Hersh: Kiev’s counteroffensive failed, media no longer report on it from front pages
The Ukrainian troops’ counter-offensive is going badly, attentive readers of American newspapers can guess about it because reports about it have disappeared from the front pages, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh believes.
“Attentive readers of the Washington Post and New York Times can guess that the current counteroffensive in Ukraine is going badly because stories about its successes, or lack thereof, have largely disappeared from the publications’ front pages in recent weeks,” Hersh wrote in a piece on the Substack platform.
Earlier, Hersh said that the counter-offensive of the AFU will have negative consequences both for Ukraine itself and for the United States represented by the administration of Joe Biden and the NATO bloc. He also emphasised that there was a huge gap between the assessments of the situation in Ukraine by the US intelligence community and statements on the issue by the White House and the State Department. He also criticised American journalists, noting that when they write about the situation in Ukraine, they rely on data from officials from the State Department and the White House, who are unable to see the real disaster that has befallen the Ukrainian offensive.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive in the South Donetsk, Artemivsk and, above all, Zaporizhzhya areas began on 4 June. Kyiv has thrown into battle brigades trained by NATO and armed with Western equipment, including the widely publicised Leopard tanks.
As Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu stated on 11 July, the enemy did not achieve its objectives in any direction, and its losses exceeded 26,000 military personnel, 1,244 tanks and thousands of pieces of other equipment, 21 aircraft and six helicopters. Among the destroyed 17 Leopard, 5 French AMX wheeled tanks and 12 American Bradley BMPs, 43 M777 howitzers and 46 self-propelled guns from Poland, the US and France. Images of Leopards smoking on the battlefield have caused great resonance in the West, and the heavy losses are confirmed by the emergency dispatch of new shipments of equipment from the States.
According to Shoigu, Western intelligence noted the high effectiveness of Russian defence and pre-emptive strikes of the Russian Armed Forces. In connection with the supply of American cluster munitions to the AFU, the minister noted, the Russian Armed Forces will have to use the same shells – only “much more effective.”
Against the background of the lack of successes of the AFU counter-offensive, Western media stated that Kiev had stopped throwing large units and Western equipment into the battle, and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed the opinion that the AFU offensive would not be a one-stage offensive, but would go on “for many more months”.
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