Putank, ©2022, William L. Brown
“Here bomb from plane now, very scare[d]” says my former student, I’ll call her Victoria.
Victoria and her mother live in a village within a Russian-occupied area. Shells, rockets and missiles have been fired over and near them since the attack began three weeks ago. At one point the Russians placed an artillery unit in the village center just a few houses away - as described in previous NativeCpeaker articles.
If she can get to a certain small city 64 kilometers away, she can buy a ride for about $80 to the nearest big city where she can get a bus to Germany for 300 Euros. She has the money. She speaks German, she has friends there, she had a job opportunity there two years ago - lost in the first COVID lockdown.
But, there is no way she can cross those 64 kilometers (40 miles). Drivers are too terrified to attempt it. They know what happened, Victoria says, to a couple driving on a local road. They were shot, then the car was crushed by a column of tanks. There was nothing left to bury, she says. Their two children live in the village, she adds.
I guess that because shelling continues around and in their village - and now an air-strike - her area is actively contested. Not a good place to be. There’s nothing I can do about it except read Victoria’s texts, answer as best I can and feel helpless.
Currently I am in Germany. I came here to meet with some Ukrainian friends. These were friends who were my support network back in Ukraine. First, a friend and her son who were basically my “host family” in Dnipro. Then a young couple in Kyiv who helped me find an apartment, set up my utilities and services, drove me to the doctor when I could barely walk, checked up on me when I had COVID, and made sure I was not alone on my birthday and New Years Eve.
I’ve met these friends, except for one, and seen that they are being well taken care of. The one friend who is not here is a male of “fighting age,” and therefore not allowed to leave the country. He is still in Kyiv. We had a couple of video chats, however, and he showed me his store of food to reassure me he will not starve. That’s fine as long as his building is not bombed.
It has been almost a month since the war started and there are hopeful signs. The Russian blitzkrieg was more snail- than lightening-like, most of their objectives were denied them, and in at least one area near Kyiv the Ukrainians are pushing them back.
I’ve seen a pattern in news coverage since this began. Coverage from outside Ukraine reports the war as a losing battle for Ukraine. Coverage from inside Ukraine sees the war as a losing battle for Russia. It seems a fair assumption that news in Ukraine is biased and probably fed by official propaganda.
If that were the case, however, there would be obvious disparities between propaganda and news coverage from objective western news sources, and the official line would be frequently recalibrated to mesh with the facts.
But, it has been the other way around. Western news is repeatedly recalibrated. They report surprising (to them) Russian defeats and failures while holding on to the assumption that Ukraine will ultimately lose. The tenor of western news stories is that though Russia can make no headway, and though it seems to be losing a lot of troops and military gear, as soon as the fresh, crack troops and material that Russia has been holding in reserve get here, poor gallant Ukraine will be crushed, as predicted. They cling to their belief that since Russia is the mightier nation, there must be a strategic reason they haven’t won yet. I frequently hear or read that must be holding their best troops and equipment in reserve. As unlikely as it has proved to be, western media continue to put their news stories within this frame.
Ukraine news, meanwhile, has been consistent. Ukraine fights for every centimeter of land. The Russian advance on Kyiv was been slowed, then stopped. Russia has achieved almost none of its objectives. Russians are dying by the thousands, their morale is low. When not being shot up or burned, their equipment is breaking down and running out of fuel. The ground assault thwarted, Russians can only bomb, terrorize and kidnap civilians. There are no “fresh, crack troops” in reserve.
Though tinged with more emotion and patriotic fervor, the news from within Ukraine has been more consistent and unrevised-to-fit-reality than the news from supposedly objective sources. Western news media should maybe check their assumptions.
I had the honor of being interviewed again for Eric Bond’s Talk of Takoma.
Other interviews, including one of my friend Larysa in Ukraine can be found here.
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That's not the impression I've been getting from the British papers I read, Bill - The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Guardian and The Daily Mail. The opinion pieces vary according to the writer, but the overall impression from the news I'm seeing is that the Ukrainians are hanging on, even making progress and that Putin has painted himself into a corner - pretty much what you describe as the 'Ukrainian news' position in fact.