- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- ukraine@sopuli.xyz
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.
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Then. Just. Fucking. LEAVE!
If only the little man at the big table didn’t have such a Napoleon complex
It’s all such a waste of human life and resources
I think many people are forgetting that the larger army, vastly outnumbering Ukrainian resources in numbers, has not won a victory since the beginning of the invasion. And only presents a problem because the 2 countries cannot reliably use air power to overcome 1st WW trench warfare. Russia has defenses, but no ability to move forward. They are just trying to hold on to what they took in those first few months and are very slowly failing at that. If Ukraine can keep going, supported by the West, Russia will lose. I do not think Russia will use nukes – any use of a nuke is basically on Russia’s own land – according to them – and will affect them as much as Ukraine. But the question of ending the war is an interesting one. Do we see Russia continuing the war if they lose most of their ill-gotten territorial gains? What happens to those insecure areas? Are people going to rebuild, i.e. invest scarce resources in unstable areas? Or will they just become dead zones, DMZ borders?
And only presents a problem because the 2 countries cannot reliably use air power to overcome 1st WW trench warfare
The US has just approved the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine. So that might change soon. IIRC, Ukraine has had a shortage of airplanes to use. Russia has been very reluctant to use the airplanes that they have because they keep getting shot down, and they simply can’t replace them at the speed necessary (especially since their economy has crashed, and China is the only country that can supply them with the circuitry that they need).
A bigger problem is that Russia has air defenses and air bases inside Russia. NATO in general has been very reluctant to transfer offensive weapons to Ukraine that would make it possible to strike those–entirely legitimate–targets inside of Russia, because that would be an escalation. But to have air superiority, you need to ensure that those SAM batteries, RADAR installations, and forward air bases are not in the picture. So to break the stalemate, Ukraine has to be able to make strikes against Russia, in Russian territory. That’s potentially very dangerous.
If it’s allowed to grind on, Russia wins eventually, because they have a population many times the size of Ukraine, and can keep throwing bodies at them. So Ukraine needs to win air superiority, which means striking targets inside of Russia.
Regarding the F16, Ukrainian pilots are going to start testing the Gripen as well, although that path is obviously far behind the F16s given the glacial pace of such developments…
The F-16s will need parts, logistics, and weapons, the pilots and ground crews will need extensive training… those jets will do nothing this year. Perhaps next year though. I agree that Ukraine is fighting with one arm tied due to NATO fears of nuclear retaliation. Is that a reasonable fear? I think so. Putin is not a sane or reasonable person. And Ukraine has shown the capability to hit Russian targets within Russian territory. If the Ukrainians were allowed to hit harder, deeper, more sensitive targets in Russia, the war would escalate – Russia would not want to be seen as beaten by its little neighbor. A shame, agree or disagree, but right now, those are the rules of war that Ukraine must abide by for continued support from NATO.
Russia has been beaten by most of the smaller countries that it’s gone toe-to-toe against. The only particularly big win that Russia (or the USSR) has had in the past century was WWII, and that was because the USSR was getting an enormous amount of material assistance from… The US. source Russia’s aggressive actions against the Baltic countries are precisely why Estonia, Latvia, etc. joined NATO. And countries have to ask to join NATO. Without Russian aggression, there is no NATO.
I think many people are forgetting that the larger army, vastly outnumbering Ukrainian resources in numbers, has spent the past 9 months creating multilayered defences that the Ukrainian army has been banging their head against for the past 10 weeks. Ukraine no longer has a functioning military industry of its own or even an economy to speak of. It’s entirely dependent on the west at this point.
NATO scrounged up all they had for this offensive, and US even ran out of shells to give having to resort to cluster munitions. NATO also trained Ukrainian soldiers. Now all of this is being lost without any actual progress being made. Ukraine hasn’t even managed to reach the first defence line being mired in the security zone.
What we will see is that once the offensive burns itself out, Russia will start an offensive of their own against a depleted and demoralized Ukrainian army. The west will not be able to send more ammunition and equipment because it doesn’t exist, and Ukraine will have lost majority of their trained and motivated soldiers who can’t be replaced.
Even western sources are now admitting that Ukraine is suffering far higher losses than Russia, and that this is primarily an artillery battle where Russia vastly outnumbers Ukrainian artillery. 80% of casualties were being caused by Russian artillery.
Yes, artillery is at the core of Russian military doctrine. But this only means the rest of its technology is not being used. Where is air superiority? Non-existent. Russia is afraid to put aircraft in Ukrainian sights. Where are the huge tank battles? Non-existent because the Western technology makes Swiss cheese out of even their heaviest armor. I am amazed that someone can still believe in the Russian military when despite overwhelming numbers, Russia has not been able to defend itself against its neighbor, 1/5th its size and certainly less prepared for war. You think it’s a sign of victory that Russia is now using WW2 era tanks they are pulling out of storage? If anything, that shows exactly who is running out of materiel to run the war. And NATO has plenty of munitions. I think you are confusing production and capacity. Are the production of artillery and war machines too low? Yes, and NATO is addressing those issues. However, NATO has huge reserves of munitions sitting in warehouses that it hasn’t even tapped yet. Most of the donations to Ukraine have not even been of NATO’s best stock. It just happened to be a way of clearing old munitions. In some cases, both the US and Germany were going to destroy or mothball equipment only to reroute it to Ukraine. NATO is not running out of stock, it is simply getting rid of old inventory and ramping up production on new munitions. This takes time, but they are not running out. Unlike Russia… What will Russia do next? Having their Cossacks go back to fighting on horseback when the WW2 tanks run out of parts?
Where is air superiority? Non-existent.
Did you somehow miss all the videos of Russian aviation taking out tanks on daily basis, or the fact that Russia does massive air strike campaigns against entire Ukraine weekly for many months now? Meanwhile, Ukraine has no air force to speak of, and at this point doesn’t even have much of air defence. What you’re saying is demonstrably false.
Where are the huge tank battles?
There aren’t huge tank battles because Russia is letting Ukraine blow up all their tanks in minefields and hunts them down with lancets. The battles we’ve seen so far are Ukrainian columns following a single mine clearing vehicle that gets taken out by a helicopter or artillery. Then the column ends up being stuck because it’s in a minefield, and the rest of the vehicles are systematically destroyed. These were the first two weeks of the offensive after which Ukraine abandoned the fabled NATO tactics and went back to sending penny packets of troops to get ground down by artillery.
I am amazed that someone can still believe in the Russian military when despite overwhelming numbers, Russia has not been able to defend itself against its neighbor, 1/5th its size and certainly less prepared for war.
That’s because you have absolutely no clue regarding the subject you’re opining on. Here’s what an actual expert has to say https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
You think it’s a sign of victory that Russia is now using WW2 era tanks they are pulling out of storage?
What this actually shows is that Russia doesn’t even feel the need to pull out its modern equipment, they’re clearing out their old inventory the exact same way NATO is.
NATO is not running out of stock, it is simply getting rid of old inventory and ramping up production on new munitions.
Biden literally admitted that US ran out of high explosive shells to send. This is also admitted by mainstream media. Meanwhile, this is what the "dramatic increase in production actually looks like:
That’s what Russia uses on daily basis, and Russia produces over a million shells a year
- https://jamestown.org/program/russia-struggles-to-maintain-munition-stocks-part-one/
- https://jamestown.org/program/russia-struggles-to-maintain-munition-stocks-part-two/
You really should spend a bit of time educating yourself instead of spreading misinformation here.
lol get out of here with your Russian propaganda. No one believes you. Go back to lemmy.grad or hexbear. Lmao.
It’s a proxy war dude. No one wins until one side exhausts their resources. And it’s the west v Russia. Yes, Russia whose GDP is about the same as the Uk. lol.
Edit: Hi hexbear/lemmy.grad shills! So bizarre to get significantly more upvotes than the brigaded comments from dear comrades.
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What this actually shows is that Russia doesn’t even feel the need to pull out its modern equipment, they’re clearing out their old inventory the exact same way NATO is.
Why? Do they enjoy dragging this conflict for more than a year? Is there some reason to why they don’t use some sci-fi orbital blaster?
If you lived there, Ukraine or Russia, doesn’t matter, and have served, you’d knew how deeply you are wrong. Bet you didn’t, and I did. Post-soviet army culture is what makes me suspect they don’t have anything breathtaking you think they have in worthy quantities.
Opposing western propaganda is one thing. Not taking a moment to understand you are high on russian one is another. Just take a glance at this quote of yours and say it’s not copium.
Because Russia realizes that this proxy war can escalate into a real war with NATO, and they’re obviously going to save their best weapons for that.
Meanwhile, the whole war was sold as a special military operation in Russia, meaning that Russia is not on a war footing and life for a typical person in Russia hasn’t actually changed all that much. This is basically equivalent to when US went to destroy Iraq, and most people in US didn’t really connect the war with their day to day lives.
Russian economy is currently growing at 4.9% as even western publications admit, they’ve managed to reorient their trade towards the east. On the other hand, many western countries are entering recession now, and there’s massive political unrest all over Europe.
You don’t have to be high on Russian propaganda to know this because all of this is freely admitted in western media. The fact that you don’t understand any of this shows just how ignorant you are regarding the topic you’re attempting to debate here.
Did you somehow miss all the videos of Russian aviation taking out tanks on daily basis
These videos obviously exists from both sides, but neither side has aerial supremacy, if you know what that means.
and Russia produces over a million shells a year
Rheinmetall alone offers to produce up to 600,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine annually, and that’s just one company.
No, those videos don’t exist from both sides. Ukraine doesn’t have a functioning air force that can attack Russian positions.
Rheinmetall alone offers to produce up to 600,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine annually, and that’s just one company.
[citation needed]
we’re talking about 155 mm shells here specifically
honestly, I don’t know why you keep trying to argue something that’s demonstrably false, even western media openly admits the problem https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/19/artillery-ammunition-ukraine-pentagon/
Rheinmetall alone offers to produce up to 600,000 artillery rounds for Ukraine annually, and that’s just one company.
[citation needed]
e.g. https://tass.com/world/1614189
we’re talking about 155 mm shells here specifically
Indeed.
I see you have poor reading comprehension, because the clearly says the plan to produce it. I plan to become a billionaire in the next couple of years. The reality is that it’s bullshit because here’s the actual reality of the situation:
You’re obviously not one of these few people. Furthermore, the article says the following:
Prices for raw materials used in arms production but not mined in EU countries have risen astronomically. The French government recently asked MBDA Missile Systems to increase its production of Mistral air-defense systems from 20 units per month, and has been offered only an increase to perhaps 40 monthly by 2025.
The German armed forces face an ammunition shortfall demanding €20 billion worth of new orders. At the current speed of contract placement, it will be 20 years before this is achieved. Susanne Wiegand, CEO of RENK Group, which makes drivetrains for tanks, said in February that only a trickle of new orders had come in.
Meanwhile, some manufacturers are obliged to struggle against the wider commercial difficulties of their owners. Britain’s Rolls-Royce has cut investment internationally following severe corporate difficulties. It owns the German-based mtu, which provides engines for tanks and armored vehicles. Yet mtu’s efforts to hire more staff and expand production are at odds with Rolls-Royce’s cutbacks elsewhere.
The IISS study concludes that belief in the permanence of America’s protective shield still causes Europe’s governments to shortchange defense. Despite all the fine words since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “no major recapitalization of armed forces or large-scale procurement to address capability has yet materialized” — even in Britain, which beats its chest loudest in defiance of Moscow.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the US too struggles to produce munitions in credible quantities for sustained combat. In World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill trumpeted the role of America as “the arsenal of democracy.” Today, Washington is struggling to make good on such a claim. Michael Brenes, a lecturer in history at Yale, has authored a new study that mirrors those of European critics of their own continent’s performance.
I do encourage you to try engaging with reality going forward.
What we will see is that once the offensive burns itself out, Russia will start an offensive of their own against a depleted and demoralized Ukrainian army.
In your dreams. Like your failed predictions of freezing Europeans running out of Russan gas and whatnot, lol, we gonna make this reality check later on, just to remind you.
Yeah, we’re definitely going to get a reality check sooner than later and you’re going to have to figure out how to deal with it. Meanwhile, last I checked Germany is now deindustrializing and all of Eurozone is in a recession, but hey I’m sure that has nothing to do with the fact that Europe got cut off from cheap energy.
“We can [though] enter a phase that is most unfavorable for Ukraine in its ‘independent’ state: a phase of neither peace nor war. We could be in this phase if, instead of the special military operation, the [currently occupied] territories were recognized and officially taken under guardianship. But it would require a completely different twist of history,” Khodakovsky said.
I find it consistently amazing and hilarious that Russian strategic leadership appears entirely incapable of recognizing that they can’t simply dictate geopolitics, warfare, and international borders to external parties. Ukraine - and to a lesser degree, its allies - get a vote too, and they’re not going to be “freezing” anything for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately there are those in the west that agree. Either because they are paid/blackmailed to agree. Or they have been misled by the former.
He’s gonna jump out d window soon
Russia allready lost. They just keep ignoring it
If we ever lose, so does the world lol
Keep in mind, that he is a mouth for some factions inside russia and his message is mostly for internal consumption. There are motives behind what he speaks. Probably testing the reaction of local population towards this idea. And yes, a person saying that (without someone’s protection or even order) may be easily presecuted under new laws.
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Why do officers in the Russian army have Telegram channels?
For the same reason they have Strava, and for that we thank them.
They don’t, the article is from an Ukrainian tabloid. The same people who brought us the ghost of Kyiv.
What are you talking about? That’s complete bullshit.
Loads of Russians and Ukrainians have telegram accounts, including government officials. To claim otherwise is just incorrect.
Show me where Russian military commanders are posting on telegram about the state of the war.
Go read my other post.
Also medvedev, Kadyrov and Prigozhin all have telegram accounts, IIRC.
None of these people are commanders in Russian military. What I said was that Russian military commanders aren’t talking about the progress of the war on Telegram. Go show me where Surovikin it posting about progress of battles for example.
Is Putins cum salty or tangy?
Pretty much the level of discourse I’ve come to expect from liberals here.
To be fair, you’re scarcely any better.
I provide sources and actual arguments to support what I’m saying. If that’s no different in your mind, then that says a lot about you as a person.
NO SHIT
I’m glad to see that incessant and pervasive whataboutism is welcome in the Fediverse. I was afraid for a few weeks that I had left it behind with Reddit but clearly that’s not the case.
Nobody can that’s the problem
Ukraine will.
Will lose a generation to a war of the military industrial complex 's making for nothing but enriching the military industrial complex.
The MIC will profit as they always do off of war, but let’s not pretend they made it. Putin’s fear of losing position as Europe’s gas station to Ukraine is what did this. It’s about oil and the power it brings. Borders second. MIC third
Russia may not be able to win, but it’s got enough nukes to make sure everyone loses.
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yea as much as i love ukraine this article is some obvious bs
Imagine linking kyivpost as if it’s a credible source. Might as well link an article from Weekly World News next.
edit: I love how downvotes immediately come in when you point out the obvious, as long as the article says what people want to hear they all of a sudden stop caring about credible sources
What part of this is incorrect?
“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.”
The Kyiv Post is quoting Alexander Sergeevich Khodakovsky from his telegram channel, the Russian commander of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion. He was involved in the uprising in Donetsk back in 2014 and continues to this day to be involved in the Ukrainian war.
https://t.me/s/aleksandr_skif?before=2851
In this case, they are quoting a primary source. So irrespective of your opinion of their journalistic integrity, this appears to be factual information.
Here’s another source from Reuters that discusses the Ukrainian Marines retaking Urozhaine:
This is a typical poisoning the well ad hominem.
If you’re curious, this is the full telegram translation from DeepL:
Can we militarily bring down Ukraine? Right now and in the short term, no. When I reason in myself about our victory in this war - I don’t mean that we will crawl forward like them, turning everything into bahmuts on our way. And I don’t envision the easy occupation of cities… We will enter the phase that is most disadvantageous for Ukraine in its “self-styled” state: the phase of neither peace nor war. We could be in this phase if, instead of the SWO, we recognized the territories and officially took them under guardianship. But that would be a completely different turn of history…
In our reality, which has already taken place, it will come to a “truce”. We have started certain processes in the economy, caused by the increased load, but in general we have endured and caught the balance. We are balancing - not without that - but we are walking on a tightrope. Remember the crisis of the eighth year, which was called the crisis of the banking system? Back then, just one bank collapsed, setting off the domino principle, and we experienced a lot of bad things in a fairly short period of time. Now there is systematic pressure, but we are warming up, but we are holding on.
It will not be the same with Ukraine. If we don’t let the internal situation in Russia to rock, we have a very high survivability with all our ailments. Ukraine is a completely different “physics”. Economically and politically, it is a construct that cannot survive on its own. That is why the project of independent Ukraine was not realized and turned into a project of “who to lie under”. Unfortunately, the elites oriented to Western money defeated the elites who wanted to milk Russia. Now the West gives mostly what can only bring destruction. When you read about the next aid, what you see is not money that you can saw, but iron that you have to dispose of. You can’t make much money from it. Therefore, at the end of the upcoming phase, we will most likely face a global redivision of Ukraine. Translated with DeepL https://www.deepl.com/app/?utm_source=android&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share-translation
Don’t argue with this guy. I’ve had a run-in with him before.
100% vatnik cocksucker and propaganda spewer.
Nah I’ll be fine. I’ve been around the block a few times. 😉
In this case, they are quoting a primary source. So irrespective of your opinion of their journalistic integrity, this appears to be factual information.
Let’s start with the fact that he’s not some top Russian commander, and he’s not even part of the actual Russian military. He’s one of the commanders of the militias who’ve been fighting against the regime. the article is clearly misrepresenting his position and authority.
Here’s another source from Reuters that discusses the Ukrainian Marines retaking Urozhaine
Meanwhile, these little villages change sides pretty much every day of the conflict. You can see on the pro Ukrainian map how small this place is and that it’s not even close to Russian defensive lines https://liveuamap.com/#
Perhaps you can explain why you think this is a significant event here. Seems like this is a much bigger deal https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/europe/kupyansk-ukraine-evacuation-russia-intl/index.html
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-august-6-2023
Well according to the Institute for the Study of War, he is the current commander of the Vostok battalion in Donetsk. A lot of people reject the idea that the so-called rebellion in danetsk and luhansk was a grassroots movement, and was instead orchestrated by the Russian GRU and FSB to whittle away at Ukraine.
Therefore, that would lend credence to the idea that Khodakovsky is in fact a Russian commander, despite the fact that he was born in Donetsk. He did however relocate to Russia after 2018 before returning for the war.
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I am less interested in the details of this particular event, as I am more concerned about the truth. I merely provided alternative sources of information that cross-referenced and corroborated the material in the article as being mostly true.
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As for a Kupyansk, I’m not at all surprised because as you say, there has been give and take along the border for the entire duration of the war. And since Russia still has its inventory a large amount of artillery, any town is at risk of attack.
ISW is a propaganda outlet run by Vicky Nuland, so if that’s where you get your information from that explains a lot about your world view. The fact that a lot of people in the west guzzle propaganda isn’t really an argument.
Therefore, you you should stick to actual facts of the situation instead of making stuff up.
If you were concerned about the truth then you wouldn’t be pretending that the uprising in Donetsk was somehow orchestrated when there’s a mountain of evidence to the contrary. Let’s take a look at a few slides from this lecture that Mearsheimer gave back in 2015 to get a bit of background on the subject. Mearsheimer is certainly not pro Russian in any sense, and a proponent of US global hegemony. First, here’s the demographic breakdown of Ukraine:
here’s how the election in 2004 went:
this is the 2010 election:
As we can clearly see from the voting patterns in both elections, the country is divided exactly across the current line of conflict. Furthermore, a survey conducted in 2015 further shows that there is a sharp division between people of eastern and western Ukraine on which economic bloc they would rather belong to:
The reality is that the population in these areas is largely ethnic Russian and after US sponsored coup regime started doing things like banning Russian language, these people rebelled against it.
Furthermore, here’s what CNN was reporting the regime doing in Donbas back in 2014 https://twitter.com/paulius60/status/1611148483859255296
Here’s an article from the human rights watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/20/ukraine-widespread-use-cluster-munitions
And here’s a whole documentary of the atrocities these people suffered https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bN68OfFKaWs
Pretending this was somehow orchestrated as opposed to directly caused by the oppression of the regime is the height of dishonesty. Which is pretty weird to see coming out from somebody who seeks the truth.
Plenty of western experts have been talking about this for many decades. This only became controversial to mention after the war started. Here’s what Chomsky has to say on the issue recently:
As for a Kupyansk, I’m not at all surprised because as you say, there has been give and take along the border for the entire duration of the war. And since Russia still has its inventory a large amount of artillery, any town is at risk of attack.
Except Russia made many kilometres of progress there and Ukraine is now evacuating from the area. That’s not give and take, that’s Ukrainian position collapsing. Russia isn’t evacuating anybody at any single point that Ukraine was trying to break through for the past 10 weeks.
Mearsheimer
A leftie citing a Realist. Then Chomsky, the serial genocide denier larping as an Anarchist you must be American he’s a persona non grata in Europe. In a sense also a realist in the sense of “no chess piece country is ever doing anything and everything bad that ever happens is due to the CIA because what the other players are doing is always good”.
Now I have my issues with Kraut but watch this.
Imagine linking kyivpost as if it’s a credible source.
Oh come on, you don’t give a fuck about that either,
Based on your post history, one might think that you have an extremely selective perception of which sources are credible, namely those that only underpin your own world view
I primarily use mainstream western sources such as WSJ, NYT, Financial Times, Business Insider, and the Economist. If you think these sources are somehow biased pro Russia you need to get your head checked.
I downvoted you for being a condescending piece of shit. Can’t speak for others. There was a way to make your point without being a condescending asshole, but that’s not what you chose.
stay mad
