American historian O’Brien on NYT report from Kursk: In 1941, they could have done story with SS troops
The New York Times article on the Kursk region is an unfiltered publication of Putin's narratives.
Phillips O'Brien, an American historian and professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, writes about this in his article, Censor.NET reports.
"Imagine if New York Times reporters spent a week as part of an SS unit during the invasion of the USSR in 1941 and then reported on possible Soviet war crimes? You might say it's hard to imagine, well, maybe not, because just a few hours ago the New York Times published the modern equivalent - about the Russian-Ukrainian war," he said.
He noted that the reporter Nanna Heitman was protected by the Akhmat unit.
"For those who don't know, the Akhmat special forces are the creation of Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin's henchman and a murderous security officer who runs Chechnya as a personal fiefdom. Recently, it was also reported that Akhmat has a large number of Wagner fighters in its ranks, and Ukrainians accuse Akhmat soldiers of committing war crimes.
The story itself is a retelling of Putin's view of the war. The Russians blame NATO expansion for starting the war, say that Russians and Ukrainians are actually brothers (even when Russians are shelling Ukrainian cities at night), and make unfounded claims that Ukrainians have committed war crimes in Ukraine," the historian added.
According to O'Brien, the NYT has reached the stage of publishing Putin's narratives almost unfiltered.
"There was not a single mention of Russian war crimes in the article, only possible Ukrainian ones. By the way, the entire Russian invasion, and therefore this war, is a war crime under the UN charter, in case you had any doubts," he concluded.
NYT report from Kursk region
Earlier, the American edition of The New York Times published a report from the Kursk region. The journalist was accompanied by militants of the Russian "Akhmat". Subsequently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine reacted and called the publication of this material "the stupidest decision."
In the article, the author Heitman described the position of local residents and talked to the Akhmat fighters, who, according to the journalist, "fought to regain the territory" and allegedly helped with evacuations in the area.
At the same time, the material does not explain the reasons for the start of the Kursk operation and does not present the Ukrainian position.
