truth needs to come out and it will. Screw the corporate media and government oppression and lies.
Contrary to the insipid commentary from the Western media I think the conflict from a military perspective is making the Russian military more effective. They seem to be, as I understand, ‘cycling’ a wide range of specialist forces through like they do/did in Syria. I would suspect that they are doing the same with pilots. Many military ‘leaders’ in the West, with a few exceptions, have little idea as to what is going on. They are even more clueless from an economic/industrial perspective.
Recycling is a fact, see the eastern divisions coming for a looky see, they get enormous kudos that they fight for the right to party in Ukeland!!
We had Trump derangement syndrome (TDS). Then we had Covid hysteria. Now it’s what I’m coining as Russia derangement syndrome (RDS).
Proving that Americans and Euros are herd beasts prone to whooped up by the deceptive loud barks of their psychopathic alleged sheep dogs (media and politicians).
The Russians are evil and stupid and inferior Orks, don’t you know. What?!!!? Are you on their side??!!??! Look what they’re doing now! Ahhhhhhh!
In all seriousness, the actionable take-aways from the infamous MK-Ultra type programs were/are the means of brainwashing. people like to imagine it was all kinds of other sinister stuff, but it was this.
Most of us aren’t swallowing the “blue pill” , Eric…..
I don’t know about that. The scientifically applied mass brainwashing techniques are quite effective and evidence of that is everywhere. Maybe your sense of red pill v blue is due to selection bias (i.e. you only interact with red pill ingesters). I see a critical mass of blue pill addicts. They don’t need to brainwash everyone; just a critical mass. The red pill crowd can then be isolated, marginalized, demonized and finally, attacked in various ways up to and including incarceration and, maybe, someday worse. Social media makes that possible like never before.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an incremental process; the slow boiling frog that doesn’t fully understand his impending demise by boiling until it’s too late to get out of the pot.
I don’t think it’s laziness.
I think it is the very active management of the narrative- i.e., propaganda at work. These two might be low-level scribes or higher level disinformation operatives.
Independent journalists are not to be found in the US mainstream media, certainly not at NYT or WaPo. No one should be surprised by this.
I would assume that this NYT piece is a copy and paste item from the MIC as they do not want to see receding money flows from the Hill.
I know some American liberals, of the species that’s prone to reading the New York Crimes. One and all they are ready – nay, eager – to throw what they themselves know to be true, what they themselves have professed to the previous day, out of the window as soon as their propaganda organ of choice (the New York Crimes for instance) tells them to do so. I know one woman who rails against alleged nazis (that is, anyone who votes Trump) in America…while being a full throated supporter of actual literal swastika tattooed Black Sun wearing Wolfsangel flagwagging genocidal nazis in Ukraine. Seeing this same woman go from praising Elon Musk on Twitter one day before he announced his bid to buy the platform to becoming a shrieking opponent of his just proved it for me; these people are NPCs. As such it matters not what crapaganda the New York Crimes promotes or how asinine it is; it only matters that it does and that’s all it needs to do.
(Like another responder above English isn’t my natal language so please excuse any errors.)
The NPCs always jump mindlessly on the new thing. They have to given there is an aggressive hunt for heretics on their side. You can agree with 99.9 percent of the current narratives and be destroyed because only 100 percent is accepted. This is especially true for the managerial class.
Additionally, the left is very feminine. The democrats are becoming primarily the party of single women. Single women are usually always up to date with the current dos and don’ts whether fashion or politics.
I can’t help but think how many Jihadi’s in Germany and France got their hands on some of those Weapons. I guess with all the millions of unassimilated 3rd worlders who live on hand outs we’ll find out in winter when the shortages of Fuel, Gas, Food etc not to mention Inflation hits the EU even bigger by then.
Jihadi’s in Europe don’t worry me. Don’t fuck with them and they won’t fuck with us. It is the white tattooed neo-nazi scum who fantasize about some nordic Brunhilde valhalla nonsense that worries me.
Good thing you’re not blinded by your ideology and prejudices, like all those NPCs.
Well said
the uk version is:
If Ifs and Ands Were Pots and Pans There’d Be No Work For Tinkers hands
The New York Times piece is absolutey true describing what is going on in Ukraine.
It’s just that NYT has autocorrect set to change the word Ukraine to Russia.
It is not laziness, but propaganda and amplification of regime talking points is simply what they are paid to do. They would not have jobs if they actually reported fairly and independently.
Lies are what define the Empire. Truth is taboo. The idea of America that has been touted ad nauseam is that it is a free country with a free press. Neither of which is true. The “free press” is only free to the gullible, obtuse and brainwashed zombies totally bereft of critical thinking. How else can the Empire become so richly populated by the most stupefied citizenry on the planet? Reporting on Ukraine is of equivalent level of credibility as on Vietnam, Cambodia, Russia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, China and Iran, among other countries.
Look, I’ll be the first to admit that I have no military background.
But if I were confronted with the Russians firing some 70k shells at my side per day, and hitting only 10k, my first instinct would not be glee about the shells that missed, to put it mildly.
The problem isn’t just laziness and stupidity. It’s the institutional political economy of the media. Read Chomsky’s book, Manufacturing Consent. He shows the patterns of corporate concentration in the media, the realization of profit through advertising, and the class bias in media discourse induced by those factors. The media’s job and function, viewed in this context, is to generate ideological conformity to American capitalism and its class structures. As American capitalism is globalized and imperialist in essence (i.e., structured around and dependent upon global modes of exploitation of labor and resources), US capitalist media is also systematically biased in favor of US empire and militarism. Chomsky shows in detail how this bias played out in the Vietnam War and in Central America in the 80s. The same was obvious in Iraq, and now with Ukraine. So journalists aren’t just lazy. They are working within an institutional political economy which is anything but democratic. They are working within the ideological apparatuses of US corporate power and empire, and their products are always in accordance with the ideational and material interests of that system. We need to dispel the notion that corporate media could be democratic and liberating if only journalists weren’t lazy or dumb. The problem is the entire system.
Great blog, btw.
Here in north Florida I have ATT cable. I used to watch One America News but they canceled it because it wasn’t playing along with the other adolescents in the sand box. They put News of Ukraine in it’s place. IMO America has no legit msm other than the internet which is how I keep up with truth.
Slipshod reporting is one thing. I have come to expect that from the New York Times. Complicity is quite another. If you check you will see that just before Ukraine began shelling the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant the New York Times ran a setup story claiming that Russia was positioning military assets there implying that it could be a legitimate target.
Check the search engine and you will see.
One has to suspect, given the New York Times connections, that US officials had greenlighted the attacks which began anew shortly after that story ran. I am not in a position to evaluate the danger but if the Russian claims of dire risks are valid and the Russians truly believe what they are saying then we are sitting on a nuclear powderkeg right now.
Whereas I typically read that Russia committed 190,000 troops at the outside, I also read as few as 80,000 with a midrange of 120,000 to 150,000.
I love the “lowering of standards” quip. As you stated, it’s projection. The U.S. Army proposed the idea of allowing non-high school graduates, and loosening their tattoo policy to resolve the latest recruiting shortfall. Not to mention the U.S. military granted over 100,000 moral waivers, to include violent felonies, to meet the personnel needs of the Iraqi “surge”.
The lying yellow press is an old story. Einstein pointed out that the so called educated classes are easily duped simply by virtue of the fact that they can read and put great faith in the printed word.
A worthy article link below. But you can easily find the complete Einstein – Freud correspondence on Why War? online. It overflows with insight and intelligence.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/einstein-freud-letter/
Speaking of projection, I thought for a minute they were talking about the US military when they mentioned loosening standards, taking criminals (although haven’t the Marines been doing that for decades? Seriously I was sure they were at least back in the Vietnam era) and so forth. I am beginning to believe one of the immutable evidences of leftism is projection
I’m a fan of the “Military Summary” channel on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s39p_eqD94s) which provides very detailed daily summaries of the conflict in Ukraine. I don’t watch every day but several times/week, and it appears from his reports that the UAF is taking about 1k casualties/day, day-in-day-out. That jibes with a recent interview I saw with Col. MacGregor (ret), in which he claimed that the UAF has suffered maybe 60k – 70k dead. If we assume a ratio of 2x – 3x wounded/captured to dead, that would give total UAF casualties of 180k – 240k, or about 1k/day.
In other words, the UAF is in a meat grinder.
In March it was reported that Zelensky recruited and armed prisoners to fight the Russians. Again, it was reported that the prisoners promptly started robbing and brutalizing Kiev residents.
There probably always was some military reporting that was embellished to drive patriotic support for military especially in war.
I recall Jessica Lynch story from Iraq and wondered who pushed that narrative. Now the media don’t care-they believe their BS. Heck, they ignore stories that don’t fit narrative on guns, immigration, gender, climate, race…biolabs, covid…
I wonder if some military thinks it is worth it to deceive everyone to effect global opinion even in Russia and its allies?
These Barnes/Schmitt guys claim that Russia has 85 per cent of its ‘fielded army’ in Ukraine. Larry C. Johnson holds against, that Russia has an army 850.000 strong what reveals their calculation as erroneous, in his perspective.
If we assume, that Barnes/Schmitt meant not “armed forces” in the very wide sense as understood in Russia, that is to say, not only land forces [plus special branch airborne !], air force, navy, space/strategic rocket troops, also former internal troops = todays rosgvardia, border troops, even emergency civil defense outfits are included and what not else, e. g. private ? contractor formations LBNL, one might arrive at even 1 Million or more.
Without reserve potential, for now, ofc.
No, assume they mean – only – “fielded army” in sense of the active ground forces of RF, then the war involvement percentage goes considerably higher as argued by Mr Johnson and some others. We may ask further, how much of their air force is involved, not to forget special branches as airborne, naval infantry.
(and why should one include “reserve troops” of 250.000, not even called up so far, at least not nearly fully, only to lower the active army’s burden
One should be careful not to underestimate and downplay the strain – also ! – on Russian forces; not so rare that claim shows up, at Martyanov or others, “bah, what’s up, Russia has only involved 10 or 15 per cent by now”.
…which is in my opinion quite manipulative and misleading, too. Yes, and in any case the (lion) share of Donetsk and Lugansk forces should get more reward. And THEY have many draftees, also not so young people, who do most of ground fighting – sarcastically spoken, one might ascribe to them the “cannon fodder” part in russian calculus.
Short, if combined active Russian Army ground forces, airborne and naval infantry, does one arrive at even 400,000 personnel ?
I strongly recommend the book “The Gray Lady Winked” by Ashley Rindsberg which he had to self-publish as it takes apart the NYT’s lies over decades.
Realcleardefense linked to a Military dot com article stating that the pentagon “confirmed” that Russia has suffered 70,000 to 80,000 casualties, and the Ukrainian General Staff claims Russia has suffered 42,000 killed. The article goes on to say that Russia is bogged down in an artillery duel, and lists the weapons Biden is sending in the latest aid package, which includes 75,000 155mm shells. The article states 40 million Ukrainians are fighting
This is apparently what everyone in DC believes, but it doesn’t seem to make sense if one uses critical reasoning. For example, there aren’t 40 million Ukrainians in Ukraine since millions have fled.