The fog of war reporting: how the truth gets lost in Ukraine

If Crimea is re-annexed to Moscow, the numbers fleeing could create a humanitarian crisis

Robert Fox

THE FOG enveloping Kiev for much of this week has proved a gift of a metaphor for the script and cliché writers of the international media now camped out there. Of all the Carl Von Clausewitz concepts, the notion of the fog of war is about the most abused and misused.

Behind the fog of diplomacy and journalism now blanketing Ukraine and all points east, there is a tangle of fact, half-truth, myth and real and deepening fears. Surely, it is time to puncture the clichés – whether from Vladimir Putin's Greater Russia script, or the empty threats and promises of the EU leadership – and get into talking realities, before the fear explodes into even more violence, and even full-scale war.

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is a writer on Western defence issues and Italian current affairs. He has worked for the Corriere della Sera in Milan, covered the Falklands invasion for BBC Radio, and worked as defence correspondent for The Daily Telegraph. His books include The Inner Sea: the Mediterranean and its People.