How they ever thought this was going to work is a mystery. And now they're coming with The New Improved Counteroffensive 2.0.
Even US media got tired of lying about Ukraine successes (or rather the lack thereof). CNN published a crushing article about Ukrainian failures. That seemingly senseless and merciless (and still ongoing) slaughter was planned that way by DC from the get-go. Ukrainian commanders were nurtured by 'strategic minds' in NATO. You'd think it'd now be possible for them to shoulder at least some of the responsibility for their epic fail. But no.
CNN reported that Ukraine is to blame for it all. The AFU are poorly trained, they have poor inter-unit coordination, there's red tape all over the place, and their commanders exhibit a 'Soviet mentality' (whatever that is).
NATO instructors have been training in the Ukraine for years - NATO turned up over there long before the SMO.
But it never made sense for NATO to train the AFU. No NATO grunt would step onto a battlefield like that. NATO uses infantry only after aircraft and artillery pulverise everything that moves.
The Ukrainians don't have that capability. Russian aircraft and artillery have an overwhelming superiority. Attackers should have at least a threefold advantage over defenders, but there's no hope for that on the current contact line and they know it.
So all that training - all those 'business trips' abroad - were 'Cargo Cult'. When expensive Western infantry fighting vehicles bring Ukrainian soldiers to a battlefield and then turn around and run for it, the Ukrainians have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. So they charge into Russian defence lines and try to clear away the minefields - with their feet.
A few days ago, media splashed with a startlingly cynical piece. US advisers, according to WSJ, were well aware that the AFU would not succeed with that counteroffensive. They deliberately supplied less than needed, turning a blind eye to cries for help.
It was also clear that Ukrainian forces couldn't possibly create their overhyped counteroffensive - because, as soon as they'd pull a contingent from the north to the south, a direct road to Kharkov and Kiev would open up.
The omniscient US intel community, with their powerful satellite surveillance, couldn't miss Russia building their complex and impregnable defence systems. Despite this, the AFU were forced to go on the offensive - straight into the enemy's minefields.
Mark Milley warned them all last November that the successes of the AFU, if there really had been any, were over and it was time to negotiate a truce.
Yet the White House - what did they do? They ignored.
For the DC war-hawks and the MIC this is good news and, for a while at least, a bountiful cash flow. They'd love to create more conflicts in the Russian southwest so it can take years - better still, decades - to fix things. The Ukrainians? They're just crazy Nazis is all. And when they're depleted - that's coming soon now - the White House will simply start feeding others into the grinder.
And in order for the conflicts not to subside, Ukrainian casualties must remain on an industrial scale. Hence the extreme brutality with which they're thrown into that grinder. Of course they mustn't win anything - success and victory are unacceptable. Russian retaliation can, after all, come across the Atlantic.
No, Ukrainians should just jump into the grinder, thanks so much, and those who do survive can have get some organs removed, to be taken to the West where there's lots of them rich old folks who plan to live to 200.
And so the WaPo came up with a splendid idea: if the Ukrainian counteroffensive fails completely, just don't let things lead to peace talks, OK?
The US should instead start preparing for Counteroffensive 2.0, already in 2024 perhaps, then for another new one, then for another new one, and so forth. Why end things when everyone's having so much fun?
There's no hope of actually winning. Ukrainians will still be slaughtered - perhaps they'll finally split the Russians and Ukrainians so they hate each other?
A stalemate of a sorts, though costly in the extreme, doesn't carry any physical risks or possibility of political humiliation, not according to the WaPo.
It's obvious to everyone on the planet by now that, to the US, Ukrainians are just expendable material, and they waste them with demonstrable cynicism.
Can that simple truth ever reach the Ukrainians themselves?
Afterword
It's really amazing - 'amazing' being of course a rather unjustifiably kind word - that so much brainwash is put into defending a position untenable 80 years ago when the world at large fought to destroy Nazism forever, only to discover over time that the United States, of all players, had become actively and enthusiastically involved in protecting and promoting it. The 'mens rea' is found in the fact that they've employed tens of thousands of propagandists to hide this despicable truth from the citizens of the West, often using 'Big Lie' techniques right out of the Nazi playbook.
'They hoped Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness would carry the day.'
'When peace can be achieved, seize it. Seize the moment.' - Mark Milley