‘We Cannot Win’ Says Top Russian Commander Alexander Khodakovsky
www.kyivpost.com
The leader of the Russian battalion defeated at liberated Urozhaine calls for “freezing the front” after his unreinforced troops were devastated in a rout.

https://archive.li/Z0m5m

The Russian commander of the “Vostok” Battalion fighting in southern Ukraine said on Thursday that Ukraine will not be defeated and suggested that Russia freeze the war along current frontlines.

Alexander Khodakovsky made the candid concession yesterday on his Telegram channel after Russian forces, including his own troops, were devastatingly defeated by Ukrainian marines earlier this week at Urozhaine in the Zaporizhzhia-Donetsk regional border area.

“Can we bring down Ukraine militarily? Now and in the near future, no,” Khodakovsky, a former official of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said yesterday.

“When I talk to myself about our destiny in this war, I mean that we will not crawl forward, like the [Ukrainians], turning everything into [destroyed] Bakhmuts in our path. And, I do not foresee the easy occupation of cities,” he said.

    • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4626·
      1 year ago

      Maybe the Ukrainians should negotiate and recognize the Donbas as no longer their territory somce the people living there have have democratically expressed that they want to leave. Then this can be over. Of course they could only negotiate if the US/NATO allows it, which is why this war keeps going on

        • Egon [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          317·
          1 year ago

          I dunno, I think we should respect the voice and choice of the people, this being a democracy and all. If people vote for something we have to respect it, like it or not, this isn’t some authoritarian nightmare state were we supress democratic parties we disagree with and repress minorities like Roma or jews, right?

          • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
            37·
            1 year ago

            Would you support the richest region of a country to separate by locals-only referendum so they don’t have to support the poor ones anymore?

          • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
            61·
            1 year ago

            Edit: found someone who finally linked some actual evidence I can observe so I may remove all of this text I crossed out and recant my entire statement depending on how convincing it is.

            Edit 2: The War in Donbas, 2014…
            Sounds like Ukraine went Tankie Mode to put down separatists, except instead of using literal tanks to do it, they sloppily shelled with artillery at great range. Poroshenko was in charge at the time. It was almost ten years ago but I remember just barely well enough that I still hate his fucking guts even to this day.
            Finger pointing abounds as far as who exactly is responsible for all the “Russian Volunteers” who “Appeared” “of their own free will”. Truth is, even if someone else may choose to blame Russia about it, my own ethical consistency doesn’t let me, because even though there are some certain and concrete differences, I am ok with people who aren’t Ukrainian traveling to Ukraine and volunteering to submit themselves under the command of the Ukrainian military. I understand this is going to piss off both sides. It would be hypocritical to be against one side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine while making excuses to permit the other side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine.
            The fact remains that Poroshenko’s administration handled this extremely fucking poorly to say the least and that handling included the slaughter of over THREE THOUSAND CIVILIANS.
            Even IF the actions of the Ukrainian leadership did not directly result in some proportion of those civilian casualties, it still happened on their turf and under their watch.
            This is part of why Poroshenko lost to Zelenskyy in 2019. During 2018, Zelenskyy stated in interviews that he wanted to negotiate with Russia to bring peace to the rebellion in the Donbas region instead of blasting it to hell like Poroshenko was. Too little too late. Oh well.

            It would have been nice if a neutral party could have swept in, disabled all combat capability from either faction in Donbas, overseen a vote without any guns held to anyone’s heads, with full public observability by the entire world - except there are no neutral parties. Everybody is on a side.

            Maybe no single nation should be in charge of Crimea and Donbas. Not even Ukraine.

            Sadly, I don’t think it’s likely that the world will come together to oust all armed personnel, whether insurgent or loyalist, from these regions, using UN Peacekeeper forces, until shit calms down enough for the civilians who live there to self-determine their future without being coerced. Except it’s highly arguable that this will fucking count as coercion TOO. -_-

            Anyway,

            My stance is still that Russia should have stayed the fuck home, and should go back there, and if they JUST did that, then no one else would have to die in the Donbas region.

            … Unless the separatists breached the ceasefires AGAIN.
            AND AGAIN
            AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
            AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND…

            you say this shit as if anyone enjoys the fact that people who live there are embroiled in a war.

            This only became the case when Russia invaded.

            Nobody who purports the position that Ukraine was enacting genocide ever shows evidence of ethnic cleansing happening in the Donbas region prior to the Russian invasion. Of course, evidence of it happening after the Russian invasion is everywhere: all the civilians Russia executed in the street, visible from satellite images even before areas are taken back by the rightful sovereignty of Ukraine to whence it belonged prior to the invasion. By Russia.

            All people ever tell me is “trust me bro” or try to assert that absence of evidence is evidence of a coverup, which are, notably, the same techniques american conservative fascist GOP-Simps use when trying to convince others that trans people are pedophiles and rapists.

            > my source: this propagandistic youtube video

            my. how credible.

            People will stop dying in Donbas when Russian invaders stop killing the Ukrainians who live there.

              • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                OK for real though I am looking forward to reading up on Operation Aerodynamic.

                Just because I’m not ok with the CIA sending operatives to foment rebellions, astroturf political movements, rig elections, and overthrow sovereign states does not have any influence on the fact that they definitely fucking do that shit.

                The fact that they definitely do it, though, does not make it ok for anyone else to do it either.

                Russia’s used the “turnabout is fair play” card in ‘encouraging’ ‘veterans’ to ‘volunteer’ ‘assisting’ ‘separatist insurgents’ in Donbas. Although I hate to see it, and wish they hadn’t done it, the rationale behind why they expected to get away with it is clear. Even right now, lots of non-Ukrainians are volunteering (with or without airquotes) to aid the Ukrainian military.
                Some might tell me “that’s not the same thing!!!” while others will tell me “that’s LITERALLY the same thing!!!” and however one wishes to characterize it, it’s definitely happening and it’s going to keep happening because the utility of it is too high. Russia’s gonna keep doing it. America’s gonna keep doing it. Proxy war.

                Now I can face the fact that the actual reason that I want Russia to lose is the same reason I want the American republican party to be extinguished AND the democrat party to be blown out afterward: conservative traditionalist fascistic authoritarian theocracies deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth and swept into the dustbin of history where they fucking belong. European influence has historically weakened these death cult brain-viruses. Europe being far more left-leaning and socialist than America may ever be in my life time makes them the preferable alternative to Russia’s literal jailing and execution of LGBT people. Encoded into their very fucking law books.

                • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  11·
                  1 year ago

                  Russia’s used the “turnabout is fair play” card in ‘encouraging’ ‘veterans’ to ‘volunteer’ ‘assisting’ ‘separatist insurgents’ in Donbas

                  Okay so you claim that the Revolution that the left part of the Map does is Legit , and “wholisitc Peoples will” (even through its leads to Civil War ) … the REACTION of the Part of the Country that just lost THEIR FUCKING PRESIDENT AND THE RIGHT TO SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE , is just a Russian Operation ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

                  Maidan : "Fuck yeah TV told me ! "

                  "Slavyiansk , Odessa , Kramatosrk , Donestk , Luhansk , Mariupol , kherson , Kharkov , Dneperpetrosk , Crimea etc. all rebellling in Reaction ? " , “well thats just a russian operation , i can not forgive them !!!”

                  okay imagine Canada has a Quebecian President , he then gets unconstituionally removed by Canadian Faschist in the non french speaking Capital , the New Goverment that spend all their time proclaiming their Hate for Quebecians and forbides the french Language , and you try to go around telling me that the

                  "Seperatist movement gathering in Quebec is some perfidious French operation … nothing natural about it … they Love beeing bombed & hated , you have fallen for French Missinformation Sweety "

                • ThomasMuentzner [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  10·
                  1 year ago

                  Sorry the first reply was to “Fronting” , your on a good way , the Maidan spell sits deep , it also sat deep in me once. True Power is True Power , and if you ever heard of “Softpower” … this is it …

                  That you currently belive that the “Maidan” is the great and Glorious Peoples Will" & “The Donbass revolution is is perfidious Russian lies” and against the will of the People" is US Softpower …

                  if you ever heard about the Concept ,SOFTPOWER it is the ability of the US State to make you Hate somebody.

                  conservative traditionalist fascistic authoritarian theocracies deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth and swept into the dustbin of history where they fucking belong.

                  i think you heard about it… ,

            • Flaps [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
              243·
              1 year ago

              While I’m happy to see you’ve come back on some of your previous points, your edit is pretty fuckin heinous to say the least.

              To say ukraine went ‘full tankie’ while the people you’d happily refer to as tankies gave you sources and insight just makes you come across as disengenous. The word tankie has no meaning and you use it to just denounce stuff you don’t agree with.

              Also, to say it’ll be the people of Donbas who’ll break peace treaties after ten years of living in a war zone without any evidence that that’ll happen, even with evidence pointing to the contrary, is just fuckin vile.

              • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
                13·
                1 year ago

                The identity of an individual who points me to external evidence has no influence on the validity of said external evidence, and the evidence must be weighed on its own merit; to believe otherwise is ad hominem. It’s true that Ukraine attempted to suppress their rebellion with extremely sloppy application of brutal force and that’s tankie activity no matter who is doing it to whom.

                Furthermore, as far as whatever violent tendencies may be exhibited by people who have been living in a war zone for ten years, you could be right. Or it could be that they weren’t the ones who violated ceasefire repeatedly back then in the first place and wouldn’t be the ones to violate such a ceasefire in such a hypothetical future - since the Russians in the PRESENT have demonstrate a pattern of repeatedly violating ceasefires and MAY sabotage it in the future while trying to frame these people (which is what “might” have been happening in actuality ten years ago)

                Yes, how vile an implication it is, that Russia will attempt to hold these people hostage and use them as human shields, all over again, as if we would never see it coming.

                  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
                    12·
                    1 year ago

                    When was the last time Joe Biden killed several thousand American rebels on American soil using the United States military?

                    He’s unironicly a war criminal just like the last umpteen American presidents, even if we were JUST looking at his complicity in the shit America does; and the ONLY thing that makes me sad about the Trump trials is that it’s only happening to ONE president we’ve had and not every living president.

                    But he still hasn’t crushed an American rebellion by slaughtering thousands of Americans with artillery on American soil.

                    Gotta be specific with crimes.

                    Or are you telling me you DON’T think what Petro Poroshenko did to his own civilians was a tankie job?

        • AntiOutsideAktion [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
          175·
          1 year ago

          They do when the democratically elected government is overthrown in a coup and the far right replacements start passing laws targeted at making people of your ethnic background illegal. Especially when the shelling starts, you do.