Ian Proud
Western officials and journalists take numbers from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as truer than the Gospel.
There has been an enormous cancellation of debate on Ukraine in the mainstream western media. Google does its part too, making it very difficult in the west to search for and find genuinely independent reporting on what is happening. When you search for key issues, such as Ukrainian casualty rates, ultra-nationalism in Ukraine, presidential elections or the state of Ukraine's economy, the computer will normally say no.
Let's look at those areas where independent information and analysis is actively withheld from western citizens.
The number of Ukrainian casualties
In a war that has killed or injured, by most accounts, over a million people, the issue of which side has suffered most may appear academic. Why can't we stop the killing, would be my first question?
But the western media often claims that Russia has suffered far greater casualties than Ukraine. They do this to maintain the argument that, even though Ukraine is losing on the battlefield, it could still win the war. This is completely false.
The go-to figure used by western journalists is that 1,500 Russian troops are being lost on the front line every day. This number has no basis in analysis but is rather plucked from a Ukrainian military intelligence report of early November. Recognising that it is in the interests of both sides in a conflict to embellish the other side's casualty figures, western officials and journalists nevertheless take numbers from the Ukrainian Defence Ministry as truer than the Gospel.
What the Ukrainian side almost never does is to admit the shocking number of Ukrainian casualties so far. In a rare announcement on the subject, Zelensky suggested in December 2004 that 43,000 Ukrainian troops had died. No serious analysts believes that figure. I have seen estimates of upwards of 700,000 Ukrainian dead or injured. Looking at the six separate exchanges of dead bodies between the Russian and Ukrainian side during 2024 which have been reported in the press, six times more bodies were returned to Ukraine (1611) compared to Russia (273). That doesn't mean that Ukraine has suffered six times as many deaths, as Russia has been advancing and Ukraine retreating. But few serious analysts really believe that Russia is suffering a higher rate of casualties than Ukraine, quite the opposite.
Yet talking about Ukrainian casualties in the western media would reaffirm the assessment many realists have made, that Ukraine is losing on the battlefield, suffering greater casualties than Russia, and urgently needs to sue for peace.
The 'Russia is suffering more' narrative is merely a PR tool to bolster Zelensky's never-ending quest to keep fighting and to receive additional billions in support from the west in a battle he can't win.
Ultra-nationalism in Ukraine
I have never believed that most Ukrainians are Nazis, but there is a huge body of evidence to suggest that Nazi-sympathising groups have a disproportionate influence on state policy in Ukraine. Western media seldom discusses this.
A recent ultra-nationalist torch parade in Lviv to commemorate the birthdate of the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera received no western coverage, for example. Nor the extinguishing of a Jewish menora statue. Any suggestion that there is a deeply unpleasant ultra-nationalist core at the heart of decision making in Kiev is written off as pro-Russian propaganda.
It didn't used to be like this. In the run up to the Polish and Ukrainian hosting of the Euro 2012 Football championship, there was widespread reporting in UK media about the risk of anti-Semitism among Polish and Ukrainian football fans. The Kyiv Post reported on Svoboda's anti-Semitic and racist tendencies when, in 2012, the marginal ultra-nationalist party form western Ukraine gained seats in the Verkhovna Rada. In the aftermath of the 2014 coup to remove Viktor Yanukovych, the western press cautiously reported on the prevalence of ultranationalists like Right Sector in the Maidan protests; they instead minimise their role, particularly in the killing of 100 protestors by snipers, despite evidence suggesting their possible involvement or complicity. In 2015, politico was still describing Svoboda, Patriot of Ukraine and the Social-Nationalist Assembly as neo-Nazi organisations. A 2019 photo essay in the Guardian newspaper suggested the Azov battalion was also neo-Nazi and had propagated white supremacist views. Yet this same group was welcomed with open arms into the Reform Club in London by Boris Johnson in the spring of 2024, who greeted them as 'heroes'.
It is now entirely commonplace to see black and red flags of the neo-Nazi Ukraine Insurgent Army displayed at Ukrainian military ceremonies, even at the passing out parade of the Anna of Kyiv Battalion that was trained in France. A cross-chest fascist salute is commonplace in photographs of Ukrainian army formations. The term 'Slava Ukraini' slips off the tongues of western political leaders more easily that 'Heil Hitler', as they don't obviously seem to appreciate it's neo-Nazi associations.
The most corrosive aspect of Ukrainian ultra-nationalism has been the relentless quest since 2014 for Ukrainian to be the sole and only language spoken in Ukraine. This first manifested itself in the declaration of the Verkhovna Rada on 24 February 2014, two days after Yanukovych's ouster, to cancel the Kolesnichenko language law which allowed for Russian to be considered on of Ukraine's state languages, among others. Perhaps more than other reckless moves by the Ukrainian side, attempting to deny the Russian language to a significant proportion of Ukraine's population that speaks Russian as a first language, was the act that provoked Russian intervention.
By refusing to talk about the challenge of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine, western commentators are potentially contributing to its growth and for the maintenance of a war posture in Kiev. It is also holding back prospects for Ukraine to emerge from war and continue on its road to potential future EU membership.
The absence of democratic elections
The issue of ultra-nationalism is perhaps not seen as a pressing challenge right now, as Ukraine itself is going through a markedly undemocratic phase, given the constraints of war. Because western commentators also seldom talk about the pause in presidential elections in Ukraine.
These elections in Ukraine should have taken place in Ukraine in March 2024, but were postponed sine die because the country is under martial law. This is not necessarily an illegitimate move. Elections didn't take place in the United Kingdom for ten years between 1935 and 1945 because of the intervention of World War II. However, in the United Kingdom, the government was comprised of a coalition representing the two main political parties, the Conservatives and Labour. This was despite the Conservative party having a very large majority in Parliament. During the war, political power in Britain was shared in the interests of the nation.
However, in Ukraine, no such division of power exists. Zelensky has centralised all power into the office of President. By edict, he can rule on any topic, for example, making it illegal for any official to hold talks with Russia about peace. For now, any decision to negotiate with Russia an end of the war appears entirely to be in his power.
Ukraine, though, has found itself in the perfect storm of losing the war slowly yet continuing to receive billions of dollars' worth of aid and loans each year. If Ukraine was losing in a more dramatic way on the battlefield, there would be more internal pressure for Zelensky to sue for peace. But, for now, western sponsors appear happy to keep paying for slow defeat. Western leaders treat Zelensky like a superhero when he visits, yet Ukrainian opinion polls suggest that he would lose a Presidential election to Zaluzhny, and that many Ukrainians believe Zelensky shouldn't even stand for office again. Zelensky has now started using excuses such as that it would be impossible to hold elections with so many Ukrainians living outside the country; although that didn't seem to be a problem in the recent elections in Moldova, where diaspora voters tipped the vote in favour of Maia Sandu. The real issue here, I suggest, is that with over one million Ukrainians having moving to Russia, that Zelensky would not wish for them to vote.
Zelensky has fallen into the same trap that many dictators fall into, in believing that he is the state, and therefore indispensable. So, it is not in Zelensky's interests to negotiate an end to the war, as that would almost certainly mean an end to his political career.
Even Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence - Tulsi Gabbard - has described Zelensky as an unelected dictator. But you will never hear the western media talk about that. They have spent three years lionising Zelensky and it would be damaging to their credibility to suggest that, rather then being part of the solution, he may be part of the problem.
The state of Ukraine's economy
As war grinds on, there is considerable western reporting of the state of Russia's economy. Despite Russia forecast to grow by over 3% in 2024, when final figures are released, western journalists portray an imminent meltdown on the back of admittedly high inflation and interest rates caused by the massive fiscal stimulus of war spending. However, Russia's foundations remain strong with state debt at only 14% and international reserves topping $620bn (including that part which is currently frozen by sanctions). There's no evidence to suggest Russia will be unable to continue to prosecute a war for the foreseeable future.
On the other hand, Ukraine's economy is entirely dependent on foreign handouts. Of the $93bn budget that was set for 2024, almost fifty percent of that cost was to be met by lending, either from western donors or domestic bonds to Ukrainian citizens. Another $12.5bn would be provided in the form of free handouts from the west, the biggest donor being the U.S. So, Ukraine racked up over $44bn in new debt in 2024 - or almost one quarter of GDP - and will do the same in 2025. The economic cost of the war is completely unsustainable for Ukraine with debt soaring above 100% of GDP and no plan to repay it. Indeed, it is far from clear that any donor government will receive back the money they have lent to Ukraine. And the worst part is, there is no plan to keep paying the bills in Ukraine after 2026. So, in the entirely plausible - though hopefully unlikely - eventually that western leaders are persuaded by Zelensky to keep fighting into 2026, they may be shocked to discover that they will need to pay for it.
If this was covered in the western media, there would be far more pressure among western voters to bring the war to its resolution, because Ukraine isn't winning but Zelensky is still writing cheques at our expense.