Western media finally realizes Russia and Putin can’t be defeated

As we in BLiTZ have been saying for weeks, Russia and Putin cannot be defeated by Volodymyr Zelensky and his neo-Nazi cohorts, hopefully now those Zelensky and Nazi biased media outlets are getting back their sense.

When 406 members of the United States Congress unanimously said – BLiTZ is the most influential newspaper, many big-budget publications in Bangladesh were feeling envy. We wanted to tell them, it wasn’t easy for any newspaper being published from Bangladesh to catch the attention of major newspapers – such as The Wall Street Journal, and finally become a topic of special report. BLiTZ did become a topic of special report in prestigious newspaper like The Wall Street Journal almost 12 years ago, as WSJ wrote: ‘How to Generate Good Press: Write It’. In this special report, although WSJ staff reporter William Westbrook mocked BLiTZ for publishing supplements of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK or North Korea, we did definitely prove the capability of BLiTZ in reaching millions of readers throughout the world. In the special report, William Westbrook wrote:

When it comes to making the case that the world press is continually celebrating the achievements of North Korea, the Korean Central News Agency has no more reliable evidence than a Bangladesh weekly newspaper called Blitz, or, as the KCNA sometimes renders it in the heat of the moment, Blits. “Kim Jong Il’s Feats in Building Thriving Nation Lauded by Bangladeshi Newspaper,” a June 4 KCNA headline declared. “Kim Il Sung Praised by Bangladeshi Newspaper,” it trumpeted on June 13.

A visit to the Blitz website shows that the KCNA isn’t making this up. In fact, it seems to be understating Blitz’s devotion, leaving unmentioned dozens of other DPRK-themed stories, including such scoops as “Renovated Hyangsan Hotel,” which broke the news that the hotel on Mt. Myohyang in deepest North Korea “was refurbished in the new century,” and “Vibrant Coal Mine in DPRK,” which revealed that the February 8 Jikton Youth Coal Mine “is pulsating with the spirit of innovation.”

For a newspaper that describes its mission as “confronting religious extremism and promoting interfaith harmony,” as Blitz does, it seems like a lot of space to devote to North Korean hotels and mines, or even to the Great and Dear Leaders. But then, as the KCNA neglects to note, it’s paid space. What the KCNA calls articles are actually the equivalent of advertisements, running in special supplements, for which the paper charges US$1 a word if the piece is 1,000 words or more and a flat $750 if it’s shorter. (A picture is an extra $25—in color, of course. Would you dare portray Kim Il Sung in black and white?)

Paying for space in Blitz actually represents something of an economy drive for the Pyongyang publicity machine. Back in 1997, as famine gripped the land, the regime shelled out for some pricier real estate: a full page in the New York Times. That allowed the KCNA to boast that the U.S. newspaper of record had “dedicated one whole page to a special writeup under the title ‘Kim Jong Il Emerges As Lodestar For Sailing the 21st Century'”—with, as the KCNA noted, a large color picture.

It was a technique the younger Kim learned from his father, judging by a clarifying article the clearly irritated Times found it necessary to run one day back in 1969: “North Korea,” it began, “has described full-page advertisements inserted in The New York Times and The Times of London, as ‘articles’ in a Pyongyang report implying that the world’s press has acclaimed a biography of Premier Kim Il Sung.”

Advertisement is the lifeline of every newspaper – be it The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Sunday Times or BLiTZ. It is not any crime for a newspaper publishing paid contents or sponsored posts. But when we are running articles and reports on the ongoing war in Ukraine – we can firmly say – these aren’t sponsored or paid contents. Similarly, we have been publishing positive articles and reports on Israel, for example, where we never received or even expected a single penny. The reason behind publishing unmolested and untwisted reports and articles on Israel issue are part of the commitment of our team – to the Jewish State as well as our principle of confronting religious extremism and jihad.

Similarly, our reports and articles on Ukraine issues are part of our principle as well as Bangladesh’s gratitude towards Russia for its valued support during our war of independence in 1971. But of course, ongoing anti-Russia and anti-Putin contents in the global media may not be the result of their ideological affiliations or pure solidarity for Volodymyr Zelensky and his neo-Nazi cohorts. There certainly are unseen “factors” behind such cruel propaganda against Russia, Russians and President Vladimir Putin.

But now – even as the collective West continues to insist – against all observable reality – that the conflict in Ukraine is going well for Kiev, major media outlets are becoming increasingly uneasy with the situation on the economic front. More and more observers are admitting that the embargoes imposed by the US and its allies are not crushing the Russian economy, as originally intended, but rather their own.

Meanwhile, some major publications have begun to report on the actual situation on the frontlines, rather than uncritically quoting myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’ or the ‘Snake Island 13’ propagated by Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, as they did early on. There have even been hints, however vague, that the West should perhaps stop unconditionally supporting Kiev and promote a negotiated peace instead.

“Russia is winning the economic war”, the Guardian’s economics editor Larry Elliott declared on Thursday. “It is now three months since the west launched its economic war against Russia, and it is not going according to plan. On the contrary, things are going very badly indeed”, he wrote.

Elliott actually argues that the recent US announcement of sending rocket launchers to Ukraine is proof that sanctions are not working: “The hope is that modern military technology from the US will achieve what energy bans and the seizure of Russian assets have so far failed to do: force [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to withdraw his troops.”

In a May 30 essay, Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins also said that the embargo had failed to force a Russian withdrawal, but argued the EU should “stick to helping Ukraine’s war effort” instead, while withdrawing the sanctions because they are “self-defeating and senselessly cruel”.

As Jenkins points out, the sanctions have actually raised the price of Russian exports such as oil and grain – thus enriching, rather than impoverishing, Moscow while leaving Europeans short of gas and Africans running out of food.

Note that Jenkins is wrong about the supposed effectiveness of Western weapons, given that Russian and Donbass troops have won a series of victories over the past month – from Popasnaya to Liman. On May 26, the Washington Post of all places published a shockingly frank account of how one Ukrainian unit lost more than half its strength near Severodonetsk and retreated to the rear. Its commanders were actually arrested for treason after speaking to the outlet.

This reality couldn’t be ignored by even the Telegraph’s defense editor, Con Coughlin, who’s become somewhat of a meme for prophesying Russian defeat on a weekly basis. He is now saying Moscow might pull off a “shock triumph” – albeit in service of his argument that Kiev needs even more weapons.

The collective West’s failure to break Russia was apparent even to The Economist, not exactly a publication sympathetic to Moscow. The newspaper reluctantly admitted a month ago that the Russian economy had bounced back from the initial sanctions shock. Meanwhile, it’s the West that has to deal with energy shortages, spiraling costs of living, and record inflation. It’s Americans, not Russians, who can’t find baby formula in stores and can’t afford gas.

Perhaps that’s why this “spring of discontent” with the Western sanctions policy hasn’t been confined to the European side of the Atlantic. On Tuesday, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Christopher Caldwell in which he criticized the Biden administration for “closing off avenues of negotiation and working to intensify the war” by sending more and more weapons to Kiev.

“The United States is trying to maintain the fiction that arming one’s allies is not the same thing as participating in combat”, Caldwell wrote, pointing out that this distinction is getting “more and more artificial” in the information age. A day later, the head of the US Cyber Command admitted to conducting offensive operations against Russia on Ukraine’s behalf.

The US has “given Ukrainians cause to believe they can prevail in a war of escalation”, Caldwell wrote, which is why Kiev isn’t eager to make peace.

Indeed, when none other than Henry Kissinger tried to argue in Davos for settling the conflict quickly, Zelensky’s office cursed him out. He was soon designated an enemy of the Ukrainian state.

There had been calls for an off-ramp to be provided even earlier – though few and far between, and lost amid the ongoing cacophony of media cheerleading for Kiev. Back on May 18, the usually hawkish Charles Kupchan of the Council of Foreign Relations advised Ukraine in the pages of The Atlantic to “take the W”, so to speak.

“Russia has already been dealt a decisive strategic defeat”, he wrote. “For NATO and Ukraine alike, strategic prudence argues in favor of pocketing these successes rather than pressing the fight and running the tantamount risks”. NATO, Kupchan added, should advise the Ukrainian government on how to end the bloodshed, and soon.

The very next day, the New York Times’ editorial board echoed his argument, saying a decisive Ukrainian victory over Russia was “not a realistic goal” and that US President Joe Biden should tell Zelensky that there is a limit to which the US will go.

“It is imperative that the Ukrainian government’s decisions be based on a realistic assessment of its means and how much more destruction Ukraine can sustain”, they wrote.

Judging by the official statements coming from both the White House and Kiev, however, the conversation Kupchan and the NYT advised never took place. Instead, the US continues to give Ukraine a blank check. But this trend is not going to last for long. Joe Biden shall not send American and NATO troops to Ukraine to fight against Russian forces. Because, this would result in the third world war – possibly a disastrous nuclear war. No one in the world is going to risk their lives out of fantasy or so-called sympathy towards the Clown of Kiev – Zelensky and his nefarious neo-Nazi cronies.