Media: a matter of priorities

By Richard North - July 10, 2023

It says something of the state of the nation that the dominant theme in today’s media is the behaviour of an as yet unnamed BBC presenter and the action taken by his employer.

It is hard to see that the UK media focus and volume of reporting could be any different, especially as the BBC’s main preoccupation is its own affairs. But one cannot help but observe that, in the grand scheme of things, there are far more pressing priorities which should have a greater call on our attention.

Despite that, or possibly because of the focus on the BBC, there is no alternative theme emerging to unify the news agenda which means that, if we take the BBC out of the picture, today’s newspapers are all over the place, unable to decide which of the many issues should command the front-page headlines.

For me, that is perhaps just as well for, after yesterday’s piece and – shall we say – a “robust” exchange of comments, my thinking is still very much focused on Mr Zelensky’s counter-offensive.

An article which has emerged since my last piece comes in the Wall Street Journal and is one which I could have built into mine, headed as it is, “Why the Ukraine Counteroffensive Is Such Slow Going”.

Written by two WSJ staffers, Ian Lovett and Daniel Michaels, with contributions from three more writers, they tell us: “Outgunned, outmanned and facing a deeply entrenched enemy, Ukrainian troops are attempting one of the most daunting operations a military can undertake”, in a subheading which just about encapsulates the difficulties being encountered.

There is no need to rehearse much of the detail found in the piece – which will be familiar to many readers – but there is no pretence about the fate of the counter-offensive. There is a clear acknowledgement that it has “stalled”, at least in the Zaporizhzhia oblast which is covered by the narrative.

To give a taste of the account, however, we have Ukrainian soldiers telling the authors that the Russians have constructed miles of zigzagging, interconnected trenches, some of them reinforced with concrete, or covered with wood-and-earth roofs so they are difficult to spot using drones.

Fields, as we know from previous reports, are heavily mined. In at least two cases, Ukrainian soldiers said, the bodies of their killed comrades had been mined as well.

But then, in what is a telling indication of the heart of the Ukrainian problems, we hear from a 38-year-old rifle unit commander in the 108th brigade, who goes by the call sign Vados.

“It’s impossible to completely destroy such a well-prepared position before advancing”, he says. “To be able to take it, Ukrainian artillery forces would need to first bombard the area and then advance with armoured vehicles to bring in infantry”. But, he adds: “A shortage of tanks and other armoured vehicles has made that strategy hard to execute”.

There is no hint in this part of the narrative that the Ukrainians are carrying out reconnaissance probes, with a view to assessing enemy strength, or that that are deliberately engaging in attritional warfare.

The WSJ authors tell us something, mostly, we all know, that assaulting entrenched occupiers has been a grinding feat even for the world’s top armed forces.

Allies in World War II, after gaining a beachhead in France on D-Day, they say, needed more than two months to break through German blockades and push inland. In 1991, before coalition land forces advanced in Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. led a five-week air campaign to wear down Iraqi positions.

And then comes the payoff: “Ukraine lacks the firepower and air-superiority that America and its partners had in those fights”, the writers say. This confirms what I stated yesterday, that the Ukrainians lack the mass to deliver the “shock” effect needed to prevail on the battlefield and break through enemy defences.

We get more of this further in the WSJ piece, when we are told that Kiev is trying to soften the Russian defences before sending troops in but doesn’t have enough ammunition to flatten Russian-held villages, as the Russians did in Bakhmut and other parts of eastern Ukraine.

Instead, we learn, Ukrainian troops usually make artillery strikes only if they have confirmed Russian positions with drones – a reflection, no doubt, of the chronic lack of ammunition.

Vados, the rifle-unit commander, is once again brought in to tell us that his unit had tried to assault a Russian-held village but, as Ukrainian infantry advanced on foot, the Russians moved to surround them.

“If we had more vehicles, we could have brought more infantry to the flanks”, Vados, says. “Instead, the unit retreated without taking the village”. The commander adds that, in the month since the offensive began, he hadn’t been part of an operation that had successfully seized a well-prepared Russian position.

Interestingly, there is a reference to new Western equipment, much of which has yet to be thrown into the battle. Since several Leopard 2 tanks got stuck in minefields in early June, they haven’t been seen on the battlefield. Some brigades that were spared from the fighting earlier this year to train on the Western equipment also haven’t been used since the offensive began.

Only here is there any concession to received thinking, which comes from “military analysts” rather than soldiers in the field. It is these “analysts” who believe Ukraine is still probing for weak spots before committing the bulk of its Western weaponry, but – as disclosed by this report – reconnaissance is difficult because Russians can often see Ukrainians approaching across open ground.

This brings us to an article in today’s edition of The Times which provides an admirable coda, with the heading: “Ukrainian counteroffensive: ‘We take their trenches – but they take them back’.

This comes from Richard Spencer, writing near Velyka Novosilka, also on Ukraine’s southern front, with a sub-heading that observes: “A month into Ukraine’s counteroffensive, a turning point in the war remains elusive”.

Spencer recounts how two Ukrainian brigades, tasked with taking a village called Novodarivka, was held up for two weeks by a well-defended Russian “outpost” comprising little more than a trench, albeit deep, reinforced and well covered. “They must have lost 100 men”, says a unit commander. “We poured in shells, heavy artillery, everything. They still kept going”.

Just short of the Russian outpost, Spencer tells us, is a graveyard of Ukrainian armoured vehicles, including an upturned MaxxPro (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle), donated by the United States. Two more are pictured (see above).

As an aside, this is a misuse of this kit. These were designed as protected patrol vehicles in counter-insurgency warfare, to protect soldiers from mines and IEDs. They were never intended as, and are not suitable for use as, APCs in a conventional assault.

In this particular engagement, the assault had turned into an old-fashioned tank battle, with fire exchanged between tanks of the opposing forces. But, says Spencer, the tanks cannot move swiftly to establishing bridgeheads for the infantry, because of the lack of air cover. He also refers to the scale of Russia’s defences, protecting miles of minefields, tank traps and fortified, artillery-protected defensive positions to the rear.

By this means, the Ukrainians have advanced five miles in a month – not fast going, but even then is has been more successful than anywhere else. In Novodarivka, the Russian outpost eventually fell into Ukrainian hands, and the front moved forward. But there has been no mass breakthrough.

Oleksandr, a unit commander reinforces the gloom. “We shell their lines and force them to fall back, and our infantry take over their trenches”, he says. “Then the Russians bombard the same trenches and it’s our infantry’s turn to fall back”.

An infantry officer at the Russian outpost is even less sanguine. The Russians were regrouping, he says. Sources talk of a Russian build up to the southwest of the front. “Our job is to hold the line”, he adds.

Obviously, what we have here are only snapshots – a very small part of the bigger picture. But stripped to its essentials, what we see is not encouraging.

Maybe at the Nato summit, about to be held in Lithuania, Ukraine’s supporters might see the light, and start to commit the scale of weaponry that is really needed, rather than the penny packets on offer, amid a downturn in the overall level of support.

Without that, it is hard to see how Zelensky’s counter-offensive can succeed – presenting a real risk of stalemate. And that, as the only grown-up newspaper of the day indicates on its front page, is a lot more important than the travails of the BBC.