As Kyiv’s counter-offensive grinds to a bloody halt against Russian defensive lines in Ukraine, observers and strategists are taking stock, evaluating what went right, what went wrong, and what comes next. Did the Ukrainians have the right kind of firepower, deployed in the right way? Did they apply the right doctrine? Did Nato planners misdirect the Ukrainians’ efforts?
In truth, such questions are beside the point. The hard but irrefutable conclusion is that while many Ukrainians have died, the counter-offensive did not take place. Parsing a staged media spectacle as if it was a meaningful military operation not only further confounds the truth but makes all the bloodshed even less meaningful than it already was.
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