The Media's Slow Descent Into Admitting Ukraine's Failures

Since the fall of Avdeyevka in February and accelerating rapidly in the past two weeks, Russian advances to the West and Southwest of the city have left Ukrainian forces scrambling to find a defensive line they can hold, forcing even the US media to admit that Russia had made huge advances.

What US media called “bleak news” brought on by an “artillery drought” is also being ignored by the authorities in Kiev, a veteran pro-Ukrainian military blogger called Deepstate said, per US media.

The Ukrainian military spokesperson “has the opportunity to check the real situation, but he [still] provides untrue information and this undermines our credibility,” one of the group founders reportedly said.

DeepState shared his experience from on Telegram in a post describing the dire situation for Ukrainian troops in and around the village of Solovyovo, “but nearby there is another location that requires attention: Muscovites calmly moving around the village, keeping it under control. The (Ukrainian) Defense Forces inflict fire damage on them, and one can repeat at least a billion times that two-thirds of the village is under the control of the Ukrainian military, but the picture of reality is completely different.”

Since Avdeyevka fell, Russian forces have captured Berdychi, Lastochkino, Severnoye, Orlovka, and Tonenkoye to the East and Northeast of the city, as well as Opytnoe, Vodyanoye, Nevelskoye, and Pervomayskoye to the Southeast. More recently, Russian forces broke through to the north, capturing Novokalinovo, Solovyovo, and Ocheretino, where a strategic “bloom” has started to develop.

While the media has focused on the area east of Avdeyevka, the victories for Russia were not limited there, with Novomikhailovka, long a Ukrainian stronghold, finally falling last week and last week, Russians entered Krasnogorovka, cutting it into two parts.

Also last week, in the Zaporozhye area, Russia retook Rabotino, the small village that, though it was initially meant to be only the first stepping stone, was the peak of Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive last summer.

“There is not a single place left along the line of combat contact where the enemy is behind the ‘Surovikin Line,’” one report from the area on Telegram reads.

In response, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a “significant acceleration of [Western] supplies” to the front, though even US media admits Ukraine is struggling to fill its ranks with men to fire those weapons.

“The most immediate problem in every unit is lack of people,” a Ukrainian company commander told US media recently.

“Ukraine recently sent a platoon of 20 soldiers to fight in Donbass,” another report from December reads, citing an unnamed Ukrainian senior officer. “With some taken from villages without notice and one older man who didn’t even have time to pick up his false teeth.”

Former Ukrainian Commander Valerii Zaluzhny suggested that the country would need up to half a million new soldiers for Ukraine to conquer its goals. That led to a rift with Zelensky, which led to Zaluzhny’s firing. Zelensky nevertheless passed a new mobilization law, which lowered the conscription age in Ukraine.

Since at least last summer, videos of Ukrainian conscription officers dragging men off the street and into vans have commonly appeared online, as have videos of Ukrainian men attempting to flee to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova.

“We have no choice other than to be bloodthirsty," Viktor Kevlyuk, a retired Ukrainian colonel said while justifying the so-called mobilization strategy of Ukraine.

Last week, Ukraine announced that it would not allow men aged 18-60 to renew their passports while abroad, forcing military-aged men to return to Ukraine and presumably be conscripted if they need to update their passports.

While Germany said they would not force Ukrainian men back into a conflict zone, Polish deputy foreign minister Andrzej Szejna expressed support for the plan, telling Polish television that they “definitely won’t protect draft dodgers.”

Western media has been slow to admit Ukraine’s failures on the battlefield. First, they insisted Ukraine was winning even when it was clear to any objective observer they weren’t.

Before Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive kicked off last summer, it was heavily hyped, with commercials and promises of reaching the Sea of Azov and splitting Russian forces in the process.

By August, they had resorted to rationalizing the counteroffensive’s failures into victories.

“How the Ukraine Counteroffensive Can Still Succeed,” a headline from US media read that month, arguing that “The situation in Ukraine still favors [Kiev] despite the limited progress made in the counteroffensive so far.”

“Ukraine’s counteroffensive is making real progress on the Crimean front,” a blog post from the pro-war think tank The Atlantic Council proclaimed in September, apparently forgetting that Crimea is not on the front.

“More than three months since the start of Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive, Ukrainian forces have only managed to liberate a tiny portion of the territory currently under Russian occupation. However, the success or failure of the campaign cannot be measured in square kilometers alone,” the post stated, arguing that the drone and missile attacks in Crimea were “steadily reducing Russia’s ability to wage war” and are preparing conditions “for future advances.”

By December, the West had downgraded their overly optimistic predictions, saying that the war was in a “stalemate” but again argued that things weren’t as bad as they seemed.

“Stalemate Is Not Checkmate in Ukraine” an article from the Foreign Policy Research Institute read. It argued that “stalemates are part of warfare” that could be broken through more soldiers being sent to the meat grinder and air superiority.

Now, with US media and even openly pro-Ukrainian sources like Deepstate admitting that Russian gains are coming faster than any time for either side since 2022, it appears even the downgraded optimism of a stalemate was still too optimistic.

Today, they argue that Ukraine is losing, but will be able to stop the Russian advance once the recently passed military aid from the US hits the front lines.

Ukraine will soon obtain “the necessary air defense assets and the necessary range of ammunition concentrated on the frontline, which will make it impossible for the enemy to perform tasks with the intensity it has now,” a Ukrainian soldier was recently quoted as saying in US media.

Their predictions were wrong before, but when it comes to the war machine, they just need the reader to believe until the very end.

“Ukraine's $61 bln lifeline is not enough” another recent headline read, already preparing the public for the next aid package that will surely turn the tide, this time.