The publication of U.S. intelligence documents exposes Western disinformation regarding the “probable” victory of the Ukraine in the conflict.

Someone who has only seen coverage of the Ukraine war in Western media was alarmed by a headline in The Washington Post last week: “U.S. doubts Ukraine counteroffensive will yield big gains, leaked document says.”

In essence, what the mainstream media has reported about Ukraine has been a false narrative, suggesting that Ukraine is winning the conflict and is about to initiate an offensive that will result in a decisive victory. According to the narrative, Western audiences have been misled about the trajectory of the conflict by the media.

In the second paragraph of the article, it is made abundantly obvious that the disclosed documents demonstrate unequivocally that the much-anticipated Ukrainian offensive will be a total failure — “a marked departure from the Biden administration’s public statements about the vitality of Ukraine’s military.”

As reported by The Washington Post, the leaks are likely to “embolden critics who feel the United States and NATO should do more to push for a negotiated settlement to the conflict.”

The relevant procedure has already begun. Former State Department officials Richard Haass and Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, note in a Foreign Affairs article that “it is difficult to feel sanguine about where the war is headed.”

In “The West Needs a New Strategy in Ukraine: A Plan for Getting From the Battlefield to the Negotiating Table,” they state the following:

“The best path forward is a sequenced two-pronged strategy aimed at first bolstering Ukraine’s military capability and then, when the fighting season winds down late this year, ushering Moscow and Kyiv from the battlefield to the negotiating table.”

“The article does not mention the leaks, though it was published after the disclosures made clear that the Ukrainian offensive, intended to break through Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, would fail,” according to a Zero Hedge report.

Filled with the usual talk about Ukraine having better “operational skill” than Russia, and that the war will end in a “stalemate,” the piece represents an emerging strategy in the West: namely that before negotiating, Ukraine needs to launch its offensive to gain back some territory, “imposing heavy losses on Russia, foreclosing Moscow’s military options, and increasing its willingness to contemplate a diplomatic settlement.”

But that is a tall order. Moscow would be unlikely to negotiate at the end of the Ukrainian offensive, particularly as the article admits the “Russian military’s numerical superiority” and that Ukraine is “facing growing constraints on both its own manpower and help from abroad.”

One month after Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine, Moscow was prepared to reach an agreement with Kiev, but the West, which is determined to prolong the conflict in order to undermine Russia, thwarted the negotiations. Why would Moscow accept an agreement now, when Ukraine is at its weakest and Russia is positioned to make significant battlefield gains, when Ukraine is at its weakest?

More on this story via The Republic Brief:

According to the Foreign Affairs article, “This diplomatic gambit may well fail. Even if Russia and Ukraine continue to take significant losses, one or both of them may prefer to keep fighting.” CONTINUE READING…