Contrary to widespread triumphant Western narratives, this reporting describes Ukrainian troops surviving on one potato per day and deserting their posts.
Washington Post’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com
The Washington Post has published an acknowledgement that Ukraine’s war against Russia has not been nearly the cakewalk that much of the public has been led to believe.
In “Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned,” WaPo reports that contrary to the triumphant narratives the Western world is being spoon fed, many troops in eastern Ukraine have been surviving on one potato per day and deserting their posts because they feel their leaders have turned their backs on them and they’re being sent to certain death.
“Stuck in their trenches, the Ukrainian volunteers lived off a potato per day as Russian forces pounded them with artillery and Grad rockets on a key eastern front line. Outnumbered, untrained and clutching only light weapons, the men prayed for the barrage to end,” The Washington Post reports, citing multiple named sources.
“Ukrainian leaders have projected and nurtured a public image of military invulnerability — of their volunteer and professional forces triumphantly standing up to the Russian onslaught,” the article reads.
“But the experience of Lapko and his group of volunteers offers a rare and more realistic portrait of the conflict and Ukraine’s struggle to halt the Russian advance in parts of Donbas. Ukraine, like Russia, has provided scant information about deaths, injuries or losses of military equipment. But after three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.”
Ukrainian leaders project an image of military invulnerability against #Russia. But commanders offer a more realistic portrait of the war, where outgunned volunteers describe being abandoned by their military brass and facing certain death at the front. https://t.co/YLu9M28Cx8
— Sudarsan Raghavan (@raghavanWaPo) May 26, 2022
WaPo reports that volunteer troops in that part of the country “quickly found themselves in the crosshairs of war, feeling abandoned by their military superiors and struggling to survive.”
“We are being sent to certain death,” said one volunteer. “We are not alone like this, we are many.”
“Hours after The Post interviewed Lapko and Khrus, members of Ukraine’s military security service arrived at their hotel and detained some of their men, accusing them of desertion,” WaPo reports. “The men contend that they were the ones who were deserted.”
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Some commentators have remarked on how, at long last, we’re seeing some realistic coverage of this war in the mainstream press.
“First major US media I’ve seen to report catastrophic condition of Ukrainian forces, collapsing Ukrainian morale on the front. Seems obvious we should know the truth about a war our government is so deeply invested in,” tweeted journalist Mark Ames, a frequent critic of the mass media blackout on conditions in the Ukrainian military.
First major US media I've seen to report catastrophic condition of Ukrainian forces, collapsing Ukrainian morale on the front. Seems obvious we should know the truth about a war our government is so deeply invested in.https://t.co/sYYwdm1p62
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) May 26, 2022
“This might be the first article in a mainstream publication that punctures the PR spin and secrecy of the foreign military that the US is subsidizing. Two commanders were arrested after they spoke to the Washington Post, painting an extremely grim picture,” tweeted journalist Michael Tracey.
This might be the first article in a mainstream publication that punctures the PR spin and secrecy of the foreign military that the US is subsidizing. Two commanders were arrested after they spoke to the Washington Post, painting an extremely grim picture https://t.co/Sn4GQPuLP9 pic.twitter.com/j2axyZUkhq
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 26, 2022
This is indeed a major break from standard mainstream reporting on this conflict, which is normally more in line with this recent Newsweek article, headlined “Putin’s Elite Soldiers Getting Wiped Out as Russia Makes Mistakes—U.K.,” sourced entirely in unevidenced claims by the British government and the military industrial complex-funded neocon think tank Institute for the Study of War.
So anyway, there it is. That’s the reality on the front lines of this conflict that Westerners have been cheering on from their comfortable homes while calling anyone who advocates a negotiated peace settlement a Putin apologist and a Kremlin troll.
These big brave sofa warriors have been on social media demanding that Ukrainians keep fighting in this way until they’ve secured total victory over Russia and reclaimed Crimea and the Donbas, tweeting “Slava Ukraini” with their little blue-and-yellow flag emojis during the commercial breaks of their favorite TV show in between mouthfuls of Funyuns.
Westerners would be a lot less cavalier about demanding a foreign population keep fighting until total victory if they truly understood the horrors of war. Unfortunately, there’s a propaganda machine of unprecedented sophistication that has spent generations preventing them from obtaining that very understanding.
[Related: John Pilger: War in Europe & the Rise of Raw Propaganda]
That’s why they’re so happy to throw endless Ukrainian lives into the gears of the imperial war machine, and that’s why the WaPo article we are discussing here is receiving very little mainstream attention online as of this writing. It will be dismissed and ignored by empire managers and their brainwashed flock with a “Hmm, you just can’t hire good cannon fodder these days.”
"So you think Ukraine should just GIVE Putin the Donbas and Crimea and neutrality, to end a war Putin started??"
No I think Ukraine should sacrifice rivers of blood serving as US proxy cannon fodder for years to drain Moscow while you sit at home eating Pop Tarts and tweeting.
— Caitlin Johnstone ? (@caitoz) March 24, 2022
There’s no real reckoning with exactly what’s happening and exactly what these people are being called on to put themselves through. In the children’s crayon drawing version of this war that lives in the heads of Western so-called centrists, this is a team of heroic Good Guys righteously beating the tar out of hordes of Bad Guys because that’s what happens in the movies and on TV.
But this is not the movies, and this is not TV. People are dying in a U.S. proxy war that was deliberately provoked by the U.S.-centralized empire, and behind all the narratives and spin they are ultimately doing so for nothing more noble than the agenda to secure U.S. unipolar hegemony.
Many of the blue-and-yellow flag wavers are well-intentioned, and really do think they are advocating for Ukrainian freedom and sovereignty. But in reality, they’ve been cheering for Ukrainian subservience and enslavement to the empire, Ukrainian death, Ukrainian suffering and the continuation of a dangerous proxy war between nuclear superpowers that threatens the life of everyone on earth.
Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium. Her work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following her on Steemit, throwing some money into her tip jar onPatreon or Paypal, purchasing some of her sweet merchandise, buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix, Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
This article is from CaitlinJohnstone.com and re-published with permission.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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“Exactly what’s happening and exactly what these people are being called on to put themselves through,” IS the Power’s that Be usual modus operandi, in war after war, regarding soldiers & people, “use & abandon.”
“The eagle, the bear and the dragon”
“The bear is frustrated. It says it has repeatedly offered to co-operate with the eagle and its minions for the development of a joint system – to no avail. The bear insists the door remains open for a compromise. They will have to talk again – after the fractious 2012 presidential campaign in eagleland. Meanwhile, the dragon wearily watches.”
And so we reach the end – though not the endgame. Predictably there’s no moral to this fable. What sensible minds may expect is that even as we’ll keep suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, this New Cold War hopefully won’t become hot.” Pepe Escobar, December 23, 2011
Related: “The eagle, the bear and the dragon”
In a multipolar world, “POWER” is not dominated by one country but distributed among multiple countries.
Here’s a new Cold War fable for an emerging multipolar world. December 23, 2011
“Let’s celebrate the end of an eventful 2011 with a fable.
Once upon a time in the young 21st century, the eagle, the bear and the dragon took their (furry) gloves off and engaged in a New Cold War.
When the original Cold War ended – in theory – in late 1991, in a dacha in Belarus, with the bear almost in coma, the eagle assumed the bear’s right to an independent foreign policy which was also cancelled.
That was more than clear between 1999 and 2004 – when NATO, against all promises made to former top bear Gorbachev, expanded all the way to Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.
So the bear started wondering; what if in the end they take away all my security space and I’m geopolitically starved?
In the young 21st century, the key tug of war between the eagle and the bear concerns missile defence. Not even the eagle itself knows whether this immensely expensive gimmick will work. And even if it does, it will probably be financed by a reluctant dragon, which holds over US $1.5tn in eagle debt.” Pepe Escobar, December 23, 2011
hxxps://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/12/23/the-eagle-the-bear-and-the-dragon
Department of Homeland Security estimated that Trump’s proposed border wall would cost roughly $21.6 billion.
But $55 billion to Ukraine is not even debated.
I think the most important lesson to be learned was noted in yesterday’s Moons Over Alabama;”In February [2021], Zelensky ordered troops (as part of the rotation process) and heavy weapons (as a show of force) to go near to the conflict zone in Donbas. He did not venture out as far as Poroshenko, who dispatched small Ukrainian naval vessels through the Russian-controlled waters near the Kerch Strait in late 2018, but it was enough to get him noticed in Moscow. The fact of the matter is that even if Ukraine cannot seriously hope to win the war in Donbas, it can successfully provoke Russia into action. This, in turn, would produce a knee-jerk reaction from Ukraine’s Western supporters and further aggravate Moscow’s relations, particularly with Europe. One way or another, the fate of Nord Stream II will directly affect Ukraine’s interests. Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and presenting itself as a frontline state checking Russia’s further advance toward Europe is a major asset of Kyiv’s foreign policy.”
The point is that the Biden Administration has been egging-on a fight between Ukraine and Russia for a very long time. This places a lot of criminal culpability on Bidens shoulders.
Biden will face the same criminal culpability as George W. Bush has faced He will be invited to appear on Ellen
Bishop Publicly Supported Putin And the Special Operation in Ukraine
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb_ON1YU2ek&ab_channel=PacoBacchus
Among the heads of state, there is only one who faces the forces of evil … The real aggressor is not the one who appears to be.
The Washington Post has supported US providing military assistance to Ukraine, and have been well aware that Ukraine has and is losing the war.
WPO has decided to acknowledge reality in order to lay the groundwork for Republican victories in the mid-terms and beyond.
In Europe, we have noticed recently a more discreet tone to the hysterical “nach Moskau” press. In particular, I think it was prompted by the reporting of the surrender of the Azovstal fighters which turned into outright comedy that would have pleased Louis de Funes. The soldiers were “evacuated” in almost all the mainstream press, and the factory was “ceded” to the Russians. Interesting. The French at Diem Bien Phu were evacuated in 1954 and the place was ceded to the Viet Minh? Probably, the Azovstal fighters were “evacuated” to Siberia.
Europe is going deaf, dumb and blind.
“You can fool all of the people some of the time…”
Cliches earn their status through containing a grain of Truth to which folks Relate…
CN content re: Ukraine has contained that grain from the start, as in this piece by Ms Johnstone (& the one below by Mr Walsh).
The MSM publications featured have One Product to $ell: Truth…
Is competition w/ net pubs like CN finally forcing (the Mystical) Real News?……..!!!
A very sad situation for the real Ukrainian military, not the neo-Nazis, though. Zelensky is a selfish, pathetic human being who cares nothing for the people oF Ukraine. Biden and Zelensky are both greedy and cruel.
So, finally, the WaPo is acknowledging what independent media and journalists have being saying all along. Sites like the Duran,New Atlas, The Dive, Greyzone Jimmy Dore , Graham Phillips, Patrick Lancaster etc. . And people wonder why we can’t believe a single word coming out of MSM regarding the entirety of this conflict and the lead up to it since the Euromaidan.
I’m Canadian and the CBC is amongst the worst offenders when it comes to being an echo chamber for the US,NATO ,Ukrainian spin machine. It’s outrageously despicable.
WaPo article is correct, I can verify from my homie on the ground in Ukraine. Yes, Russia has changed tactics, from bullshit like a VDV airborne and air assault on a well-defended Hostomel airfield, in a contested airscpace, to a good old combined arms assault, the one that is happening now in Donbass, especially in places like Severodonetsk. And it’s not that jolly when your territorial defense brigade has only basic RPGs, and zero MANPADS. Yes, the situation could have been better, and there is decent amount of frustration among these units, which were ordinary civilians just the day before the invasion. That said though, the morale overall remains much higher, then the article might suggest: there is a lot of frustration due to this factors, but nonetheless a lot of morale to fight on, and more pressure on the military and political leadership to get heavy equipment there.
However, Grayzone, Jimmy Dore, etc are deranged idiots, who view it as nothing more then a proxy war fought for America against Russia by a government installed by a 2014 “coup”. This view is extremely simplimistic, which reduces ukrainians to some gray mass merely existing, “caught up” in a wider conflict between bigger powers, probably wanting nothing more then have nothing to do with all of this. The reality is, more then 90% of Ukrainians are resolutely against Russian control of their country, especially the latest attempt to seize it by force. You either fight, or you agree to a rule by some russian governor-general, but then say goodbye not only to those freedoms your deeply corrupt and flawed democracy awards, but also to the mere fact that nobody would even ask your opinion anymore-you either agree to russian rule, or you go to jail/die in not anymore some cases. Only upside-not as brutal as Chinese or North Korean regime, but that’s about it.
AK:
So Ukrainians suposedly do not want to be ruled by imperial Russia but they are perfectly ok to be ruled by imperial US and by its vassal EU. I do not think so. And if fact they already got via oligarchic thievery into unpayable debt that will make them slaves of western banks, only to fight futile war with global superpower.
So it cannot be about freedom and sovereignty as Kiev regime gave up economic and political sovereignty to NATO, IMF and western banking cartel making local oligarchs, citizens of foreign countries even richer.
So what this war is all about in Ukrainian mind because it is not about independence which declaration of state neutrality would easily accomplish with no blood spilled.
In fact it is more driven by pure Russophobia and ominously sounding Nazi like government policies of de Russification of ethnic Russians forcing them to lose their economic base and ethnic identity, identical with Russians since they are Russians living there at least 250 years, today with Ukrainian citizenship yesterday with Soviet or before that Russian Empire citizenship.
Borders change the same people stayed put on the land they were born in. What we witnessing in Ukraine is driven by a Ukrainian Nazi clique ethnic cultural and physical cleansing which is a war crime. The militantly Anti Russian hatred stems from Bandera and Dontsov concept of pure Ukrainian state and Nazi slogans “Ukraine for Ukrainians”. Zelensky government is implementing such policies daily.
It is your view that seems to me simplistic as about half (22 millions ) of Ukrainian population are ethnic Russians who after the coup were culturally persecuted their music and art was discriminated Russian language was banned as official language they were called traitors separatists they wholesale lost jobs in government and in the industries amid economic depression that started even before 2014.
Ukrainian citizens living in Donbas in last eight years were economically blockaded, they all were fired from jobs in Ukrainian companies or government like schools, universities that were closed and relocated west , their pensions and benefits unpaid, their bank accounts seized. And that included 30% minority of ethnic Ukrainians in Donbas while Kiev regime refused implementing Minsk agreements and let Donbas reintegration back to Ukraine as autonomous region.
The supposed western curation of Ukraine since 2014 alone deepened the economic crisis put country into debt trap while loaded it with western weapons for sole purposes to regain Donbas by force .If these are friends of Ukraine she does not need enemies.
Nobody asked ethnic Russians about joining EU which would have practically meant destruction of Donbas economy tightly connected to Russia. The Donbas, meaning local elected officials, ardent supporters of Yanukovitch who won there in a landslide, opposed Kiev coup, and were vehemently against illegal removal of legitimate President who wanted Ukrainian people as a whole east and west to decide on EU deal for themselves according to agreement with opposition arranged by EU in February 2014.
The Coup was staged to prevent that. Nuland F..EU was about that.
Ukraine is not a near monolith in support for Western submission but is deeply conflicted and tragically divided and this is underlying the situation today which is extension of eight year old Donbass war which NATO did not want to end as it openly admitted NATO interest in weakening Russia.
We all want to be free so Ukrainians do if so what they want to accomplish by becoming a pawns, a cannon fodder in deadly global geopolitics. They don’t. Kiev Nazi regime thst speaks for no whole Ukraine, does.
You are spouting all the canards of imperial propaganda, but somehow it is Grayzone and Jimmy Dore who are deranged. Sure, Ukrainians love to be ruled by a fascistic regime that glorifies openly Nazi collaborators and humiliates actual Ukrainian patriots who served their motherland, all the while plundering the citizenry without pity. That is, apart from the merciless neo-colonial looting by foreign parasites.Apparently, the disaster from the 90s onwards wasn’t enough. It is almost as if the western neoliberals consider the Ukrainians to be Russians and inflict upon them such horrors with sadistic glee.
I mean, yeah, the corruption has reached stratospheric levels, every economic and social metric reveals levels of social degradation beyond the pale, but somehow the Ukrainian citizenry loves it. It’s not as if the fascist Myrotvorets platform, an effective death squad appendage, and the Pandora papers reveal a belak image of Ukraine. And of course, the quashing of a popular opposition that run with the same platform as that of Zelensky (who abandoned it bigtime) is an expression of freedoms and democracy. I guess that’s what Eduard Dolinsky felt everytime he posted info about the sickening rise of anti-Semitism in the country that went through the “Revolution of Dignity”. And that is without going through the visceral Russophobia that you doubtlessly approve.
I can only wish that your homie follows the path of Azrael to a well deserving end.
Your usual understatement! WAPO actually had 2 negatives today, if you count this less-than-intended one: ‘Western officials accused Moscow of using food as a form of blackmail,’ subtitled ‘Russia’s grain blockade may require U.S. intervention, general suggests.’
Most salient quote: ‘British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss condemned Moscow for attempting to “hold the world to ransom” and “essentially weaponizing hunger.” In calling on Putin to end the blockade, she rejected the idea of lifting sanctions and said “any appeasement” would only make the Russian leader “stronger in the longer term.”’
My Comment: ‘I condemn Liz, along with Joe and Tony, for attempting to hold 40% of the world to starvation-causing sanctions and essentially weaponizing hunger. In calling on them to return the $300B they stole from Russia, and taxing US citizens for the $53B they are throwing into arms proliferation efforts in Ukraine, I reject the idea of exempting them from the International Criminal Court, and say that any appeasement would only make US/Brit adventurism more murderous in the long term.’
Plus the usual reaction: (Lloyd from Toronto): ‘Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
(Translation for Muscovite trolls: Don’t start foreign wars when you are told up front that there will be a price to pay.)’ At least, my initial ‘V’ didn’t stand for ‘Vlad’ as usual there.
Ukrainian ports are not blockaded by Russia. Kiev regime sank ships and barges at entrance to ports trapping up to 70 vessels many foreign then they mined entire port area with old Soviet mines that drifted to as far as to Turkish waters creating navigation hazards.
Russia in contrast weeks ago opened up Marine humanitarian corridor from dawn to dusk according to IMO (International Marine Organization) and Russian military.
Kiev just has to unblock ports and no problem. But reasons for all of that propaganda of worlds famine serves to cover up massive exports of dirty cheap Ukrainian grains to.. Western Europe by train where it is being sold to cover up weapons costs and in the process reportedly enriching Kiev elites including Zelensky. No concern about starving Africa.
Moreover Russia that amounts to 30% of all global wheat exports just forecasted best harvest ever . Hypocrite west should just allow Russia to sell this wheat with no sanctions nonsense.
Whole hype is for other reasons namely to be able to supply NATO weapons in large quantities by sea which Russia opposes.
Vincent ANDERSON, another point about the alleged “hunger games” that the West is accusing Russia of, is the fact that Russia has amply pointed out is that the ports have been blocked with thousands of mines laid out by the Ukraine forces. Russia is clearing these mines around Mariupol but area around Odessia is still almost impossible to navigate.
What’s really sad is that Zelensky doesn’t realize he is being used by the U.S. to weaken Russia. No doubt Russia is paying a high price for this war, but I doubt that it’s near the price the Ukrainians will ultimately pay. We will continue shipping arms to them until every last Ukrainian is dead.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the defense contractors are making a killing (literally as well as figuratively) and U.S. taxpayers (and their children and grandchildren) will pay the bill.
Yes, Russia is paying a high price in human lives for this war, which the US/Ukraine have imposed on Russia. Putin tried to avoid the war until the very last, but he couldn’t let Ukraine massacre the people of the Donbas.
In the end, Russia will come out of this much stronger and the US will be weakened, just like in the Middle East, after the Russian intervention in Syria. The US went into the trap it had set for Russia.
The world will see that the US, which is in economic decline, doesn’t have the military power to win in Afghanistan, Syria or Ukraine, even after spending trillions of dollars. How would the US win in a direct war against Russia or China?
“What’s really sad is that Zelensky doesn’t realize he is being used by the U.S. to weaken Russia.”
Exactly what evidence do you have to substantiate that assertion? He doesn’t strike me as an idiot who’s utterly unaware of the puppet strings controlling him. At best he could be acting under duress from the Nazi contingent (which required continuance of its pogroms in the Donbass) and from the U.S. as it ramped Ukraine up to war, but he’s far too effective a tool at throwing his country under the bus to be being used unwillingly.
People who would like more insight into Zelenskyy’s innocence or lack there9f could do a search for ‘Servant of the Corrupt’.
What you say is possible. I have heard that Zelensky’s life has been threatened if he didn’t comply. Whether true or not, I can’t say.
Regardless, the main point is the Ukraine is simply a pawn in the geopolitical game the U.S. is playing.
One potato per day? Well, Washington encouraged them to pick up this “hot potato” against Russia’s better advice.
Don’t they have a “Grub Hub” there they can call in? Surely $55 billion will get a few Domino’s pizzas delivered, no?
Thanx Caitlin.
Parts of the US establishment are trying to find an off-ramp to the Ukrainian conflict, and this story by Washington Post is part of that. TheDuran has a good interview with Robert Barnes about this (see:hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRoV5OJyj2E).
A number of military analysts (Scott Ritter, Andrei Martyanov, Larry C. Johnson) have all pointed to the same story you illustrate here: Russia has a better grasp of combined arms war, and is using massed artillery (protected by air force, missile and electronic warfare assets) to systematically annihilate Ukrainian forces. NATO and the US military, in their eyes, is no match for Russia: the US spends 10x as much on the military, but the MIC is as much a money laundering scheme as it is about creating a competent force.
I suspect this conflict is a death knell to the US “empire”, as it is showcasing US weakness on a number of fronts. The US sanctions against Russia are doing more harm to US economy, and especially Europe, which may not recover. NATO is a paper tiger that cannot offer effective help to Ukraine, unless they want to escalate to nuclear war, which helps no one. Countries like China and Russia are moving away from the US dollar and setting up alternative economic systems (see: hxxps://multipolarista.com/2022/05/11/michael-hudson-dollar-sanctions-imperialism/)
Yes Rex, I agree with your NATO assessment. Were Ukraine a NATO member, and were the “all for one and one for all” principle in effect, I cannot see the mothers of France, Germany, Spain and Italy supporting the death of their sons and daughters in Donbass. In an era of increasing nationalism the sacrifice of one’s blood in defence of a country where one feels no kinship seems to me unlikely. As you say “NATO is a paper tiger” and the reason is the reluctance to die in collective cause. Even the warmonger Boris Johnson would struggle to gain the support of British mothers for the slaughter of their children in Ukraine, and he has the full power of the Indoctrination Machine to call upon. From where I stand NATO looks to be a deflating balloon of hot air and merely a lien on the assets of European citizens for the benefit of the USA MIC.
Thanks for the links, Rex. Much to be learned from reading Michael Hudson. I also highly recommend Olga Baysha’s “Democracy, Populism, and Neoliberalism in Ukraine: On the Fringes of the Virtual and the Real”. A disturbing account of how the long suffering Ukrainian voters were tricked into electing the egomaniacal neoliberal puppet Zelensky by merging his “Servant of the People” TV series character with the leader of the MIC concocted political party of the same name in the collective consciousness. Brilliant and terrifying.
“a number of fronts.”
Some would suggest “a number of stages” may prove more illuminating.
I believe you have pretty well nailed it. All I can add is we can expect any level of insanity from th present U$ leadership — they will literally do anything (including IMHO nuclear war) rather than concede U$/dollar hegemony in world trade. And that certainly is what’s at stake here.