Ukraine and NATO blame each other for the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, and the training provided by NATO is ineffective, according to pro-Kremlin propaganda.
NEWS: Ukrainian military trained by NATO specialists failed to learn modern methods of conducting assault operations. Soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the other hand, criticize the allies for failing to train them properly. The disagreements between US officials and the Ukrainian military were described by the Financial Times newspaper.
“If I had only done what the Western military taught me, I would have been dead by now”, said the commander of the 78th Special Forces regiment of the Ukrainian army, codenamed "Suleman", the Financial Times reports. He has trained with American, British and Polish military.
According to him, they gave him good advice, but some of it was harmful and destructive.
The newspaper states that the plans of the West and Ukraine called for a lightning break through the Russian lines. However, the Ukrainian Armed Forces were unable to do so due to the air superiority of the Russian Armed Forces and fortified defense lines. Therefore, three months after the launch of the counteroffensive, Ukraine and Western countries entered into a dispute over the tactics applied on the battlefield. The two sides blame each other.
NARRATIVE: NATO training Ukrainian military does not help Ukraine
LOCAL CONTEXT/ETHOS: Ukraine is supported by the NATO states in the context of the full-scale invasion of Russia not only with weapons or equipment, but also with military training programs at Alliance standards. In October 2022, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the allies would support Ukraine as much as needed, stressing that "NATO is not part of the conflict started by Russia”.
After successfully carrying out two counter-offensives in the east and south of the country last fall, Kyiv announced that it had launched an operation to liberate its territory in June last year. The current Ukrainian counter-offensive is proceeding much more slowly than a year ago, which has led to criticism from some Western analysts as well as some officials - who, however, generally preferred to express their criticism publicly under the protection of anonymity. Kyiv has repeatedly responded that this counteroffensive is being carried out without aviation support, and Russia has erected fortifications and mined the territory, making it difficult for the Ukrainians to penetrate deep. Moscow's forces had months to prepare their defense lines; Kyiv would have wanted to launch its counteroffensive sooner, but waited for the Western equipment (especially tanks and artillery) it needed to be delivered and for its military to be trained to use that equipment.
PURPOSE: The purpose of this false narrative is to convince the public that there are deep divisions between Ukraine and NATO caused by the failure of the counteroffensive and the ineffective training of the Ukrainian military. NATO's competence to advise the Ukrainian military in this war is being questioned.
WHY THE NARRATIVE IS FALSE: In reality, the training provided by NATO specialists has really helped Kyiv survive the war. The Russian press took the statements of some Ukrainian soldiers out of context, as well as some conclusions drawn by Western experts and quoted by the Financial Times. From the news published in various Russian online sources, it appears that the Ukrainian military is dissatisfied with the NATO training, which does not help them because the Russian army is very well trained and organized. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is presented as a total failure, and Ukrainian officials and NATO representatives are said to have blamed each other for the situation.
The article published by the Financial Times does not criticize the manner in which the training was carried out by NATO specialists, nor is Kyiv's counteroffensive seen as catastrophic. On the contrary, it is stated that longer periods of training are needed, so that the Ukrainian army can really learn NATO's way of fighting, and they also talk about the need to adapt the training programs to the realities on the ground.
Thanks to the training provided by NATO, Ukraine has successfully carried out a series of counter-offensive operations. Military experts point to Kyiv’ s taking over NATO's decentralized offensive and defense model , which allowed Ukraine to catch by surprise the Russian army, which is extremely centralized and rather slow in making decisions.
The Russian press also took out of context the statement of a Ukrainian military officer, describing how the interaction with NATO instructors takes place. The soldier praises the instructors' advice, but states that part of it is not good for the specifics of the war in Ukraine. Based on this statement, the Russian media promoted a series of headlines, according to which the training of the Ukrainian military by NATO does not help Ukraine. Russian propaganda omits entire passages of the text carried by the British publication, which give nuance to the topic.
For example, turning the Ukrainian counteroffensive into a war of attrition is not called a failure in the article. "Attrition means lackluster headlines in the media, but it allows Ukraine to exploit its strengths, which does not happen if [Kyiv's forces] try to conduct large-scale offensive operations in such difficult conditions," the article says.
Ukrainian media wrote in July about critical reactions to Kyiv from Western analysts who expected a lightning counter-offensive. According to the Kyiv-based NV publication, Western journalists have no moral right to criticize Ukraine for not providing Kyiv with the requested weapons. In the Ukrainian media space, the "territorial approach" of some Western journalists and experts is criticized, with emphasis on the fact that the fighting in southern Ukraine cannot be represented on the map every day. These and other discussions took place at the level of media bodies or independent experts, without deep institutional NATO-Ukraine clashes, as the Russian press writes.
GRAIN OF TRUTH: There’s been some exchange of words regarding how the Ukrainian counter-offensive was to be conducted. Both Ukrainian military chief Valery Zalujnyi and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said no NATO country would launch such a military operation without aviation support, calling for the delivery of the F-16s to be expedited. Also, some specialists in the West had high expectations regarding the speed of the counter-offensive, with Kyiv retorting that under the conditions of Russia's mining of the territory and the existence of several defense lines, the counter-offensive cannot be carried out in another way, if very big losses are to be avoided.
