How the mainstream media spins each new failure as success – with Leonid Ragozin
A notable aspect of the Ukraine conflict has been how rapidly Western and Ukrainian storylines surface in mainstream discourse, dominate debates briefly, and then quietly vanish without any acknowledgment of their inaccuracy.
In a discussion with the independent journalist Leonid Ragozin, we looked into what this campaign truly achieved. During June, long-range strikes reaching deep into Russian and occupied territories—especially Crimea—were touted as pressure likely to compel Putin to accept terms closer to Ukraine’s demands.
Defence Minister Mikhail Fedorov was the campaign’s prominent spokesperson. Yet, after forty days, the situation is evident: Russia’s stance has not softened but rather grown more resolute.
The proposed land exchanges once part of talks following Ukraine’s Kursk offensive have now been discarded. Fedorov’s dismissal sparked a political upheaval in Kyiv and led to replacing the Army’s Soviet-era commander-in-chief.
As Leonid highlights, this fits a repeated pattern. The 2023 summer offensive was promoted as the turning point for Ukraine to push back Russian forces. The Kursk operation briefly revived hopes for territorial negotiation leverage. Each shift in objectives has ultimately favoured Russia.
What commenced in late April 2022 (initiated by Liz Truss) as ambition to reclaim Crimea has since contracted to a defensive stance on the remaining parts of Donetsk. The toll in lives and resources caused by this steady narrowing of goals has been immense.
What stands out now is the contrast between official elite discourse and public opinion. Gallup polls over three years reveal a significant change among Ukrainians: while two-thirds once demanded full Russian defeat, the same proportion today supports a negotiated peace.
Yet the conflict endures.
Leonid offers a clear, though uncomfortable, insight. This conflict is less about national identity and more a struggle among interconnected elites—security apparatuses in all involved nations, alongside defense industry and bureaucratic interests in the West—whose priorities differ greatly from those of everyday citizens.
This dynamic also sheds light on the closed-off nature of Western media coverage.
Having spent twelve years at the BBC, Leonid observes how far British and broader Western journalism have strayed from their earlier readiness to question governmental narratives on Iraq, now offering unquestioning support to misguided Ukraine foreign policy.
Subtlety has given way to a singular perspective that views any challenge to the accepted Overton window as suspicious.
This results in an information environment where envisioning peaceful coexistence with Russia is nearly taboo, despite increasing costs for Ukrainians, Russians, and Europeans alike.
We further explored the cultural and political origins of this animosity—the way liberal elites, competing with populist right-wing forces, adopted their own enemy-making tactics, and how a neocolonial attitude continues to treat the region as a proxy battleground rather than recognizing it as home to sovereign states with legitimate interests.
Mainstream journalists have become participants in prolonging the needless violence in Ukraine with no foreseeable resolution. It leaves one to wonder how they will label the next, fleeting so-called turning point.
The complete interview with Leonid can be found here.
Original article: thepeacemonger.substack.com
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