A New York Times story admitted that things are looking pretty grim for Ukraine's counter offensive, acknowledging that President Zelensky had been forced to put it on "pause" at one point, denying that the pause came only 17 minutes and 20 seconds after the start of it.
The story, headlined "After Suffering Heavy Losses, Ukrainians paused to rethink strategy, due to a distinct lack of Ukrainian soldiers with a pulse.”
Front line commanders were perplexed at the report, saying “Strategy?..We have a strategy?..like, seriously?...No one told us...”
...but they still sought to put a positive spin on such a monumental fuck up.
They said that some of the improvement came because Ukraine changed tactics, suddenly realizing that the total annihilation of 80% of active units probably wasn't a very good idea in the long run, and by focusing more on wearing down the Russian forces with performative dance and poetry, (rather than using artillery and long-range missiles because they have none), they reduced enemy fire by putting the Russians to sleep.
*the florescent combat equipment was seen as a failure, after field trials, and was soon withdrawn from the battlefield (now available at very good price on ebay).
The losses have also slowed because the counter offensive itself has pretty much stopped, with Ukrainian soldiers struggling against Russia’s formidable defenses and the nasty Russian habit and willingness to fire at them when they -the Ukranian forces - approach the Russian lines.
Despite the losses, the Ukrainians have so far taken just five of the 60 miles they hope to cover (4.5 miles of this area is actually Russian mine fields and no mans land, but Zelensky decided to call that a win).
This came after admitting that within the first couple weeks of the counter offensive Ukraine forces lost some 20% of the weaponry newly supplied by the West, including tanks and armoured vehicles, and a really massive bag of cocaine.
As can be clearly seen, supplies are now down to only three days of normal daily rations, in Kiev.
One western propaganda outlet said:
"Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, acknowledged that there had been a brief pause in operations and blamed it on a severe lack of Columbian marching powder, and the sudden onset of a total lack of enthusiasm for doing, well.... anything.
"He called on Western allies to quicken the pace of deliveries," wrote the Times.
The Pentagon has since publicly acknowledged the screw up, but then added: "American officials acknowledged the pause and said that the Ukrainians had begun moving again, mostly backwards, but still....they're doing it far more deliberately than they did moving forwards, being far more adept at navigating minefields they've just crossed that no longer have any mines present.”
As for Zelensky, he said "We must all understand very clearly that Russian forces in our southern and eastern lands are doing everything they can to mess up the 10% payments back to the big guy in Washington."
He added, "And every thousand metres we advance, we retreat a thousand and ten – so every combat brigade deserves our gratitude for not going back one thousand five hundred meters instead."
He admitted a "slower than expected" pace, while complaining that the stiletto high heels sent from Western military supplies are just not up to performative dancers, standards.
Maybe they should make xmas an everyday holiday to end the war.