Stories the media tell

Aug 11, 2024

Jim Morrison

Iran's press TV has broadcast a very interesting discussion between Gilbert Doctorow and George Szamuely, research fellow at the Global Policy Institute, London Metropolitan University.

You can watch the discussion here.

Or read the transcript here.

Doctorow’s analysis is spot on.

Szamuely, not so much – very much in line with Western media stories-- surprisingly— for he is definitely not pro-NATO nor Pro Ukraine. It surprised me.

For example:

Szamuely

I do think that this was a major public-relations victory for Ukraine, there’s no question about it. This was a major military operation. It involved a very substantial use of its soldiers, its armored forces, its heavy weapons, and it was a colossal intelligence failure. I mean, it’s not a question of how large a border we’re talking about. We’re talking about very a substantial military operation that required months to prepare.

This is what the Western media has been saying — that the Kursk incursion was a great PR victory for Ukraine-- in the same way that all of its operations for the last two years have been great PR "victories" —given, I suppose, the willingness of the mainstream media to publish Ukrainian claims and propaganda and conjure up an alternative reality.

How can Kursk be a victory when the Ukraine loses almost all of its initial assault force in the first three days? And fails to achieve any military objective?

From an operational and strategic point of view, this attack makes absolutely no sense. It looks like a gross waste of people and resources that are so much needed elsewhere. Pasi Paroinen, Finnish Think Tank Black Bird Group.

The attack did not involve a very “substantial” force – in fact just a couple of brigades in reserve at first, which have now been pretty much decimated , along with their heavy weapons and armor.

Given the way this attack was set up, it is also unlikely that the operation was thoroughly planned for several months-- rather, it seems like a contingency plan implemented on the spur of the moment, out of desperation-- since it had no chance of success.

Szamuely

So you would hope that Russians have some kind of intelligence that they can rely on and would have anticipated this attack. It obviously caught them completely by surprise. And, so far, they’ve already, you know– it’s not just that Russians have been seized, arrested, and are now prisons (prisoners) of war, but the convoys of Russian conscripts have been sent to Kursk to fight off this incursion. They’ve been hit, so there have been some severe casualties here.

Russians are rational people and would not anticipate a military operation so irrational! In that sense it may have caught them by surprise.

The part about Russians being seized and arrested refers to civilians-- technically a war crime. He misspeaks when he says "prisons of war" – he means prisoners of war . Both sides take prisoners, as is usually the case in any war. The difference is the Russians treat their POWs well; Ukrainians torture and kill them.

A convoy or convoys were hit—at least one. It was carrying supplies and troops, but the Russians are not using "conscripts"—as far as I know -- rather, volunteer soldiers and contract soldiers, the Chechens and so on.

The term "conscripts" implies soldiers forced into the Army who don't really want to fight-- that's the Ukrainians. It’s a word that the Ukrainian media uses indiscriminately for Russian military units.

The Russian intelligence received information about Ukraine’s possible attempts to infiltrate the Russian Belgorod and Kursk regions two weeks ago, the Rossiya 1 broadcaster reported.After Russia received information about potential attacks, President Vladimir Putin instructed to replace conscripts in border areas with contract soldiers and special forces, according to the broadcaster.

That was several months ago in March. So, conscripts” is just a Ukrainian projection of their own situation onto the Russians.

In any case, tjhe one Russian convoy I do know was hit —was hit by a HIMARS missile—an American missile with a 200kg warhead.

There were lots of casualties-- of course-- but the Russians’ total casualties so far are nowhere near as severe as those for the Ukrainians: the Russians are using 3000kg high precision augmented glide bombs, thermobaric missiles, and fragmentation and cluster bombs with air assets roaming freely. They have 20 times the firepower.

Szamuely

Now, this is, I think, public relations, because I think it’s a way of boosting morale in Ukraine. I mean, the Ukrainians have been suffering setback after setback in the Donbass in recent months. And above all, it’s a signal from Ukraine to its Western patrons, particularly in the United States that, “See, you know, we can achieve major military breakthroughs. We can humiliate the Russians. So keep sending the money, keep sending the arms, you know, keep sending this deadly weaponry, because look what we can do to the Russians.

Here he is talking about the intention of the attack-- not the result.

Announcement of the attack no doubt boosted “morale”—momentarily— but the enormous casualty rate and other losses and the stupidity of this operation will scupper the mood.

This is yet another setback like all the ones in the Donbass.

It does not signal that Ukraine can achieve a major military “breakthrough”— rather the opposite. The Russians are not “humiliated”-- just pissed off and going to up the ante.

The more deadly weapons the West sends, the more push back there will be from Russia, now providing deadly weapons in the Middle East!

What goes around comes from.

.Szamuely

And as far as Ukraine is concerned, really, this is their first big coup against the Russians since September 2022, and they’re obviously quite pleased about this. And I think that’s largely what’s going on here. It’s very hard to see how they can hold onto the territory in Kursk for any length of time. But I think it’s quite likely that they will inflict severe casualties on the Russians as the Russians mount their operation to drive the Ukrainians out, because the Russians are going to be sending their conscripts. That means soldiers who are not battle-hardened, who are very inexperienced, and therefore they are likely to suffer considerable casualties.

The Kharkov offensive in September 22 was hardly a “coup”— more like a freebie.

The Russians had largely withdrawn from Kharkov and wanted to redeploy what troops they had left there in good order to the Donbass / Kherson region to deal with the Ukrainian offensive there.

They did not contest the Kharkov offensive-- just attrited Ukrainian troops in the open spaces and fields.

The Ukrainians would have been better off using their forces in the South where they ended up failing miserably.

So, while the Western media called it a “victory” for the Ukraine—was a Pyrrhic victory at best.

As for casualties, the Russians have suffered casualties – but not the severe casualties that the Ukrainians have.

Once again. Szamuely uses that word "conscripts".

It is the Ukrainians who send conscripts into battle with almost no training or experience whereas the Russians train their people for at least a year and only then introduce them to combat— gradually— keeping them in the rear at first ,

Szamuely

So an example of that was this attack on a convoy. Again, it seemed like a very foolish enterprise just to send a convoy, which was absolutely a sitting duck, for attack. So it’s likely that there will be severe Russian casualties before the Russians succeed in driving the Ukrainians out, of Kursk.

If I read this map correctly, the convoy attacked was some distance from the fighting.

In this kind of sudden assault with small numbers of attackers and also small numbers of defenders, both sides will try to interdict reinforcements, and each side will have at least some success.

The Russians sent a convoy because they needed reinforcements fast. They probably anticipated some losses, so seem to have chosen the safest route available. Evidently, not safe enough!

So in the Kursk offensive, the Russians lost a convoy of reinforcements, maybe even two – but the Ukrainians lost many more men, whole battalions.

Before this is over, they will have lost more than half their force! – and they have nothing to replace it with.

In the Donbas, Russian losses are now 1/10th to 1/15th that of the Ukrainians.

In Kursk, the Ukrainians will lose at least 3000. The Russians perhaps 300~400.

I find Szamuely’s views expressed in this discusssion strange. He is an intelligent man – and also a “progressive”—for example, very critical of NATO’s intervention in Serbia.

But, like many, I guiess he reads the mainstream media too much and too uncritically. Maybe because he also writes for them! (The Observer / Guardian. That is the trouble with working in the media – I should know having done it –media misinformation is infective.

What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually reads and hears. Oswald Spengler

Not just for the multitude.

Are You Normal?

I sent out the Special Report on the difference between you and the Borg in the hopes it will dissuade you from getting a brain implant—although with profiteering in the tech industry you won’t be able to afford it anyway.

I zipped the article in three formats —docx, pdf and epub. 4.4 Mb.

However, I got a LOT of error messages, most of them suspiciously involving outlook.com. Is that because I dissed Bill Gates?