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.
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
is that the ‘newspaper’ that invented the ghost of kyiv?
Yeah, pretty sure that’s the one.
Fuck’s a down vote? We did away with them.
smart
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.
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
RT was banned first day of the war due to links to the kremlin and propaganda. Wouldn’t want people influenced by propaganda, of course! This is the west! We’re free thinkers! Now let me see how the war is going in the non-biased Kyiv Post.
Why do posters from Hexbear defend Russia so much? They’re not communist. If anything, they’re right wing.
Putin has a government allied with Russian business oligarchs and the support of the Russian Orthodox Church. He promotes the military as heroes. He cultivates a cult of personality. He personally controls billions of dollars. That’s textbook Fascism.
What part of that comment can be construed as pro-Russia?
The part complaining about a lack of Russian state-controlled news media?
That’s not what he meant and you know it. He’s making light of an obvious double standard regarding the standing in which we hold two sources with obvious national biases.
They might not know it. There hasn’t been a lot of particularly complex analysis here and they very well might be operating on the level of “bad news bad, good news good”.
Honestly, why are we even wasting time here?
Criticizing this article isn’t the same as supporting Russia lol.
I swear someone could claim like “Russia is controlled by an army of demons” and if someone from Hexbear was like “actually that is not true you should stick to the realm of fact in your criticisms of Russia” posters you’d still get like “WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING RUSSIA? DONT YOU KNOW RUSSIA ISNT COMMUNIST”.
Why do posters from Hexbear defend Russia so much?
You’re an idiot
Nowhere do I voice support for Russia. It’s that any nuance with regard to the Ukraine conflict is seen as ‘defending russia’, which you’ve just proven, again.
Edit: nvm, you’re that asshole that used the Sartre quote about anti-semitism to justify your anti-communism. You don’t want to learn. Almost as if you’re a bot
We don’t. However America is worse. So it is nice to neoliberal infighting. Bonus, America losing is better overall for world peace.
I thought liberals were all about lesser evils
Because you have the reading comprehension of a grade schooler and are apparently incapable of handling such complexities as “Just because they’re winning doesn’t mean we support them” and “everybody in this conflict is an asshole except the non-Nazis soldiers being slaughtered so defense contractors can put in new pools in Arlington”.
This isn’t some law of attraction thing. Admitting that Ukraine is at best stalemated isn’t going to cause them to magically lose.
There’s a lot of layers to this. Among them the problem that yanks and other westerners with an exceptionalist world outlook have been convinced that only the good guys win, and that to win means to be the good guy no matter how abhorrent they are. So to accept that Russia is winning or, at least, that Ukraine can’t win, means accepting that Russia is in fact the good guy. Which is clearly nonsense, but then neither you nor I are making the claim.
Keep talking
Everything you say about Russia is true, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a proxy war where US is trying to weaken Russia. You can just be against a senseless war that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying lives of millions more. Anybody who is even minimally engaging with reality can see that this war will only end one way. What the west is doing is prolonging it without changing the outcome. People of Ukraine are being cynically thrown into a meat grinder so that US can score a win in a geopolitical chess game with Russia.
Because I truly believe that war is horrible the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this war is a human tragedy, working people all over the world have to deal with the fallout of this war with rising energy costs and higher foodprices which certainly also caused the deaths of people, meanwhile this war is used in many western countries to push extreme austerity which will lessen the quality of life at best.
This war and all wars are a human tragedy, and at the start of it I certainly wasn’t in Russias corner and I’m still not but I have lost all sympathy for Ukraine and the West because not only have there been many off ramps for Ukraine to end this conflict but western politicians have contributed to this misery. They’ve contributed to the deaths of so many lives. People like Boris Johnson that sabotaged the peace talks, Biden that keeps on sending more and more weapon over there so more and more people can die. I’ve since stopped looking at how much money they’ve given but around spring it was 100bn USD which would’ve been enough to combat world hunger for 3 years. Ukranian officials like yes Zelensky who is a clown that personally doesn’t suffer from this and uses it to push his own persona and does a cool photoshoot in his sick operator outfit.
Ukraine has not approached the negotiating table in any serious manner because they insist on demanding everything back including Crimea, which just won’t happen especially not in this position, so the ukranian leadership is happy to get some money from the west so they order people like you and me to walk into artillery fire or into landmines not for any reason because there haven’t been any real gains but just because that’s how the money is flowing in.
Ukraine totally could negotiate a peace it would be incredibly easy because Putin seems eager to want to negotiate but what Ukraine wants isn’t a restoration of the border situation before the war they want Crimea as well, they are not serious about peace and everyone knows it, Ukraine will never surrender and so the only thing that can stop this senseless war is when the endless amount of money flowing into Ukraine stops or when the people of Ukraine have had enough of their bloodthirsty corrupt leadership and overthrow them.
Edit: Also sorry but quite a few people from other instances literally say fascist shit that reminds me of rhetoric that was used during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and we all know how that turned out, calling russian ethnicities in Ukraine ‘occupiers’ is surely not going to lead to violence towards that group.
because not only have there been many off ramps for Ukraine to end this conflict
How many of those involve not giving in to the aggressor?
Is this one of these “pacifism is when I kick you and you don’t defend yourself” bits?
the moral purity of ''not giving in to the aggressor" doesn’t make anybody less dead.
It does: It dissuades the aggressor.
Germanic tribes, and this continues over to Ukraine culturally (because Rus), had the battle cry “better dead than slave”. A village would fight down to the last woman, elderly, and child. Because even if the aggressor overcame them they’d be left with nothing but their own losses. Thus, they wouldn’t even try.
If Russia is allowed to get away with this, Taiwan will be next. A gazillion of small-scale empires in unstable regions all around the world will say “well, seeing that noone cares our time to get away with it”.
Millions if not billions of people more will be dead.
I’m sorry but this is definitely shit you only say when you’re very far from the action. Would you want your grandpa drafted and sent into a minefield to “dissuade the aggressor”? Grandma and the children too apparently, better dead than governed by another neighboring authoritarian shithole?
I think I’d rather just flee with my family to a country right next door that has a nuclear deterrent and NATO membership. Literally why would “they need to all fight to the death instead” be your first thought? I can’t imagine it coming from a position where you think Ukrainians are as human as you are.
People back then couldn’t flee like that. You’re taking it all well too literally.
And yes I have Ukrainian refugee neighbours. Soldiers knowing their families are safe with friends isn’t exactly bad for morale, either.
Germanic tribes, and this continues over to Ukraine culturally (because Rus), had the battle cry “better dead than slave”. A village would fight down to the last woman, elderly, and child.
So when are you going to Ukraine to sign up for the frontline?
You’re definitely gonna do that right?
I’ll have to inform you that I’m a conscious objector (spent my time in catastrophe relief) and by now too old.
But yes there’s plenty of German reservists in Ukraine. Also what does that have to do with anything I said, I was glossing Ukrainian sentiment. Did you merely wanted to be right on the internet (in your own mind).
If Russia is allowed to get away with this, Taiwan will be next. A gazillion of small-scale empires in unstable regions all around the world will say “well, seeing that noone cares our time to get away with it”. Millions if not billions of people more will be dead.
Holy shit mate, stop watching Marvel movies and get some perspective; this isn’t the first time one nation has invaded another. The world didn’t end when America invaded Iraq.
The Iraq war was wrong for a multitude of reasons, and many countries (including mine) wanted to do nothing to do with it, but one thing sets it apart very clearly from the current situation:
Iraq wasn’t a war of conquest. Russia’s war against Ukraine is. The US hasn’t waged a war of conquest IIRC since Hawaii, it’s always been foreign meddling instead but never out-right imposition of rule and they’ve gotten less and less bad at how they’re doing it over time. I mean compare the Iraqi or Afghani government during occupation with the likes of Batista.
Then, and this (as well as that Marvel reference I couldn’t give less of a fuck) makes me think you’re American: It’s the first war by a major power in Europe since WWII. We thought we had that shit behind us, that Yugoslavia was a regrettable exceptions caused by small-minded autocrats exploiting ethnic tensions for their own benefit. But, nope, actual full-scale war has come back to Europe because unlike the rest of Europe Russia hasn’t gotten the memo that imperialism is soooo 18hundreds. As a yank you wouldn’t understand.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
Their choices are to keep fighting, which will not change this outcome, or negotiate an end to the war so they can stop dying and start rebuilding. Their negotiating position will only weaken as the war continues absent some one-in-a-million stroke of luck.
This isn’t “I kick you and you don’t defend yourself.” It’s “I kick you, you defend yourself, lose, and choose to either walk away or keep getting beaten up.” And that’s not even digging into the actual causes of the war, which are nowhere near as clear cut as Russia one day waking up and deciding to attack out of the blue.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
[citation needed].
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting. Heck even if Russia occupied all of Ukraine they’d keep on fighting. It’s not in your hands whether they fight or not, and their motive is just, so why not help them? Because you’re a defeatist? Come on.
Ukraine has lost. They are not getting their separatist regions back.
[citation needed].
Points at the utter failure of the joke of a counteroffensive to even breach Russia’s first line of defense after months of hype about retaking Crimea
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting.
You mean the ones forced to fight because they were kidnapped off the street and will be shot if they try to leave? Or the fascists that are in charge?
Heck even if Russia occupied all of Ukraine they’d keep on fighting.
Part of the reason why Russia does not want to occupy all of Ukraine.
It’s not in your hands whether they fight or not,
Nor yours, but it is in the hands of NATO leadership who have stymied peace negotiations at every opportunity.
and their motive is just
[citation needed]
so why not help them?
Why would we want to help people get forced into a meat grinder?
How slava ukraini you still feeling after 8 months of being wrong and Ukraine eating shit?
In any case Ukrainians disagree with you and keep on fighting
Yeah, that’s why they’ve been kidnapping people to the front lines, because the Ukranian people want to fight so much. That’s why they conscripted prison inmates and forbid any man undder 60 from leaving when the war broke out, right. Because of all that popular will to fight.
There’s been plenty of court cases and firings over improperly handled conscriptions. Prison inmates IIRC weren’t conscripted but given a choice. Plenty of Ukrainians – also men – returned from other European countries to fight, left countries where they had a free welfare ride and working permits. Plenty of women fight in the army. It surely must be terrible over there /s.
Meanwhile Russia is force-conscripting pretty much any man they can get their hands on and sending them, without equipment, into meat grinders. Have a look at Storm Z units.
“They want to keep doing something you think is futile and causing senseless deaths, so why not help them?”
You know what would be even more senseless than dying in a trench? Dying in an FSB torture cellar while your family gets raped.
the first 2 , they just involved West Ukraine giving in towards accepting 30 % of your citizens to have Human and Democratic rights as well … (please read up on Minsk 1 & 2 )
Ah, the old myth about the poor disenfranchised Russian minority. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives? A neighbouring belligerent empire, perhaps?
Ah, the old myth about the perfidious, untrustworthy minority with dual loyalties who are surely plotting with The Enemy. Who, pray tell, might have an interest in propagating such narratives?
Certainly not the vast, vast, majority of Ukrainians. Even among the Ukrainian far-right that’s a tiny minority.
If the Kiev coup regime was concerned about aggression, they could have simply not done eight years of ethnic cleansing in the Donbas and ignored a ceasefire🤷♂️
Are there any OSCE election monitor results you want to back up your “coup regieme” claim?
Also, the breakaway Russian puppet states were the ones to break the ceasefires.
Google Operation Aerodynamic, i’m not gonna spoonfeed you information you’ll just petulantly spit out to preserve your protofascist worldview.
Minsk I a treaty they’ve signed that was about greater autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts like them being allowed to speak russian a treaty that was very quickly broken.
Minsk II a treaty that did the same thing which again was broken.
and these are the off ramps before the war during the war you had the peace talks when the russian army was outside of Kiev whose content is dubious because so far only the russians said what it was about
and more importantly every peace talk after that Ukraines position was a restoration of the 2014 borders aka they want Crimea back which sorry is just not reasonable, hell for a lot of those peace talks russia wasn’t even invited it was a bunch of countries like Germany, UK and Ukraine but not you know the country currently participating in this war.
This is one of those bits where I say that a country isn’t about some piece of land but the people in it which guess what the ukrainian government is feeding into gigantic blender.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME IMAGINARY LINES.
If Cuba decided to ‘restore its borders’ aka if it attacked the US base on Guantanamo Bay and sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Cubans throwing them against the US army blender I would call for the Cuban people to rise up against its government because it doesn’t care about its people and I hope you would too, if Mexico decided to take back California I’d have that same stance. It’s called being anti-war, something I’m sure you’ll now quote how “actually your stance isn’t anti-war my which calls for sending billions of military equipment is actually anti-war”
My guess is that you don’t know what war is like or have never interacted with anyone that had to flee a war, you really have two options here you can go outside and talk to any ukrainian woman that fled because of the war, tell them to their face that they are giving in to the aggressor when they say how angry they are at the ukrainian government because they don’t know where their husband or their two brothers are. You know what I’ll make it easier for you find any person in real life that has had to flee a conflict and how they feel about ‘giving in to the aggressor’. Or if you feel you don’t need to do that go join up the ukranian army do your part to fight the aggressor I mean it’s only war right, you’ve seen some TikToks with war footage and some phonk music accompaning it, war is absolutely poggers I’m sure you’d have a blast fighting some russian orks.
Minsk I a treaty they’ve signed that was about greater autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts like them being allowed to speak russian a treaty that was very quickly broken.
Minsk II a treaty that did the same thing which again was broken.
…broken by the separatists. Also Russian was never outlawed.
Ukraines position was a restoration of the 2014 borders aka they want Crimea back which sorry is just not reasonable,
It’s unreasonable to not give in to a conqueror? It’s that “Pacifism is when I kick you and you don’t defend yourself” thing, again.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT SOME IMAGINARY LINES.
You may not. The people living in those areas (fled or not) do, though. They do care whether there’s rule of law, whether they have a say in how things are run, whether there’s a criminal installed at the top of things by the occupying force. After Ukraine got its independence many Tatars returned to Crimea that should tell you something.
Ukrainians, no matter the ethnicity, don’t want to be ruled by Moscow. It’s as simple as that. Before the war, some still had hopes that good relations with Moscow are possible, but not any more. Do you want to be ruled by Moscow? See neighbours disappear in torture cellars?
damn I was so sure this ukrainian woman I was talking to really wanted the war to end but she must not be a true blooded ukrainian women amiright? Again you are just some edgy person that doesn’t get out enough and you channel that into playing up how much of a big powerful person you are by yelling “WAR WAR WAR NO ME WANT BLOOD WAR NOW BOMBS MINES BLOOD SKULLS WAR” it is good to see though that you will not go outside so there’s that you don’t seem like a pleasant person to be around.
Also this isn’t a creative exercise you aren’t supposed to just make up lies lol
How many of those involve not giving in to the aggressor?
How can it be hammered in to your skull that this is not a story book where good guys win by virtue of their righteousness?
This is geopolitics. An empire wants to conquer an outlying resource rich region it has not been able to bring under it’s control. It has provoked a small outlying nation to act as a proxy to weaken it’s enemy. Ukraine isn’t making decisions. They’re just ammunition in someone else’s war and the best thing for them would be to mutiny against Kiev and end the slaughter. Status quo antebellum is not on the menu.