The New Dark Age

The Western media has shifted much of its attention toward the most recently launched US war of aggression in the Middle East against Iran, but corners of the Western media remain dedicated to shaping public perception regarding many other fronts along the US’ global war on multipolarism, including the ongoing US proxy war on Russia in Ukraine.

Ranging from M777 artillery pieces to HIMARS, Patriot missile systems, F-16s, and ATACMS, each weapon platform was introduced as a “game changer” that would shift Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield despite the same media also insisting Ukraine was already “winning.”

What many of these articles leave out, however, is even more important than what they present to audiences.

Ukraine’s Robotic Wonder Weapons

A recent surge in stories about Ukrainian “ground robots” is now following this familiar pattern.

The Guardian, in its article, “The frontline is like Terminator’: fighting robots give Ukraine hope in war with Russia,” is just one of many articles claiming Ukraine is transforming into a “centre for the development of unmanned weapons,” implying unparalleled expertise possessed by Ukraine regarding aerial drones and now “ground” or “land robots.”

The Guardian insists Ukraine’s expertise is so immense that it is “highly sought after” even amid Washington’s latest war against Iran, claiming Saudi Arabia and Qatar are among several Persian Gulf states that have signed a 10-year defense agreement with Ukraine “to provide them with low-cost Ukrainian interceptors.”

What the Guardian fails to mention is the fact that the deal involves technology sharing, factory construction, and localized production in the Middle East that will take years to manifest into actual military capabilities for these Persian Gulf states, implying that Ukraine itself lacks a surplus in drone production as it struggles on the battlefield against Russia.

The article is, however, primarily about UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles) and how they have filled every combat role along the front line, from infantry and engineering to logistics and medical evacuations.

Buried deep in the article, almost at the very end, it makes an admission that, “Russia also makes extensive use of ground systems.”

What the article does not say is that Russia is producing many times more unmanned weapons of all kinds, from drones to ground vehicles, in quantities the collective West’s collective military industrial production cannot match.

Careful readers would have spotted claims within the Guardian article that Ukraine’s UGVs were providing “hope” along the front in places like the city of Pokrovsk, which has long since changed hands to Russian forces who have taken the city and have continued to advance westward still.

The Guardian attempts to argue that Russia only controls about 20% of Ukraine and has “failed to make significant progress” since 2022 before citing 1.2 million Russians either killed or wounded.

What the Guardian fails to mention is the attritional nature of the fighting, which has driven Ukraine to invest so much in drones and UGVs in the first place.

Another article published amid this recent surge of UGV stories, by The Interpreter, notes,“throughout the war, Ukraine has relied on technology to offset Russia’s greater numbers in personnel and materiel. Aerial drones became the backbone of that effort, helping blunt assaults, guide artillery, and strike deep behind the front. Now the same logic is moving onto the ground.”

The problem, again, is that whatever aerial drones or UGVs Ukraine is producing, Russia is producing more of them, plus leveraging their admitted “greater numbers in personnel and materiel.”

Both the Guardian and The Interpreter articles cite the same Ukrainian military unit rolling out these UGVs, calling into question just how widespread and successful this technology has actually been. Were this technology as widespread and as successful as presented, wouldn’t there be stories from across many different units utilizing it?

Instead, both articles cite Ukraine’s “3rd Assault Brigade,” also known as “Azov*.”

What Else the Guardian (and Others) Aren’t Saying

Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade, or Army Corps, is actually a modern-day Nazi military formation.

It openly operates under a stylized WW2 Nazi wolfsangel, which can actually be seen all throughout the Guardian article’s photographs, adorning the chassis of the UGVs featured in the story.

The same Guardian article also cites Andriy Biletsky, the 3rd Corps’ commander, who claimed, “New tactical approaches would determine which side prevailed ultimately.”

The Guardian never mentions the Nazi insignia covering the Ukrainian UGVs or mentions Biletsky’s background as a notorious neo-Nazi — despite the Guardian itself reporting on both in previous years.

In a 2014 Guardian article titled “Azov* fighters are Ukraine’s greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat,” it admits, “the battalion’s symbol is reminiscent of the Nazi Wolfsangel” and that “many of its members have links with neo-Nazi groups.”

One Guardian article from 2018 titled,“Ukraine’s National Militia: ‘We’re not neo-Nazis, we just want to make our country better’,” mentions National Militia members pledging oaths of allegiance to the above-mentioned Biletsky.

The Guardian describes the National Militia as “an ultranationalist organisation closely linked to Ukraine’s Azov* movement, a far-right group with a military wing that contains openly neo-Nazi members.”

Despite this, the Guardian still attempts to whitewash Biletsky himself, claiming he has “toned down his rhetoric in recent years,” but that,“the former Azov* battalion commander declared in 2010 that the Ukrainian nation’s mission was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans]”.

The fact that all these years later Biletsky still commands a prominent Ukrainian military unit openly operating under the WW2 Nazi wolfsangel —not even mentioned by the Guardian anymore — indicates that the process of whitewashing, renaming, and otherwise covering up for Nazism deep within the ranks of the US-backed Ukrainian armed forces has given way to blunt lies by omission — hoping the general public doesn’t recognize the WW2 Nazi insignia covering the UGVs the Guardian and The Interpreter are promoting in their articles or remember Biletsky as being an admitted, ardent neo-Nazi even by the Western media itself.

If the Western media is glossing over the overt Nazism of the Ukrainian military units it is promoting in its recent articles, it is unsurprising the Western media is also glossing over the fact that while Ukraine is fielding aerial drones and UGVs in greater numbers, Russia is fielding even more, in addition to Russia’s admitted advantages in manpower, materiel, and all other matters of modern conventional military power.

Just as the Western media did as early as 2014 when the US violently overthrew the Ukrainian government using these same neo-Nazi extremists before forming them into standing military units, it is advancing a narrative meant to create the illusion of hope both within Ukraine and among the general public supporting Ukraine and its continued proxy war on Russia — despite the reality that Ukraine is outnumbered, outgunned, and losing a war of attrition drones and robots cannot help reverse.

More than just lying about the latest “wonder weapon” to keep Ukrainians fighting on the front line and the Western public lined up supporting the war for as long as possible, the Western media, in a deeply concerted manner, continues to mischaracterize the war itself and those the US is backing in it, including unrepentant Nazis.

*- banned in Russia

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.

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