Unless The Washington Post publishes in solidum the classified U.S. intelligence briefs it refers to we might consider disregarding the write-ups altogether.
Why? Because we don’t trust the competency of the journalists writing and editors redacting the stories. We reached this conclusion last month after listening to Isabelle (the newspaper’s Kyiv bureau chief) bullshit about publishing Kupol’s rant1. David has been on our radar for years23. Paul and Peter Lavelle (Russia Today, CrossTalk) dropped by after the Orange Revolution and left an awful impression4, and the newspaper’s Belarus coverage has been meh, borderline criminal, for decades.
Which brings me to The New York Times, which has spent a lot of time and resources reporting about the bloodiest part of the years-long mess. Coverage has been much better than it used to be5. The credibility of the newspaper, which for years eight years referred to Russia-occupation forces in Donbas as pro-Russian separatists, was almost zero before February 24, 2022. We still joke about Sabrina Tavernise, who made a habit mumbling in Russian with Noah and being whisked away by rebels6. Yeech!
I restacked The Ukraine of Why. Do no harm (January 24, 2023) the other day in order to learn how the process works with Substack Notes. That’s how we bumped into renowned Ukraine expert Nina and her horror story.
Remember Nina7?
Here’s a passage from that post:
Renaissance humanists did not call out statements, cancel ex diplomats and then write to their fan base instructing them to ignore their bullshit commentary. That would have been tantamount to sequent calculus - seamlessly transitioning assertions into conditionals when challenged, and then back into assertions when their back is turned.
In other news, Jens is bumbing around Kyiv.
Finally, this:
It appears that Ukraine’s goat with teeth has been singled out by autonomous crypto zealots for the ridicule it deserves (again)8.
Ukraine short of skilled troops and munitions as losses, pessimism grow (The Washington Post, March 13, 2023)
ukraine-clinton collusion case. american leader promises investigation (April 26, 2019)
killing the story. politico keeps changing its #manafort blackmail story, continues getting it wrong (February 26, 2017)
baffled by bullshit from the nyt. western journalists who write about ukraine for english-language legacy media have for years been the butt of jokes in kyiv
Whisked away by a rebel. (The New York Times, July 15, 2014)
Unspecified Ukraine Worrying. False and toxic narrative redux (May 27, 2020)
Ukraine’s Goat with Teeth (December 14, 2001)