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.
Fwiw, I don’t begrudge folks in the west not knowing this stuff. You’re being kept in the dark about a lot of it, to the point that you actively need to be seeking out the truth from lots of sources. Western sources are constantly overstating Ukraine’s footing in this conflict, in ways that are quite obviously fabricated if you look into it.
A lot of people don’t really understand how limited NATO is, how badly designed a lot of NATO weapons are, and how long it’s been since NATO actually fought a proper war. NATO has this long standing, unearned veneer of invincibility. And now we’re seeing NATO equipment used without total, uncontested air support, which is the only thing NATO is really good at and which is the thing that two successive Russian government have been preparing to fight against for 70 years.