Atlanticist press begins to admit that Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk may have been (yet another) fatal mistake by Zelensky

For months now, the Atlanticist press (that is, the press serving NATO narratives) has not provided any good news about the war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky has only shown his face to ask for money, or, more recently, to remind people that he has no intention of honoring his debts either.

It has been a long time since the “rich” world witnessed such a formidable drain on resources. Almost every week we hear that some NATO member has decided to sink a few more billions, or tens of billions, of dollars into a war that, as everyone knows, Ukraine has already lost.

It was with a certain skeptical, not to say cynical, or perhaps morbid curiosity that we followed the news that Ukraine had decided to invade Russian territory and occupy areas around the Kursk region.

The Atlanticist press, an unconditional supporter of the Zelensky regime and deeply hostile to Russia, treated the news with barely disguised relief. “Finally some good news,” was what could be read between the lines, although Zelensky’s action was so clearly lacking in strategic sense that cautious approaches could be seen here and there.

The Russians reacted furiously, as expected, with accusations that it was a more directly coordinated operation than they had seen before by non-Ukrainian military officers. And they reported reports from Kursk residents of mercenaries speaking American English and other Western languages ​​among the Ukrainian battalions that had invaded the region.

The Ukrainian incursion into Kursk began on August 6. So, 10 days have passed, and after that we noticed that the euphoric tone of the Atlanticist media began to change, and in a dramatic way. The analysts consulted now admit that the Ukrainian initiative may have been a tragic mistake by Zelensky, or by whoever masterminded the invasion.

I will not dwell on what the Russian media, such as RT, or even the Turkish media, such as Anadolu Agency, say, which bring devastating numbers for Ukraine.

I only bring one piece of information:

“In general, during the fighting in the Kursk direction, the enemy lost up to 2,640 servicemen, 37 tanks, 32 armored personnel carriers, 23 infantry fighting vehicles, 206 armored combat vehicles, 96 vehicles, four anti-aircraft missile systems, three multiple rocket launchers, 20 field artillery guns and three electronic warfare stations,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, according to the Turkish agency.

But let’s go to the Atlanticist media, or pro-NATO media, or Western media, whatever you want. What are they saying today about the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk?

Well, the triumphant tone has definitely cooled. The headlines and opening lines of stories in newspapers like the Washington Post, Politico and CNN still try to maintain a false sense of optimism in their headlines and opening lines, possibly in the hope that most readers will stick around. But if you read the stories all the way through, you’ll find that the reality is quite different.

Let’s go to our analysis.

Let’s start with CNN, which published last night (August 15th at 7pm) a news story whose title and headline, curiously, change meaning as the text progresses, until they acquire a meaning exactly opposite to that suggested at the beginning.

CNN: Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from occupied Ukraine to counter Kursk offensive, US officials say

Russia appears to have diverted thousands of troops from occupied territory inside Ukraine to counter a surprisingly successful Ukrainian offensive inside Russian borders, in a move that potentially weakens Moscow’s war effort, two senior US officials told CNN.

The development has drawn U.S. attention, and U.S. officials are now working to determine precisely how many troops Russia is moving, but sources said several brigade-sized elements, comprising at least 1,000 soldiers each, appear to have moved into the Kursk region, where Ukraine launched an operation last week.

Wow!

With a title and headline like that, you’d expect this to be a story that categorically shows Ukraine’s imminent triumph on this new front, wouldn’t you? Just a little while longer and Zelensky’s armies will be entering Moscow, doing the job that Napoleon and Hitler, at the head of the greatest military forces of their time, failed to do so dramatically.

But no.

Towards the final half of the report, however, what was suggested at the beginning is turned upside down.

(…) Still, Russia is believed to have hundreds of thousands of troops on the front lines in Ukraine, so diverting a few thousand may not have a big impact in the short term, officials said.

Russia also does not appear to be moving its largest and best-trained units away from Ukraine and toward Kursk yet, two other sources familiar with Western intelligence said. One of those sources said Russia appears to be bolstering Kursk’s defenses mostly with untrained recruits drawn from elsewhere in Russia.

“We have not yet seen substantial movement [de tropas russas] and we can’t say whether that’s just because they’re just starting to move forces or whether they just don’t have the forces to move,” said one of the sources familiar with U.S. intelligence.

In addition to the troops transferred from inside Ukraine, Russia has also sent personnel from Russia’s Leningrad and Kaliningrad military districts to help defend Kursk, a top U.S. official said.

While acknowledging the limited success of the Kursk operation so far, several American and Western officials familiar with the latest intelligence have warned that it is extremely unlikely that Ukraine will be able to hold the territory for long and have stressed that it is too early to judge how the operation will affect the broader outcome of the war.

In other words, not only are the “thousands of Russian troops” being diverted from the Ukrainian front to defend Kursk an insignificant number compared to the hundreds of thousands of Russians operating inside Ukraine, but they are not even the “best trained” troops being used. At this point, the headline and the article’s title have already died of starvation. But there is more.

The report ends with an extremely pessimistic analysis of Ukraine, made by “some authorities” consulted:

(…) Some officials have also raised concerns that Ukraine, which one Western official said had sent some of its most experienced forces to Kursk, may have created weaknesses on its own front lines that Russia could exploit to gain more territory inside Ukraine.

“It’s impressive from a military point of view,” the officer said of the Kursk operation. But Ukraine is “committing very experienced troops to this and they cannot afford to lose those troops.”

“And diverting them from the front line creates opportunities for Russia to seize the advantage and advance,” this person added.

The last sentence of the article means that, in fact, the Ukrainian incursion into Dursk may benefit Russia!

The Washington Post report, also published yesterday evening (August 15), follows the same style. The headlines and first paragraphs are triumphant for Ukraine, but the tone changes throughout the text. Towards the end, the report brings accounts and photos of Ukrainian soldiers lying devastated on hospital stretchers due to the failed attempt to advance beyond Kursk.

(…) The Ukrainians advanced about six miles, the soldiers said, taking over abandoned Russian troop positions. But the fighting remained intense. “Our entire group was wounded the day we arrived,” Hacker said. Many Ukrainian troops were concussed or seriously wounded, while others were killed and had to be left behind, he said.

The bombardment continued so intense that survivors had to take shelter in Russian trenches for days until an armored vehicle arrived to evacuate them for medical treatment on Thursday morning. Some were wounded more than once while waiting for help.

The hacker said he feared being killed in Russia “because we didn’t know their territory.”

“We were working blind,” he added.

Finally, we have the article published on the Politico blog yesterday morning (August 15), which is a little more honest. But only a little.

The title is only half honest:

As Kiev gains ground in Kursk, Russia strikes back in Donetsk

Half sincere because it begins with a lie. Kiev is not gaining ground in Kursk. On the contrary, efforts to go further have failed, and Ukrainian forces have already begun to suffer heavy losses in the region. The entire operation is completely suicidal, because if Ukraine cannot contain Russia on its own territory, where it has guaranteed supplies, what can be expected of its performance inside Russia, where it can be surrounded, suffocated and destroyed at any moment?

But the second half of the headline, which talks about the Russian counterattack in Donestsk is true, and you have to get to the last half of the report to find the information:

(…) But while the successes of the surprise Kursk operation have boosted Kiev’s morale, Russian forces are fighting back, capturing more territory around Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Since Ukraine launched the Kursk offensive, “I would say things have gotten worse on our side of the front,” said Ivan Sekach, a spokesman for Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized Brigade, which is currently deployed in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk region. “We have been receiving even less ammunition than before, and the Russians are pushing,” he told POLITICO.

In the past 24 hours, Russia has occupied the villages of Zhelanne and Orlivka and made advances in New York, Krasnohorivka, Mykolaivka and Zhuravka in Donetsk, according to an update published by DeepState, a war mapping project close to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces neither confirmed nor denied the report, saying only that heavy fighting was taking place in those areas and that Kiev was concentrating its efforts on the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

Note the absolutely desperate statement by Ukrainian army spokesman Ivan Sekach that things “have gotten worse on our side of the front,” when this is the most vital side for Ukraine, which is the front inside its own territory.

When the Atlanticist press itself can no longer hide the resounding failure of this ridiculous NATO war against Russia (yes, because it was not Russia that started it, but NATO, with its irresponsible expansionism. Read Mearsheimer’s analysis of the origins of the conflict here), then things are really looking bad for Zelensky!