FROM HOLLYWOOD

AND THE AWARD for the best cheer-leading journalist covering the war in Ukraine, goes to …

“That’s a tough one,” says CIA official, Hansen Aldrich, “the Western Press as a whole has put in such an extraordinary performance in support of Ukraine’s war effort, that singling out one or two journalists seems unfair.

“Anyone taken to the tiny no mans land villages overrun in the latest Ukrainian offensive, who smiled, chuckled and giggled with their Ukrainian escorts, and told their audience that an abandoned house or a tree or even a few fields were now liberated in advance of further liberation, but that the liberated civilians in these settlements – yes, the ones who live there, the liberated – were taken away for questioning in case they were collaborators, they have to be my absolute favorites. But it’s the journalistic equivalent of chewing the scenery acting. So maybe no award.

“My particular choice for an award would be any journalist who simply regurgitates Western propaganda, you know, the ones who seriously tell their audience that what looks like a confused, unfocused, splintered, over-stretched, semi-coordinated blunt frontal assault, is in fact a series of well- designed probes to try and find out where the Russians are weak; and, wait for it, that this is the way such attacks are always conducted. And that we must wait, and wait, and wait because success may be some distance away. Victory is always just one great leap forward away. Nothing is ever a defeat for Ukraine. Everything that happens is a defeat for Russia. Like the loss of Bakhmut was a Ukrainian success; and a folly for Russia. Shit, it’s fantastic. How can Ukraine ever lose, when everything they do is a victory, and everything the Russians achieve is a defeat? But I guess that’s the point, isn’t it? Until NATO pulls the plug, cuts and runs. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. And how would it be covered?

“Perhaps it’s best we give the award to the whole Western press corps for a gallant joint performance. Slava Ukraine.”