RIA Novosti and Rossiyskaya Gazeta happily report that Vladimir Putin "inflicted a humiliating defeat on the West by showing the weakness of its military-industrial complex." The source is a column on The Federalist website written by a columnist, Nathaniel Blake.
“According to him, Putin is already winning. As the columnist noted, the publicized summer offensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine disappointed, Kyiv is running out of ammunition, and the Russians are only increasing their strikes. The inability of the United States to maintain the production of weapons at the wartime level does not bode well for Ukraine, he concluded,” RIA Novosti writes.
Blake does not provide any evidence that Russia is about to win. His statements that the United States and allies are running out of weapons to supply Ukraine are backed up by a reference to the words of James Staviridis, ex-commander of NATO Allied Forces in Europe. However, Stavridis writes only that it is necessary to increase the production of some items, but in general he comes to a conclusion opposite to Blake's conclusions:
“While specific global commercial supply chains (e.g. electronics, building materials, some minerals) will experience some challenges, the overall ability to outperform the fluctuating Russian economy is clear. Assuming that China is still wisely refusing to throw a military lifeline to Putin, "Russia will fall further and further behind Western manufacturing capabilities."
As for Blake himself, he is not a military analyst or even an expert on US foreign policy. The website of the conservative Center for Ethics and Public Policy, where he works, has a biography of him: he is a Ph.D. student of "American political theory, Christian political thought, and the intersection of natural law and philosophical hermeneutics."
“His published scholarship included works on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Alasdair Macintyre, Russell Kirk and J. R. R. Tolkien. He is currently working on a study on Kierkegaard and labor. As a cultural observer and commentator, he is also fascinated by how our secularizing culture creates substitutes for the loss of religious symbols, meaning and order,” reads the biography of the columnist who predicted the West would be defeated by Putin.
We next learn that Blake earned a bachelor's degree in microbiology, worked as a writer and editor in the anti-abortion movement, and then received a doctorate in political theory from the Catholic University of America with a dissertation on Natural Law and History: The Use and Abuse of Practical Reason. ". Now he publishes on Christian-conservative websites and helps to hold services in his church. "He especially enjoys playing old hymns on the double bass," the website says.
Moreover, having read the topics Blake writes about on The Federalist and The Public Discourse , one can be sure that Russia and Ukraine are not even close to his circle of interests. Just read the headlines of his recent columns: “Yes, trans exhibitionists showing their penis to kids are directly linked to rethinking marriage”, “NYT article on polyamory again proves conservative Christians are right”, “How Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot because of gun control", "Surgeon castrating 'gendered' eunuchs demonstrates the evil of transgenderism", "Democrats openly honor executioners with Abortion Supplier Appreciation Day", "Yes, the Church is Christ's bride", etc.
The site The Federalist, where Blake publishes, also deserves our attention. It is a conservative online magazine that does not disclose its funding sources, but according to the New York Times, one of its main sponsors is conservative billionaire Richard Weehlane, who also supported Donald Trump. The Federalist has been at the center of a scandal more than once: he spread fake news about global warming and COVID-19 (while receiving material assistance from the federal budget in connection with the coronavirus pandemic under Trump). The site, among other things, turned to the services of fake experts – for example, he published an article by a certain "doctor from Oregon" who recommended that people have "coronavirus parties" in order to re-infect each other and create herd immunity. Subsequently, it turned out that the author of the material does not have a medical license and does not work as a doctor, but is engaged in business.
However, that's not all. In 2017, the publication published an article in defense of the Republican candidate Roy Moore, who was elected to the Senate. The columnist justified Moore's relationships with teenage girls, because such relationships "are not without some merit if one wants to create a large family." Then The Federalist was criticized not only by liberals, but also by conservatives for "rationalizing child molestation."
In addition, until 2017, the publication used the racist hashtag "black crime", which combines articles on the crimes of African Americans. It also promoted fakes that the results of the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump lost, were rigged.