Is CBS Ukraine coverage giving a new meaning to “burying the lead”? The network is being accused in some circles of censoring its own documentary. Arming Ukraine “explores why much of the billions of dollars of military aid that the United States is sending to Ukraine doesn’t make it to the front lines: ‘Like 30% of it reaches its final destination,’” according to a tweet by CBS. In the film, experts told the media group they had no idea where most of the weapons were going since they weren’t all making it to the country.
“All of this stuff goes across the border,” explained Jonas Ohman, founder and CEO of the Ukraine aid organization Blue-Yellow, in the film, “and then something happens, kind of like 30% of it reaches its final destination.” He added that his organization has to deal with “power lords, oligarchs, and political players” just to deliver the equipment.
Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security did not approve of the report and tweeted: “During the recent information attack against Ukraine, @CBSNews published an ominous story about Western weapons allegedly ‘disappearing’ in Ukraine and being used for ‘unknown purposes.’”
Over the weekend, the description page for Arming Ukraine was suddenly removed, causing some raised eyebrows and questions as to why the news network would censor its own material. According to CBS, Ohman now claims delivery of materiel has improved since the original report, and information needed to be updated before the film’s release. But Chris Menahan of Information.Liberation.com argued:
“It’s far more likely they censored the film because they broke the unspoken rule that Ukraine must be supported at all costs against Russia because the future of the Liberal World Order is at stake.”
While the CBS Ukraine documentary is temporarily on hold, the network did fix an article to explain that more has been done to secure the deliveries and get them where they are supposed to go, aided by the arrival of Brigadier General Garrick M. Harmon in Kyiv this month to help oversee the operation.
What Has the CBS Ukraine Report Revealed?
Some Republican lawmakers who had opposed a $40 billion package to aid the country now felt vindicated after the now-deleted documentary showed that only a fraction of supplies made it to their destination. “This is one of the reasons I voted ‘no,’” said Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Others, such as Donatella Rovera, a senior crisis adviser for Amnesty International, reasoned it’s not surprising since this has happened in the past, such as in Afghanistan:
“Every country and every situation is very different, but certainly if I look back, Iraq is another country where there have been cyclical deliveries. We saw a lot of weapons come in 2003 with the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and then 2014 happened when ISIS took over large parts of the country and took over large stocks of weapons that had been meant for Iraqi forces.
“More recently, we saw the same situation occur in Afghanistan. Oversight mechanisms should be in place to avoid that.”
Congress approved $40 billion in May in military as well as economic aid to the war-torn country. Others have stepped in as well, offering support and other supplies. As of Monday (Aug. 8), CBS reported that “[t]he latest delivery of arms from the Defense Department brings the total amount of U.S. security aid to Ukraine to $9.8 billion since President Biden took office last year, including more than $9 billion since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.”
(Photo by Sofia Bobok/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak suggested that Russia was behind the “misinformation” to try to discredit Ukraine, and the country’s political powers were not thrilled with CBS’ report. Could that be the reason the network chose to pull its documentary: to pacify lawmakers and paint a different story than its original report?
The CBS Ukraine documentary’s now-deleted description read: “Flooding a country with advanced weapons can have grave consequences, even when done with the best intentions. This CBS Reports documentary goes inside Ukraine to get a firsthand look at how military aid gets from the border to frontline soldiers, and explores the difficulties of getting the aid to the fighters who need it.”
So if it was the truth to begin with, why censor the material? Perhaps conditions have changed, but that could be added at the end of the documentary instead of pulling it for a complete redo — if that is the intent. However, what is to say the situation won’t be altered again by the time of this new censorship editing? And, besides, it isn’t as if this kind of thing hasn’t happened in the past. As Retired US Marine Colonel Andy Millburn told the outlet:
“If you provide supplies, or a logistics pipeline, there has got to be some organization to it, right? If the ability to which you’re willing to be involved in that stops at the Ukrainian border, the surprise isn’t that, oh, all this stuff isn’t getting to where it needs to go — the surprise is that people actually expected it to.”
