Day 813
Heavy unshaven men in olive suits
We are weirded out today by two reports, starting with a 4-minute over-the-top reportage by Nick on the outskirts of Kharkiv, titled 'Catastrophic moment': Russia advances on key city in Ukraine.
Don’t be fooled. It might be a disastrous moment for Nick in the war, but not for Ukraine. As of this writing, Russia’s offensive in northern areas of Kharkiv region had been halted. The situation in Vovchansk, meanwhile, remains chaotic.
The head of the President’s Office Andriy Yermak and Kharkiv Regional Military Administration head Oleh Synehubov have a lot of explaining to do about preparations not made (or made poorly) to repel the latest assaults, which were anticipated months ago and made foreign jornos nervous.
At the beginning of May, Ukraine’s Military Intelligence said rumours that Russia would re-invade parts of Kharkiv region were part of a psychological operation.
The second analysis of the situation also sounds overwrought1.
That’s the last paragraph of an article appearing on Wednesday in The New York Times.
In fact, “the chances of Ukraine agreeing to a negotiated cease-fire, an armistice that ended the active fighting in Korea in 1953,” are zilch, zero, nil — the exact opposite of the article’s wacko conclusion.
David E. Sanger, Julian E. Barnes and Kim Barker are on the byline. We remember David, because back in 2017 he wrote a bullshit 2,000-word article about Ukraine sponsoring North Korea’s missile program, allegedly2.
As for “the growing sense in the Biden administration,” the authors know best, assuming their chit chats actually occurred. Unfortunately, however, many US officials remain rather clueless when it comes to Ukraine. And that’s a pity.
Someone posted this vid of mop-up ops in Hlyboke north of Lyptsi.
White House Worries Russia’s Momentum Is Changing Trajectory of Ukraine War. Multiple factors are helping Russia’s military advance, including a delay in American weaponry and Moscow’s technological innovations on the battlefield (The New York Times, May 15, 2023)