The Media’s Ukraine-Wins Fantasy Continues Costing Lives

Someone needs to tell Margaret Brennan that Volodymyr Zelensky is the leader of a country at war and not, in fact, a lost little boy looking for his mommy.

The CBS anchor on Sunday adopted her irksome trademark tone of reproach in an interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio wherein Brennan suggested that a White House meeting the next day might result in the head of Ukraine being “bullied” by President Trump. “You know there’s concern from the Europeans that President Zelensky is going to be bullied into signing something away,” she said. “That’s why you have these European leaders coming as back up tomorrow. Can you reassure them?”

Rubio informed Brennan that the other European leaders would be attending the meeting at the invitation of the administration and were not acting as some kind of high school clique for Zelensky’s protection. But more to the point, the exchange between Rubio and Brennan was a perfect example of how unseriously our superficial, infantile news media approach this war. They have a personal hatred for Trump so they cast every development of the conflict with him as the villain, even as the president has put forth the only realistic effort to make peace.

The media don’t want what’s realistic, though. Realistic runs counter to their preferred position of hating Trump, because the reality is that he was elected president for a second time, in no small part because America wants him to decide what happens with Ukraine. (It sucks to lose an election, but the media did lose the last one.) Trump has made his decision, and if Zelensky and Western Europe have any hope at all that Ukraine remains an independent nation, not swallowed by Russia whole, then they have only two realistic options: Side with the U.S. in resolving the problem or take their chances on their own.

Everything outside of that is a fantasy, a dramatic world of make-believe wherein the media (and many Democrats and Republicans alike) believe they can write this war like a movie. In their preferred fiction, Ukraine somehow beats back Russia, and President Vladimir Putin is defeated, thereby humiliating Trump, as well as his supporters, who don’t share the media’s hysterical and irrational animosity for Russia.

That’s not what’s going to happen. Russia is bigger, has more money, has more people, and, most importantly, has nukes.

The media insist on an alternate reality. It’s the reason they can look at a deadly dilemma wherein hundreds of thousands of people have perished and then show fake concern that the president of the United States might have “bullied” another head of state into a peace deal — one that saves his own country, even if it means sacrificing a piece of it.

Ukrainians may not like the reality of their situation either, but they can’t afford to live the same fantasy the media keep trying for.

In the News/Activism forum, on a thread titled The Media’s Ukraine-Wins Fantasy Continues Costing Lives, amnestynone wrote:
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;. Russia is bigger, has more”
That is not true. The Ukraine has the support of the rest of the world and money from Russia only goes so far when you are embargoed.
ransomnote: Support from the rest of the world dried up. Biden gave Ukraine almost $200 billion in tax payer funds, and while Trump has released some of Biden's funds set aside for Ukraine, the US will no longer fund the war. Trump is trying to end it. Do you think if Ukraine says 'no' Trump will change his mind and go back to funding the pointless war?
NATO has said, when the US withdrew from funding the war, that it would step in and fund Ukraine. But NATO can't make it's own 5% NATO military funding goals. About a year and a half ago,
Gifts of $200 billion dollars to Ukraine are no longer available. Now Ukraine is exchanging its sovereignty for loans it can never repay. Eventually the farce of 'loaning' more money to Ukraine will end.
NATO Loan Ukraine Funds
NATO did not loan Ukraine funds, but several NATO allies, particularly members of the G7, have provided loans using the interest generated from frozen Russian sovereign assets. The United Kingdom announced a $3 billion loan to Ukraine for military equipment, financed by profits from these frozen assets. Similarly, the United States transferred $20 billion to a World Bank fund to benefit Ukraine, with repayment expected from proceeds earned from immobilized Russian sovereign assets. This initiative is part of a broader $50 billion G7 loan package, where funds are drawn from the windfall proceeds of frozen Russian reserves rather than through direct seizure. The assets themselves remain frozen, and the loans are structured to use future returns on those assets as repayment sources.
Almost 2 years ago, I recall posting something from The Economist in which Ukraine's general said he knows what he needed for an offensive he wanted to conduct, and he knew that he could not get what he needed. He needed bullets in a quantity NATO could not provide.
At the time Biden was in office, and the US was helping buy Soviet era rocket launchers for use with HIMARS the US provided. Eventually those are going to run out.
There isn't an endless well of weapons to give Ukraine. Now that Trump is signalling the Euro countries need to be more independent and arm themselves, they're scampering to meet the minimum protections for their own countries.
When Trump sold new F-16's to NATO, NATO planned to keep them and give Ukraine old F-16s. Most arms given to Ukraine have been old equipement, and it's possible to run out of equipment no longer manufactured. NATO doesn't want to give up new equipment at a time it is trying to arm itself.
Time is on the side of Ukraine.
ransomnote: No. Vance was correct when he said Urkaine was running out of soldiers. So many of Ukraine's cities are flattened without a single standing building - Trump remarked that, "You want to save Ukraine, but then you look and see, what's left of it?" Trump said those flattened cities were a "110 year reconstruction effort'. There's not going to be much left of the current generation and none will live to see many cities and places of business restored. Ukraine can't borrow to reconstruct unless someone has billions to waste - it will not be recovered.

With our help and the help of the rest of the worked Russia will run out of armaments faster and before Ukraine ever will.
ransomnote: The US is not going to fund a war in which NATO will fight down to the last Ukrainian. It will consider sanctions on Russia, but note it will not continue to supply Ukraine's war needs. I doubt Trump will continue paying the salaries, pensions, emergency services of Ukraine forever but is already signalling NATO that it is responsible for Ukraine, which makes sense because NATO is using Ukraine as its proxy - why should the US pay for NATO's proxy war?
On top of the the Russians are basically incompetent and fools which is why they got into this mess.
ransomnote: Actually it's NATO which started this mess. I don't get why claiming Russia is incompetent doesn't embarrass you - you're saying incomepetent fools are defeating the combined efforts of NATO/UKRAINE/BIDEN.

Even at the height of the war, Biden never gave NATO nukes or top quality weapons needed to defeat Russia. Ukraine was an aspiration of NATO, but secondary in importance to all nations working to force regime change in Russia. Secondary in that none of those fielding the proxy war ever gave their best equipment.
Russia is tho leading troublemaker in the world and the resolution of the Russian problem will benefit us and the rest of the world.
ransomnote: FAKE NEWS

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