Ukraine: filtering the noise

By Richard North - May 18, 2022

There are times when the evening blogpost almost writes itself (I wish). The dominant issues are clear and the narrative follows a relatively coherent path. Unfortunately, that is not the case today, when contradictions and uncertainties blur the picture and the noise level is unduly high.

Ostensibly, yesterday was a big day for the Russians with the apparent collapse of resistance in the Azovstal steel plant after two months of bitter fighting.

Over the preceding days, 264 Ukrainian soldiers have been evacuated to hospitals in Russian-occupied Novoazovsk and Olenivka, of whom 53 were seriously wounded. It is said that 1,000 defenders remain in the redoubt and efforts to “rescue” these soldiers are continuing.

Yet, although the “evacuated” soldiers have been taken into captivity, only Moscow was initially calling it a surrender, although the Guardian has finally used the “s” word in today’s front page, having earlier just referred to the resistance ending.

This paper, The Times, and others, have now noted that the uninjured soldiers have been taken to a Russian prison colony where Azov Battalion members may face trial as “Nazi war criminals” and could be executed as “terrorists”.

Instead of acknowledging what is undoubtedly a serious reverse for the Ukrainian cause, the western media seem largely intent on talking up Russian problems, painting a picture of almost terminal decline in the capabilities of their armed forces.

Prominently featured in many papers is a commentary by retired Russian colonel, Mikhail Khodaryonok who has been talking down the prospects of a “good outcome” from the Ukraine invasion.

Speaking on Russian state television, he warned that the Ukrainians could field one million well-armed soldiers for the coming months, a “reality” the Russians needed to take into account. The situation for us, he said, “will frankly get worse”, leading him to be featured in the Mail urging Putin to “get out” of the conflict.

Khodaryonok, incidentally, last February wrote a piece for Nezavisimaya Gazeta warning that the predictions then current that Russia could defeat the Ukraine Army “in 30-40 minutes” had “no serious grounds”. He urged over-excited Russian experts to forget about their “fantasies”.

One should recall, though, that predictions of a rapid defeat for the Ukrainian Army were not confined to Russian experts. We had the Mail on 2 February warning that if the Russians invaded via Chernobyl, they would be in Kiev “in two hours”.

Now, those few months later, from being lauded as an all-conquering, invincible force, we have journalists who at the outset of the conflict couldn’t tell the difference between a tank and a BMP-2 explaining the finer details of Russian military incompetence and why the invasion was bound to fail.

Much adverse comment about Russian capabilities is still focused on the attempted crossing of the Siverskyi Donets River, near Bilohorivka, recently visited by a CNN news team.

Obediently, they retail the Ukrainian claims that “at least 73 units of equipment,” including T-72 tanks and a variety of infantry fighting vehicles, were destroyed, in the nine days of fighting when the Ukrainians used artillery fire to destroy the Russian pontoon bridge, and used ground forces to push back the armoured column.

While I have no reason to doubt that the Russians suffered a significant reverse at this crossing – not least indicated by the fact that this section of the river is currently in Ukrainian hands – it was interesting to see that the CNN report, while describing the destruction of T-72s, was illustrated by a picture of a burnt-out tank (pictured).

To my eye, though, this is most certainly not a T-72 and looks closer to a T-64 Bulat, a type operated exclusively by Ukrainian ground forces.

It had already puzzled me as to how it was that, in an armoured clash, the only wrecked vehicles should be Russian, when there should be at least some Ukrainian losses. The suspicion is that the Ukrainians – quite understandably – are over-egging their victory.

It also strikes me, though, that it is pretty pointless sending journalists to a battle site to write follow-up stories when they don’t know what they are looking at.

The worry is that, as “knocking copy” proliferates in the media – this piece having Putin taking personal change of a failing offensive – we are allowing the media to overstate Ukrainian capabilities, and denigrate Russian forces – reversing the positions held prior to the invasion.

What is rarely appreciated, though, is that while Twitter and the like feed on an unending diet of video clips showing (largely successful) attacks on Russian forces – heavily used by the western media – the Russian media is also pumping out its own equivalents, showing attacks on Ukrainian forces.

In fact, in many of the clips we see, there is no way of telling the identity of the targets and we have only the words of the publishers that they show what they purport to show. In some cases, the Russians and the Ukrainians have used the same clips.

And, while there is no question that the Russians are on the back foot (there is too much evidence, to suggest otherwise), it would be unwise to assume that the situation isn’t going to change – with or without Mr Putin.

Interestingly, in the same Nezavisimaya Gazeta that aired the doubts of Mikhail Khodaryonok, there was a think piece posted this month, on how the Russian army must adapt to meet the challenges of the “special operation” in Ukraine, with some observations of how this could be achieved.

Separately, we learn that the Russians are sending a new batch of the latest T-90M Proryv tanks to the front, after being “consecrated” by a local priest. And while these are not the invincible super-tanks lauded by the Sunday Telegraph, they nevertheless represent a significant enhancement on the T-72B3s that we are seeing.

It says much for the grip of the Telegraph though, that when it wrote about the tank, it illustrated the wrong version, showing the basic T-90A – a much less formidable version – rather then the updated T-90M Proryv.

The appearance of the very latest versions of these tanks in theatre could signal a new determination of the Russians to succeed in a campaign that, as I have already remarked, favours the defence. These tanks are still vulnerable to anti-tank missiles but are better able to defend themselves.

And when the Russians painstakingly achieve their objectives, the balance of advantage will turn against the Ukrainians, as the Russians go on the defensive and seek to hold onto their gains.

Then, if this latest situation report is any guide, the Ukrainians will have an unpleasant surprise. The Russians are already undertaking engineering works to equip their defence lines with reinforced concrete structures, and this work is planned to continue.

Talk of a “victory”, driving the Russians out of Ukraine territory altogether, is more than a little premature and may be unrealistically optimistic.