Western media wrote that in the first 72-96 hours of the attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, it was necessary to be on the coast of the Sea of Azov, having broken through the front, to begin the assault on Melitopol.
The first couple days of the attack were supposed to define the offensive. Western analysts focused on a lightning-fast offensive in order to achieve success, and now the operation is moving into positional battles, in fact, resembling the situation in Bakhmut where Ukraine got ground down through attrition.
This is the main problem with inventing a reality bubble. You can create a compelling narrative and you can get people to believe in it, but sooner or later it will be forced to be reconciled with the real world. Western propagandists have successfully convinced the public that Ukraine is winning the war and that Russia is about to collapse, but now this narrative is starting to come apart and we’re seeing increasing panic in the western political class.
The first week of the Ukrainian offensive has been an utter debacle. They haven’t even managed to reach the first line of actual defences that Russia has erected. By the time the offensive burns itself out, there’s likely not much to be left of the Ukrainian army. All the weapons, ammunition, and equipment that the west managed to cobble together will be gone, and the west does not have capacity to replenish these things. On top of it, the army will be heavily depleted and demoralized. The public in the west will be shocked. All of this will make it very difficult to keep the war going for the west.
They will probably spin everything into the yet another stab in the back narration. There’s plenty of potential scapegoats in Ukraine and elswhere.