Ukraine War Day #473: Wrong Victims + Dead Cats + Charge Of the Meat Brigade

Dear Readers:

Today I have 3 quickies for your delectation:

Story #1: Heads are rolling at Ukrainian TV station after they showed wrong victims and wrong heroes. One needs to keep in mind that Ukrainian media and Russian media are reporting almost identical stories about the Kherson flooding, just with the names and roles switched. It’s like going to the theater to watch Frankenstein two nights in a row, where the first night Benedict Cumberbatch is Viktor Frankenstein, and the following night he is The Monster.

Russian media: Ukrainians blew up the dam. Ordinary Russians are victims, and are being evacuated by Russian Emergency Services. And doing this while the Ukrainians continue to shell staging areas filled with evacuees, almost as if to get off a few extra pot-shots at distressed Russian citizens.

Ukrainian media: Russians blew up the dam. Ordinary Ukrainians are victims, and are being evacuated by Zelensky personally. And doing this while the Russians continue to shell staging areas for evacuees, just because they’re so murderously evil.

BBC sheds crocodile tears over Kherson ordeal.

Also, when I say “Ukrainian media”, I mean Westie media in general; because this is precisely the narrative I have seen on, say CNN or BBC or Sky News, or any other of the Western whorehouse channels. Although, when it comes to Westie media, some of the confusion may be due to genuine ignorance: Their correspondents literally don’t seem to know the difference between the Left Bank and the Right Bank, which side is which, or exactly who was harmed by this catastrophe. For example, they showed photos of Zelensky posing on the high ground on the Right Bank and pretended that he was right in the middle of the flood zone. Rescuing an old lady and a kitten, obviously.

I linked this piece (above) which shows what happens when somebody accidentally slips out of the narrative. The reporter is Kristina Arutyunyan. On June 9, around 16:35 in the early evening, Ukrainian TV channel “Rada” broadcasted video showing people being evacuated from the flooded Left bank. Problem: The rescuers were clearly members of the Emergency Management forces of the Russian Federation, as shown by the markings (МЧС) on their boat and on their uniforms. “Rada” is managed by a man named Vladislav Matyash. Vladislav confirmed the allegations that Russian МЧС was shown in the broadcast, and apologized for the egregious mistake of showing factual video to his viewers: “This was a grievous error. A human error,” he confirmed. “As a result of it, many associates of the channel are going to lose their jobs.”

The TV news broadcast accidentally showed what was happening: Russian Emergency Services rescuing people.

Story #2: Ukrainian Tank Driver Shoots Tank In Front Of Him

Reader may be familiar with the events of the past few days, in which the Ukrainian counter-offensive in Zaporozhie resulted in a kind of “armored graveyard” of Western vehicles, including German Leopard tanks.

Russian military correspondent Alexander Sladkov, while chatting with Russian soldiers, learned about a very curious incident in the battle. An unfortunate Ukrainian tank driver did Russia’s job for them, by shooting up at least one, and possibly two, Leopard 2A4’s that happened to be trundling along in his column. Most probably, he totalled one tank while seriously damaging a second.

This is what happened, as was reported to Sladkov by a Russian officer: They noticed a Ukrainian column on the move. The Russians were watching them closely. When, to their surprise, they saw one of the tanks shoot his cannon directly at the tank in front of it. Most likely, the tank driver simply pushed the wrong button. The 120 mm shell destroyed the forward tank and damaged a second one that was trundling nearby.

At least one fewer cat out on the plains.

Story #3: Ukrainian soldiers complain about their NATO-trained officers

Reporter Dmitry Zubarev points us to an article in the Wall Street Journal (which I can’t read ’cause it’s behind a paywall and even the Wayback Machine demands a toll which I refuse to pay), but thank goodness I can read the Russian summary of the content! Just a stipulation that if anything described below diverges from the original WSJ content, then it’s not my fault, so please don’t sue me.

So, this Ukrainian Commander with call-sign Finn talked to the WSJ reporter about the hard slog that they were enduring. According to Finn, their shiny Western armored vehicles can barely make it through the soft Ukrainian earth, “because they were designed for combat in deserts and cities.” Yup, fighting Russia on the Eastern Front is not exactly the same thing as chasing flip-flop-wearing Arabs across the desert sand, or tearing up the city of Fallujah.

Finn blames the problem on the weather; plus the fact the Ukrainian officers who received NATO training, apparently didn’t receive very good training. Because the NATO training wasn’t really very good. It was maybe so-so. He says the soldiers feel disoriented in this situation, where, for some reason, they feel themselves to be in a constant state of danger.

Stavros?

Finn added that the Russian soldiers they encountered have performed better than expected. The Ukrainians were expecting a cake walk, they were told these Western tanks would just plow through Russian defenses like a knife through warm butter. Instead, the Russians they butted up against formed a “wall of steel”, in his words.

After quoting WSJ, Zubarev goes on to quote a retired NATO officer with the amazingly great name of Stavros Atlamazoglou. Greek, obviously. I googled the name, but I didn’t find the older officer dude I was expecting, I just found a young buck of that name, who is a military journalist. Good-looking chap, too.

Anyhow, this Stavros had reported that the Ukrainians, unfortunately for them, had the pleasure of coming up against the real Russian army. Up to this point, they had been fighting the back-benchers. The B-Team, so to speak. And golly, were they shocked when they encountered the A-Team. Stavros says that the West (like it always does) had seriously underestimated Russian defensive capabilities. Like, how they built a super-duper layered defense and were able to take out Western tanks like Leopard 2A6 and M2 Bradleys. It didn’t help that the Ukrainians had no air support, just infantry and cavalry charging into the breach. Just like the Charge of the Light Brigade:

An actual cake walk

Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
   All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
   Shattered and sundered.  [NOT]
Then they rode back, but not
   Not the six hundred.

Except that the Light Brigade chaps at least broke through the Russians first Defensive Line, whereas the Ukrainians apparently could not even make it through the strip of Security Zone to get to the first Line. A cake walk, indeed.