ROBOTYNE, UKRAINE

AS UKRAINE’S COUNTER-OFFENSIVE pauses for a well-earned cup of coffee, and Russia launches a sneaky counter-counter-offensive during the break, Kyiv is crying out to the world not to forget its plight as media attention turns to the latest flare-up and Israeli-Palestinian strife.

“The media is wickedly fickle,” explains London journalism researcher John Foster Caine. “News has the shelf life of fresh fish and tends to smell much like it after a short while. And don’t forget Israel is higher up the pecking order in American concerns than Ukraine. And Israeli lives frankly have a higher exchange rate than Ukrainians, though both are streets ahead of the Palestinians whose life currency is almost worthless in the states. For most Americans, Israelis are New Yorkers living by the Mediterranean. The large amount of American accents among Israelis adds to this perception.”

Ukrainian officials have been calling media outlets around the globe to try and ensure that their war is not ignored while the Israelis and Palestinians go at each other once again.

“It is not easy to get into the running order when you have nothing new to report,” Caine insists. “Especially when media has spent four months extolling your virtues in the face of obvious under-performance. Robotyne, which is now under Russian attack, having been captured by Ukraine in a wave of publicity, is not much bigger than Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 1. You see the problem when it’s competing with the Hamas attack that’s in the suburbs of Tel Aviv. Traction, it’s all about traction.”