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Thinking About the News Coverage

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March 19, 2022 4:31 p.m.
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TPM Reader PT has some thoughts and questions on two versions of the Ukraine War he’s seeing from the Times on the one hand and various government analyses, outside expert analyses and comments from military analysts.

I’ve mainly been following the Russia-Ukraine war via various sources on Twitter, including the UK’s MOD and US DOD updates, plus some maps, knowledgeable sources, etc. From these I’ve learned that Russia has barely advanced at all in several days, that they appear to be unable to advance into the country because they’re limited by round-trip distance their supply trucks can cover on 1 tank of fuel, that their logistics and armor are getting picked off, that their Air Force has underperformed to a degree that nobody can really explain, that they’re losing an average of over 1000 soldiers per day (where losses include injuries and defections as well as deaths). CW in these sources is that Russia’s forces will probably lose all capacity for offensive action in the next couple of weeks unless something changes drastically in their favor. In other words, what Ukraine is doing in combat, and what the rest of the world is doing to assist them, is working.

Then I go to the NYTimes website. None of the above is reported.

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