Ukraine's invasion of Russia? Ukraine slams NYT for 'whitewashing' Russian war crimes in new article
Photo: NYT publishes report from Russia's Kursk region (Getty Images)
New York Times journalist Nanna Heitmann spent six days in Russia's Kursk region near the front lines, where she was accompanied by members of the Russian special forces unit Akhmat, according to The New York Times, and a statement by Ukraine's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi.
After her return, The New York Times published a field report from the border areas of the Kursk region, which Russian forces had retaken.
When I visited the area in March, the fields were scattered with carcasses of cows and pigs, and with the corpses of civilians and soldiers. The uniforms visible among the fallen were mostly Russian," she wrote.
She added, "Fighting raged around the civilians trapped here for months, including bombardment by the Russian military."
Heitmann also noted that Kursk is the "rare place in this war where Russian civilians found themselves under the control of Ukrainian forces, while large areas of Ukraine still remain occupied by Russia."
However, the article makes no mention of civilian casualties or destruction in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories. Nor does it note that Ukraine's operation in Kursk was a response to years of unprovoked and brutal Russian aggression.
The author also quoted local Russian women from the border area. One said that since Ukrainians couldn’t reach Moscow, "they hit their own, their neighbors,” adding that "Half our relatives are Ukrainians."
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi condemned the article, calling it manipulation on the level of journalist Walter Duranty.
"Whoever at the NYT thought it was smart to report alongside Russian war criminals made the dumbest decision. This isn’t balance or 'the other side of the story.' This is simply letting Russian propaganda mislead the audience. Sad to see Duranty-level manipulation return to the NYT," Tykhyi wrote.
For reference, Duranty was an Anglo-American journalist who led the NYT's Moscow bureau from 1922 to 1936. He conducted an exclusive interview with Joseph Stalin in 1929 and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reporting from the USSR, despite repeatedly denying the Holodomor in his articles.
Situation in the Kursk region
In summer 2024, the Ukrainian Defense Forces launched an operation and took control of about 100 settlements in Russia's Kursk region.
Moscow even involved North Korea in the fighting. Ukrainian forces captured two North Korean soldiers as proof.
By spring, Russian Armed Forces Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov reported to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin that the operation to "liberate" the Kursk region was "complete."
This announcement came even though Ukraine's Armed Forces continued to hold dozens of square kilometers in the region.
Later, Putin also declared the supposed "complete defeat of the enemy in the Kursk border zone."
At the same time, Russian propaganda launched a new wave of disinformation campaigns, citing the alleged "full liberation" of the Kursk region.
