Seymour Hersh: Ukrainian armed forces have already called off the attack after weeks of heavy losses and Zelensky and Biden are not interested in putting an end to the “massacre”

Seymour Hersh: Ukrainian armed forces have already called off the attack after weeks of heavy losses and Zelensky and Biden are not interested in putting an end to the “massacre”

    Friday, September 22, 2023   No comments

Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh stated that the Ukrainian army effectively stopped the attack after weeks of heavy losses.

“After several weeks of heavy losses and minimal progress, as well as horrific losses in tanks and armored vehicles, the main units of the Ukrainian army, without announcing it, effectively called off the attack,” Hersh quoted an official with access to the intelligence as saying.

Hersh quotes an unnamed American intelligence officer: “The truth is that if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army will rebel. “The soldiers don’t want to die anymore, but this doesn’t fit with the nonsense written by the White House under US President Joe Biden.”

Hersh also reported that Vladimir Zelensky insists on continuing the conflict with Russia, and there is no talk in Kiev or Washington of negotiations and a ceasefire.

“The war continues because Zelensky insists on it,” Hersh said, citing sources. There is no discussion of a truce at his headquarters or in the White House under President Joe Biden, and they are not interested in negotiations that put an end to the massacre.”

Hersh added, quoting an intelligence source, and as the source points out, all of Kiev’s statements about the successful counterattack are lies, as the Ukrainian forces have only gained scattered pieces of land, and the pace of their advance is measured in meters per week.

An unnamed American intelligence official was quoted as saying: “The war is over. Russia has won. “There is no longer a Ukrainian attack, but the White House and the American media must support the lie.”

The Russian Armed Forces continue to implement their special military operation, with the aim of disarming Ukraine, to ward off threats emanating from Ukrainian territory to Russia's security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia does not plan to occupy Ukrainian lands, explaining that Russia's goal is to protect the population, which has been subjected, for 8 years, to persecution and genocide by the Kiev regime.

Ukrainian forces have been launching a counterattack in the directions of southern Donetsk, Artyomovsk and Zaporozhye for the fourth month now, sending brigades trained by NATO and armed with foreign equipment into the battle.

According to President Vladimir Putin, during this time they could not achieve any results. In turn, Western military experts point to the effectiveness of Russian fortifications and minefields, due to which the Ukrainian armed forces suffered heavy losses.

Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that “Ukrainian forces have lost more than 66,000 soldiers and 7,600 weapons since the start of the so-called “counterattack.”

Shoigu also stressed that “the Ukrainian army did not achieve its goals during the three months of the counterattack.”

Comparing controll maps from the start of the counteroffesive to recent maps make Hersh's claim about the stopped or stalled offensive evident:

Control map in September 2023:

Control map in June 2023:

  

Truth is often the first victim to fall in the battlefield: The politics of war, media, and journalism

Truth is often the first victim to fall in the battlefield: The politics of war, media, and journalism

    Thursday, June 22, 2023   No comments

A detailed report by The Intercept, titled "Ukraine Prevents Journalists from Access to Frontlines, Escalates Censorship," has been reported by veteran war correspondents accusing Ukrainian officials of making reporting on the reality of the war, with rare exceptions, now nearly impossible.

The report, written by the Italian writer on international affairs and military issues, Alice Sperry, stated that "the Ukrainian government has intensified its efforts to control the narrative associated with the war now, by tightening access for journalists to the front lines of the conflict."

 Sipri stated that "after the Ukrainian forces regained control of the coastal city of Kherson last November, after 8 months of Russian control, some journalists entered the liberated city within hours, but the journalists' credentials were confiscated by the Ukrainian authorities, under the pretext that they were" They ignored the current restrictions.

 

Katerina Sergatskova, editor-in-chief of the independent Ukrainian newspaper Zaporona Media, said they "tried to impose more control on journalists, and now it's really difficult to report from Kherson, for example."

 

Simafor news agency reported earlier this month that since Russia launched its all-out offensive last year, Ukrainian authorities have threatened, revoked or denied press credentials to journalists working for 6 Ukrainian and foreign news outlets because of their coverage of the events. 

 

Sipri touched on one recent example, where "the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine did not renew the press credentials of a photographer based in Ukraine, who accused the country's security services of subjecting him to interrogations, a lie detector test, and accusations that he was working against the national interest of Ukraine."

 

Government officials were forced to re-accredit photographer Anton Skiba last week after a pressure campaign by colleagues and press freedom advocates, who denounced tighter access for frontline media, but the incident highlighted tensions between Ukrainian authorities and the journalists they cover. escalating conflict in recent months.

 

Veteran war correspondents, for their part, accuse Ukrainian officials of making coverage of the war, with rare exceptions, nearly impossible.

 “The Ukrainian government has made it virtually impossible for journalists to do real frontline reporting,” said Luke Muggleson, a journalist for The New Yorker. on the one hand, and superficially documented by the press on the other.

 

"It's surprising how little of what's happening is being chronicled, and the main reason, though not the only reason, is that the Ukrainian government has made it virtually impossible for journalists to do real reporting," Mugelson told The Intercept.

 

Mugelson explained that the restrictions come from military and political leaders, and interfere with the desire of ordinary soldiers to share their experiences.

 

Some Ukrainian journalists also warned that "the strict censorship practiced by the military distorts the coverage of the war," if a Ukrainian soldier said to a journalist, "I hate this war so much," and the press officer asked him to respond with, "Yes, the war is difficult, but we maintain our morale." 

"This is the narrative that many of the Ukrainian public is getting," Sipri asserted. Late last year, Zelensky signed into law a law giving the government sweeping powers over the media, and the European Union of Journalists described the initial draft of the bill as "befitting the worst authoritarian regimes."

 Earlier this year, a poll indicated that trust in the media among the Ukrainian public currently stands at 57%.

 Several Western reports talked about heavy Ukrainian losses on the front after Kiev launched its counterattack against the Russian forces, and this reflected the statements of the Ukrainian and Western leaders, as well as Moscow's assurances, but the Ukrainian media prevents the transfer of any press materials from the fronts, which was translated into the lack of documentary materials. the results of the attack.