Gray Lady Reports from Novorossiya Begin to Let the Sunshine in

As the junta military presses its assault on the People's Republic of Donetsk and the People's Republic of Luhansk, I have begun to pick up a shift in the "newspaper of record." This weekend, reporting from Marinka, Sabrina Tavernise wrote a hard-hitting anti-junta story, "Civilians Pay a Price for Gains of Ukraine Forces," that completely upended the official narrative that all woe in the Donbass tracks back to the pro-Russian federalization forces. As Tavernise writes,

But while the Ukrainian forces might have scored tactical victories, they were not winning any friends in Marinka, where the assumption was they were to blame. The attack there left five civilians dead and four wounded, according to the regional government, a grim sign of the imprecision and blunt force of the weapons being used by both sides in this war, which began in the spring when pro-Russian rebels seized Ukraine’s southeastern edge and declared independence.

“Pigs,” said a man with gray hair who was wiping away tears. “People were sleeping in their beds.”

The source of the rocket attack was in dispute. A Ukrainian military officer, who asked that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said the Ukrainians did not have artillery positions close enough to hit Marinka. 

“Our artillery just wouldn’t have reached there,” the officer said. “It’s as simple as that.”

A military spokesman, Vladislav Seleznyov, said that Ukraine did not use its airpower or heavy artillery against rebel targets that were close to civilians. 

But the proximity of civilians did not stop the Ukrainians from shelling in and around Slovyansk, the former rebel stronghold they took back this month. And rebels in Marinka showed a reporter exploded rocket casings and a gaping hole in the animal feed factory where they were based, as evidence that the rockets had come from the Ukrainian military. Two rebels had been injured, they said. 

Across the street from the factory was the apartment building that took the worst hit, No. 6 Zavodskaya Street, a gray brick building rimmed with pretty gardens of brown-eyed susans and marigolds. A hole opened into a living room, which had collapsed in on itself. A door ripped from its hinges lay atop a large pile of curtains, cabinets and bricks. 

Igor Nersisyan, a retiree who lives on the second floor, said he had helped a neighbor dig her husband out from under that rubble early Saturday morning. The man, whom Mr. Nersisyan identified as Victor Belotserkovny, was dead when they reached him, the top of his skull sheared off in the blast. 

“They are trying to destroy peaceful people,” said Mr. Nersisyan, who blamed the Ukrainian military, as residents with bags of belongings walked away from the building.

Pair this with the story that David Herszenhorn wrote last week about the destruction the junta military visited upon Slovyansk, and I would count this as a significant shift by the main organ, the New York Times, for broadcasting U.S. foreign policy. Whether it is reporters on the ground bucking editors (which I don't see as possible), or there is actually a reappraisal underway, that the junta's Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) is doing massive damage to the fascist cabal running the show in Kiev, and, because the junta is operating under the direction of Washington, presumably from DCI Brennan, to the credibility, already almost irredeemably tarnished (ask Angela Merkel), of the United States.

The ATO has always been primarily about drawing Russia directly into the southeast. Now that it is apparent that the Kremlin is not going to chomp down on the bait (see Neil MacFarquhar's story this past Saturday), the junta is getting increasingly desperate. According to a story, "Ukrainian Forces Close In on Rebel-Held Luhansk," by Tavernise that appears in this morning's paper, the junta in its attempt to take Luhansk is now lobbing shells inside Russia and killing Russia citizens:

The military advances came as relations between Ukraine and Russia fell to a new low. On Sunday, a Russian citizen was killed on Russian soil by what the Russian government said was an errant Ukrainian shell. Ukraine denied firing a shell into Russian territory. Russia said the episode could have “irreversible consequences.”

It could be that the Gray Lady's tilt toward the truth is merely an aberration. We've seen the truth slip out over the weekend before. I'm thinking back to the early days of the putsch when Steven Erlanger published a story where he basically called out the Maidanistas as neo-Nazis. I thought that story heralded a collapse of Western support for the coup, that leaders in Europe and the United States were too queasy selling a fascist putsch as a popular democratic uprising that was constitutionally legitimate. I was wrong. Erlanger's story was a one-off. The Gray Lady, with Crimea joining the Russian Federation, went into full-on Cold War mode.

I do think that reality is beginning to intrude on the bellicose, fevered planners in Langley. Putin has checkmated them again. Moscow is not going to launch an invasion for the liberation of Novorossiya. Germany, World Cup in Ms. Merkel's possession, has been lost; she is now actively working on Russia's side. Putin is in Uncle Sam's backyard this week to announce the creation of a BRICS development bank. All the U.S. has proven it can do is sow death and destruction. Obama is a failure.

Sadly, like a murderous robot out of control, the ATO will continue, and many more people will die. The Kiev junta will rule over rubble.