The Ukraine War has been nothing if not an evolution of journalistic groupthink in the U.S.

We’ve gone from the early stages of the war when the Russian military was ridiculed as being impotent and in disarray. That consensus evolved into allegations that the Russian forces were barbaric war criminals.

The media presented the war as though Ukraine was winning, and somehow still managed to make the American public believe that it needed a massive counteroffensive to win back about 20 percent of the country from Russia. That counteroffensive was believed to have started weeks ago, but after a failure to launch, reports said last week that now the counteroffensive may have begun in earnest.

Don’t hold your breath. (See “PUTIN: COUNTEROFFENSIVE HAS FAILED”25 Jul 2023 and “U.S. ADMITS WHAT WE HAD FORECAST: UKRAINE’S COUNTEROFFENSIVE CONTRACTING, RUSSIAN CAPABILITIES UNDERESTIMATED” 11 Jul 2023.)

The mainstream media continues to invite the same “military analysts” on their programs who predicted Russia’s demise months ago, and continue to ignore media figures like Gerald Celente, the publisher of The Trends Journal; Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector; and Douglas MacGregor, the retired U.S. Army colonel, who have been saying since the start of the war that Ukraine has no chance of defeating the lethal Russian military. 

There have been examples of the news media sobering up to reality. USA Today, the national paper, ran a story last week titled, “‘Zelensky is in a Box’: Some Experts Say Ukraine Won’t Win the War,” or at least on the battlefield, anyway. 

TRENDPOST: The big lie circulating in the media has been that Russia is bent on world domination and will not stop when it rolls over Kyiv. The Trends Journal has reported on hard facts that completely dismiss that theory. Russia wants Kyiv to stop killing Russian speakers in the Donbas and it wants Ukraine to be neutral, and not a member of NATO. (See “BIDEN PREPARING NATO FOR LONG WAR IN UKRAINE” 18 Jul 2023, “ZELENSKY: U.S. HAS 2 CHOICES IF UKRAINE IS DEFEATED: WATCH THE DEMISE OF NATO, OR GO TO WAR” 27 Jun 2023, “NATO’S STOLTENBERG VOWS TO SUPPORT UKRAINE UNTIL VICTORY OVER RUSSIA” 25 Apr 2023, and “BULLSHIT BLINKEN: UKRAINE HAS SEIZED 50 PERCENT OF OCCUPIED TERRITORY FROM RUSSIA” 25 Jul 2023.)

Steven Myers, an Air Force veteran who served on the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy under two secretaries of state, told USA Today that despite the media’s claims, Russia’s tactics have been “completely inconsistent with conquest.”

“Strategically, this war was lost by both sides before it started,” he said. “It will end in a stalemate, which I now think was Putin’s intent from the get-go. President Biden, NATO, and Zelensky have trapped themselves in a Catch-22 of their own making unable to deliver on unrealistic expectations created.”

Another establishment foreign policy expert, Sean McFate, professor at Syracuse University and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, told the paper that Zelensky backed himself into a box because he has no chance of winning, and he can’t afford to lose either.

He told the paper that NATO countries are experiencing “donor fatigue and disappointment with Zelensky’s bluster.”

The paper noted how President Vladimir Putin said the fighting in the southeastern part of the country has intensified dramatically in recent days and there’s belief that Kyiv may have discovered some holes in the Russian defenses that previously seemed all but impenetrable.

This is the same offensive that was promoted by the Western media as some kind of looming tsunami for Russian troops. The offensive has been barely a ripple, but despite the bullshit presented in the media, military leaders in the West knew all along that Ukraine did not have the training, weapons, or logistics to wage a successful counteroffensive, according to The Wall Street Journal.

WSWS, citing the report, noted that it was the hope in the West that Ukrainian forces would wage a miracle counteroffensive based on bravery and grit and would win the day.

“They haven’t. Deep and deadly mind fields, extensive fortifications, and Russian air power have combined to largely block significant advances by Ukrainian troops,” the report said. 

Zelensky, once again, blamed the West for dragging its feet when providing weapons before the counteroffensive. He told CNN last week that the plan was to start it in spring. 

“But we didn’t, because, frankly, we had not enough munitions and armaments and not enough brigades properly trained in these weapons, still, more, that the training missions were held outside Ukraine. But, still, we started. And this is important,” he said.