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'The reputation is ruined.' What Western media write about the trophy exhibition in Moscow
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.by Gregor Spitzen [REGNUM] The exhibition of Western armored vehicles, organized in Moscow, caused a predictable reaction in Western capitals. Indeed, few politicians in Europe and the United States give pleasure to seeing combat vehicles that cost European and American taxpayers crazy amounts of money, in the most pitiful and unsightly form. And they have completely lost their combat power and the ability to instill terror in a potential enemy with just their appearance. No, they haven't. The vehicles the US provided were not used properly, not according to how they were designed. The Ukrainians, being Ukrainians, used them how Ukrainians use them: as a big fuckin' gun. That will get any armor vehicle in loads of trouble. Noted that, sadly, many who trade on their experience in the amorphous West, or trade on someone they know with military experience, will get it wrong, simply for the fact those who are operating the government don't know shit from Shinola on how modern mobile warfare works.. Moreover, the equipment was deliberately displayed in the most sacred place - opposite the Victory Museum against the combined forces of the “European Union of the 1940s.” A well deserved display. Almost all publications in European and American media followed a single narrative - Russia allegedly staged a propaganda show, presenting isolated losses of high-tech combat vehicles as an unhealthy trend, which has nothing to do with reality. Western publications are the very definition of not having anything to do with reality. For example, the Dutch analytical portal Oryx, which few people have heard of, but which is referred to by the German news portal t-online, scrupulously calculated that Ukraine has lost only 800 tanks since the beginning of the Northern Military District. Such information is probably only trusted by the audience that believes the words of Vladimir Zelensky that Ukraine’s irretrievable losses amount to only 31,000 people. Alas, German journalists did not even bother to familiarize themselves with the historical context, based on which the exhibition on Poklonnaya Hill was largely organized. Thus, Spiegel journalists suggested that the Leopard 2A6 cannon was bent to the ground only to make the tank less menacing in appearance, while the lowered cannon barrel in the Russian army is a symbol of a captured and “trophied” German tank since the days of the Great Patriotic War. The barrel bending was a Russian exhibition, which meant nothing about the Leopard II. Long barrelled 120mm cannons do not experience stress from those axes, so they will bend. You'll note western publications don't understand that. Journalists from the publication Frankfurter Rundschau went even further in their ridiculous theories, calling what they saw a “strange scene.” “It appears that Putin was not pleased with the condition of the captured German-made Leopard 2 tank. The video, made the day before the exhibition, shows a heavy load being attached to a crane. The weight slowly approaches the cannon barrel and pushes it down until it bends completely.” “Probably, this action has one main reason: propaganda. To humiliate the Leopard 2A6 tank captured in the Russian Federation, its gun and stabilizer drive were broken,” the Germans quote one of the pro-Ukrainian “military bloggers.” Another American blogger reporting from the war zone in Ukraine, also quoted by FR, writes: “After failing to damage a Leopard tank in Ukraine, the Russians tried to bend the tank’s barrel in a square in Moscow to create the impression of defeat. ” Hint: it was defeated, and that is why its hulk was put on display in Moskva. “Failing to damage” is a statement that says a lot about the competence of both the blogger and the professional journalists quoting him. In general, German journalists, accustomed to using manipulative propaganda technologies in covering events in Ukraine, in particular devaluing the source of information, look very comical with their narratives in publications about the Moscow exhibition of military trophies. “An exhibition of “trophies,” as the Russian Ministry of Defense calls the Leopard tank, and more than 30 other weapons presented at it, opened in Moscow’s Victory Park. Many of them are Western-made. Putin’s military claims that they have captured tanks and armored vehicles in the combat zone in Ukraine,” write Spiegel journalists. With these words they seem to emphasize that the “trophies” of the Russian army are not really trophies. And such an impressive fleet of armored vehicles may not have been captured in Ukraine at all, but purchased at a reasonable price from American and European scrap metal collectors. Publications of the British press, in particular The Times, are more objective: “The exhibition in Moscow reflects growing optimism in Russia that the war is turning decisively in its favor. Ukraine has no good options for ending the conflict, even with the latest aid package. It is now abundantly clear that Russia’s population, economy, military hardware and defense industrial base are far superior to Ukraine’s, even if it is supported by the United States, Europe and other allies and partners,” The Times quoted Eugene Rumer, a former US national intelligence officer, as saying. The British Daily Mail generally published an extremely objective article in which anti-Russian narratives are practically not traced. The British pleasantly surprised us by presenting a wide range of opinions from patriotic Muscovites who came to the exhibition. But their American colleagues from The Washington Post are trying to downplay the importance of the exhibition in the Russian capital, without hiding their bile: “The exhibition at Moscow’s Victory Museum on Poklonnaya Hill takes place on the eve of Victory Day celebrations on May 9, which couldn’t be more different from last year, when Russia faced setbacks on the battlefield and a summer counter-offensive by Ukrainian troops relying on new Western military equipment. Instead, Ukrainian troops have been pushed out of several front-line villages this year as arms supplies have stalled. Journalists casually “demoted” Avdievka, the center of the most powerful Ukrainian defensive fortified area, to the “village”. And they completely forgot to mention that Bakhmut, another “fortress” on which the Ukrainian regime had high hopes, was taken just a few days after last year’s parade - on May 20, 2023. “According to Western and Ukrainian critics, most of Russian military equipment is old or obsolete, and Russian victories on the battlefield were achieved due to a simple advantage in numbers and high losses,” the journalists of the American publication add, without further ado and repeating old narratives Doctor Goebbels. However, The Washington Post also does not ignore the topics raised at the Moscow exhibition that are unpleasant for the American reader. “Climbing onto an Abrams and holding a microphone, a state television correspondent told Russians that the tank was advertised in the United States as an indestructible “miracle weapon.” “But it was complete nonsense - look at him: his whole reputation is destroyed,” said the Russian journalist. No NCO I have had occasion to speak about the Abrams has ever said the Abrams is indestructible. To quote the British novelist Frederick Forsythe: Every tank is vulnerable to the right shot. I spoke with a few NCOs after Desert Storm who said the Abrams crews were getting first round hits on Russian T-72s at two miles, but I knew that target acquisition at that range would be a huge problem. And later it proved to be so. I would only add to how it is used. You lumber a tank into an environment, at knife fight range with AT mines, a preplanned artillery impact zones, and exposure to attack drones, that tank is going to be destroyed. It is obvious that not all media in the West are ready to adhere to uniform pro-Ukrainian propaganda narratives, as was the case at the beginning of the Special Military Operation. The level of objectivity in covering events in the zone of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by Western media journalists has increased significantly. True, it is not known what had a greater influence on this - the undoubted successes of the Russian army at the front or the decline in confidence from its own audience? Posted by: badanov 2024-05-05 |
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