Martin Jay
Ukraine will eventually face the same fate German units in northwest France faced during the Allied invasion of 1944.
Who was it who said that the first casualty of war is truth ? In the Ukraine war, could it be that Pokrovsk-a crucial town in the Donbas-is the epitome of that adage ? Many Western analysts sympathetic to Russia, even Americans, have been claiming for weeks that this strategic town has fallen to the Russian army, when the reality is that it is very close to falling-but not yet. Ukraine is holding on and, in all fairness, has put up a formidable fight. But the truth is they simply don't have the numbers of battle-hardened soldiers, and it is infantry numbers that ultimately matter. Russia has encircled the city except for a part of the north, where the last remnants of hardcore Ukrainian soldiers are holding out.
Much has been made in Western media about Russian casualties, but little if anything is reported about Ukrainian losses in mainstream outlets. For that, you have to go to social media-like footage of a recent raid involving three American-piloted Black Hawk helicopters, which were shot down, with all Ukrainian special forces on board believed to have perished.
How much of the Pokrovsk story is told-or misrepresented-through journalists' reporting ? Quite a bit, in fact. One recent report by the BBC on December 9 is starting to draw attention in Russia for a number of odd reasons, primarily because of how revealing the dispatch was, despite its clear objective of misleading the Ukrainian army and its people.
The report was, in many ways, very poor journalism. In war zones, correspondents are often placed in a logistics or operations room, which the host army offers as a kind of privilege-it's the heart of the action, with live feeds from monitors and commanders shouting into radios. This happened to me in Afghanistan in 2008 with the British army, and I can relate to the "live" feel of it, as well as being at the centre of communications. But at least then, everything was in English.
In Pokrovsk, a BBC correspondent took up the same offer. His report didn't make any bold statements or provide clear facts, figures, or claims-except for one, which may have been a slip-up by the Ukrainian ministry responsible for manufacturing such "news." A Ukrainian soldier revealed that the army was still holding part of the town's north and had 300 soldiers there. Three hundred. What an extraordinary admission to make to the press, given that troop numbers are critical intelligence-if they were true.
We'll never know for sure, because the nature of such BBC reporting is to do the least amount of due diligence possible when covering wars in which London has a stake. The same disinformation operates on a colossal scale in the BBC's coverage of the war in Gaza, as a recent investigation revealed-exposing the extent of editorial influence over the language used in such reports.
We can assume the same in Ukraine. The BBC's report on the Ukrainian army's control centre lacked credibility on every level. It felt as though the whole point of the segment was to boost morale among Ukrainian soldiers across the country by suggesting their comrades were still holding out. One interviewee even implied as much, while the camera framed him against a neo-Nazi flag in the background. A nice touch.
The entire piece seemed constructed around a commander on the radio telling a soldier on the front line to step out of a building and wave a Ukrainian flag-just to make a point to the BBC journalist. Look: a soldier. With a flag. Surely this proves Pokrovsk hasn't fallen and reports of Russian dominance are wildly exaggerated!
Such amateur dramatics is presented as old-school reporting, and with an English middle-class accent narrating, it can almost feel like journalism. But the piece was, at best, a diary entry-and it was written up verbatim as such on the BBC's website. The BBC's reporting in Gaza, and earlier in Syria, has been so shamefully biased-and in some cases fabricated-that this Ukraine "man with a flag" report must be categorised accordingly. Nothing to see here.
Given the timing of the report-nine days before the EU shamefully signed off on a €90 billion loan to keep the war going in Ukraine via its national budget-the segment put a brave face on Ukraine's dire situation. Still fighting. But for how long ? Ukraine has maintained a drone campaign there with some impressive results, but it will eventually face the same fate German units in northwest France faced during the Allied invasion of 1944. The Germans fought incredibly well, and their tanks-Panthers and Tigers-were superior to those of the Allies. But in the end, they were simply outnumbered. This will be Ukraine's fate in Pokrovsk, whether they can hold on for a few more weeks or a few more months.