Average Westerners were told for the past 18 months how fearless and optimistic the Ukrainians were, which was done to convince the former to continue supporting their leaders’ decision to fund the latter, but now the Mainstream Media (MSM) is telling them the complete opposite. The Washington Post wrote earlier this month that “Slow counteroffensive darkens mood in Ukraine”, which was followed by The Economist declaring that “Ukraine’s sluggish counter-offensive is souring the public mood”.
These four major updates were shared in the 10-day period between those two pieces:
* Washington Post: “U.S. intelligence says Ukraine will fail to meet offensive’s key goal”
* CNN: “Ukraine’s recent focus on Crimea draws skepticism from corners of the Biden administration”
* Washington Post: “Ukraine running out of options to retake significant territory”
* Financial Times: “US grows doubtful Ukraine counteroffensive can quickly succeed”
The impression that one gets from all this is that a new information campaign has begun.
As was explained in this recent analysis about how “A Vicious Blame Game Is Breaking Out After The Counteroffensive Predictably Failed”, everyone’s now pointing fingers out of desperation to eschew their own responsibility for this spectacular disaster, which set this latest media trend- into motion. The average Westerner is now either very confused if they’re a hardcore pro-Kiev supporter or feels vindicated if they were against funding the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.
In any case, the point is that the Western public is finally discovering the truth about this conflict, both in terms of the counteroffensive’s failure as well as Ukrainians’ fatigue and frustration with everything. The first revelation proves that their tens of billions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-provided funding for the counteroffensive failed to achieve any military dividends while the second suggests that Ukrainians aren’t as gung-ho about fighting as before. Taken together, they hint that a ceasefire is possible.
Regrettably, “US Policymakers Are Caught In A Dilemma Of Their Own Making After The Failed Counteroffensive”, which the preceding hyperlinked analysis explains is due to them sabotaging peace talks last spring and then declining to resume them last winter. Since then, the path towards peace has become much more complex since the top four stakeholders in this proxy war – Russia, the US, Ukraine, and Poland – have increasingly divergent interests that thus greatly impede the possibility of a ceasefire.
Even so, the two revelations that the MSM just shared help shift Western public opinion in support of that scenario. The first one about the counteroffensive’s failure is enough for the average person to turn against continuing the proxy war, while the second absolves the most brainwashed among them of guilt by informing them that a growing number of Ukrainians want to end it too. Nobody can be “more pro-Ukrainian than the Ukrainians themselves” so that group would feel pressured to go along with this.
Simply put, what’s taking place is a “de-programming operation” aimed at reversing the effect that pro-Ukrainian/-war and anti-peace/-Russian propaganda had on the Western masses. The purpose is to precondition them for accepting the scenario of peace talks and the resultant ceasefire that they could lead to if successful. Even if the aforesaid doesn’t transpire, the impact that the MSM’s latest information campaign will have on reshaping the Western public’s perceptions will likely be irreversible.
