Where’s the link?
Occasionally I receive requests from readers to post the link to sources I am using for my news and analysis essays.
The question would be fair if my product were academic research, for which footnotes are de rigueur. But my product is journalism. Some of my writings are themselves primary sources, meaning impressions and information that I gather firsthand in my travels or by participating in the events I describe. On the other hand, when I am summarizing information I receive from third parties, usually from Russian state television broadcasts, the source is transient and may not be available later as a podcast or in streaming. This is certainly the case of the 24 hour Vesti news channel.
To be sure, News of the Week on Sundays and Sixty Minutes on weekdays as well as the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk shows which I frequently cite in my articles are available for viewing the day after the live broadcast. But none of these programs offers English translation subtitles.
These television programs, I hasten to add, are vastly more informative than print media in Russia. By way of example, the highly regarded Rossiyskaya Gazeta provides only a small fraction of the information available each day on Sixty Minutes.
What all of this means is that to catch news on the war in real time that allows juxtaposition with the daily Washington narrative, you have to be able to catch spoken Russian on the fly.
Now let’s be honest. American propagandists are quick to call most anyone who can muster a sentence in Russian the compliment of being a fluent speaker That was what they said about Susan Rice, for example. Or about former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul. But I defy these supposedly brilliant linguists to listen to a Russian news program and take notes, mental or written, to share with anyone.
Of course, talented linguists do exist. I have no doubt there are such folks at work for the CIA in the Moscow embassy of the United States or out at Langley. But what they take down will not be shared with the American public. Of that you can be sure.
In that regard, what I am taking down from the live Russian broadcasts today leaves no doubt that the Russians are now very confident of their military superiority, confident that the Ukrainians are needlessly sacrificing their personnel and heavy military equipment to satisfy their masters in Washington. The big story of the day was the one Russian tank commander who destroyed 10 Ukrainian tanks and armored personnel carriers, mostly Western, in one-on-one battle. Otherwise there was repeated broadcast of videos showing the horrific destruction of Leopards and other tanks in the past couple of days by Russian artillery, kamikaze drones, mines and other means. Then came the video of the latest and most desperate Ukrainian tactic, sending infantry out into the field in attack without cover of tanks, so as to avoid further loss of this precious equipment. Needless to say the Ukrainian soldiers were cut to pieces by Russian fire. The latest projections of the Russian experts on Sixty Minutes is that the Ukrainians have another three weeks of elite reserves and cannon fodder available to maintain the current intensity of battle and then it is all over.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023