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‘We Cannot Win’ Says Top Russian Commander
(www.kyivpost.com)
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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
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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?
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:
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-recaptures-urozhaine-donetsk-region-russian-forces-2023-08-16/
This is a typical poisoning the well ad hominem.
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.
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.
--
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.
--
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:
https://truthout.org/articles/us-approach-to-ukraine-and-russia-has-left-the-domain-of-rational-discourse/
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-military-escalation-against-russia-would-have-no-victors/
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.
Source on the thing about Nuland owning/running/operating the ISW? Not heard it before. Not saying you're wrong of course, just genuinely want to learn more!
With regards to the rest of the post, I don't think the conflict is as divided on ethnic lines as you have said. The invasion has been largely opposed by Russian-speakers in Ukraine from all data I've seen, e.g., in areas like Kherson there was massive anti-Russian resistance and a huge swing towards Ukraine. Plus I don't think supporting joining this or that economic bloc or voting for Yanukovych implies outright support for secession and DEFINITELY not invasion. Even if there is real support for Russia in the Donbas region, that still isn't a divide on linguistic/ethnic lines considering the rest of the Russian-speaking part of the country has rallied behind Ukrainian state leadership.
Honestly I don't know popular sentiment in the Donbass and I don't want to make claims beyond the limits of my knowledge, but I do know that the more independent-minded leadership of the D/LPRs were replaced by pro-Russian ones from the 2014-2018 period and that it's quite obvious Russia had a huge role in supporting them, propping up their political leadership, and militarily supporting them from the start. I think Crimea is different as there was way more genuine desire to secede to Russia even before 2014 (though I still think the referendum was rigged as polling beforehand showed a smaller percentage wanting to join-still way over 50% though).
In reality the war has frozen because the correlation of forces is balanced. Neither side will or can win or even move the front lines significantly. I just don't think either side has realised yet. Neither is close to breaking point atm. Russia couldn't even take Bakhmut, and Ukraine cannot make any ground even w/ new western tech in their supposed push towards Melitopol. No winners, only losers.
they don't hide it https://www.aalep.eu/institute-study-war-isw
The forces are most definitely not balanced, and this whole idea of a frozen conflict is just the new narrative the west is pushing. You'll see what happens when Russia actually starts doing offensive operations.
That does not say she owns, runs, or operates it...
Then why did Russia fail to take Bakhmut, do you think?
Also thank you for the link. ISW has posted some bad content in the past and this helps to explain it, I think. I appreciate it.
ISW is owned by Kimberly Kagan, not Vicky Nuland. It's in your link. They do appear to be in laws however.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
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.
you are very good at repeating slander ! We are very good in seeing through it ...
tell me why would you miss out on a "A leftie citing a Realist" and a "serial genocide denier larping as an Anarchist" sounds interesting .. also its required from you, Your not a serious Person if and worth the discussion if "listening to the Dissent" is to much to ask for you ...
Imaging in a Court
"the evidence is not relevant because it was filmed by a Japanse camera , and the Japanese are dirty , i will not watch this , Also take me Serious please !"
Because the Soviets -- rightly -- decried geopolitical realism as imperialist apologia. You're citing imperialist apologia. As a so-called leftist.
And Chomsky denying genocides, do I really have to go into that?
what ? maybe actually concern yourself with the TOPIC.. not with the Messanger ? Do you Think i am Vladimir Putin ? That i controll the Russian army ? I explaine to you "Russias Course" of action , I am not Russia , i am a Person explaining to you the Thoughts of Russia , BECAUSE THEY ARE RELEVENT TO THE SITUATION, Russia has a Full Strategic Array , World most advanced Nuclear and Missile Technology and Security council seat and hundreds of Tousends of Soldiers ,you are probably not even valued more then Medicine by your state , Russias Opinion is RELEVANT to the Situation they are way more relevent then your thought s and my thoughts ... The Sowjet union is Dead , she Preached many great thinks we all love and miss her dearly ...
We are the "dirtbag" left , you dont scare or scold us with your purity fetish...
which one ? Uigurs, Palestina or Great Replacementtheory ... ?
I linked you a video. Watch it. The issue with realism is not who spouts it but the way in which it frames international relations.
Cambodia, Yugoslavia, I think there were others but those I'm sure of. He later on did accept that the Red Khmer were assholes but still defended his prior judgement ("The CIA is evil so me saying killing fields were a CIA invention was warranted"), to this day so far as I know he's still supporting Milosevic and denying Serbs erected concentration camps, were shelling civilians, suchlike.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XXmwyyKcBLk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Lmao
"A lot of people are saying it" lends credence to nothing.
The war timeline link in your source, by the way, will show you the front has not moved appreciably for nearly a year.
Sorry but I don’t take pinko ruskie claims seriously. It’s kremlin dezinformatsiya
Well the information has to come from somewhere, and a war between two sides some of the information has to come from the other side otherwise it's all propaganda.
The trick is to determine what's true or not.
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
Seems as though he's saying basically what most Hexbears are saying: that Ukraine is unstable, and without Western support it will fall. All Russia needs to do is hold out until the West gets bored or pivots to Taiwan, which is easier said than done, admittedly, but is possible.
I do not see much evidence that Ukraine will just shatter the second it stops getting western support, though. Of course they'll be disadvantaged, but it's not like they're the ANA, is it? I wrote here about it a bit so I wont bother repeating the comment just to save us both some time lol.
Russia can gain more advantage by waiting things out but even if the west stopped supporting it they still have no route forward to 'total victory' as the Russian leadership imagined (quick and easy replacement of the Ukrainian government with one friendly to Russia and beholden entirely to it), just a slightly more advantageous occupation of some parts of the country. Ukrainians wont just give up though, taking big cities is an immensely difficult thing against a dedicated defender and the further in they get, the more difficult it is to defend supply lines.
It's based on the US being in it only half-heartedly. Frankly speaking the US withdrawing from the conflict could end it because Russia will stop once it sees that Europe doubles down (after a moment of shock and denial about us being US puppets etc), but so would America actually committing.
Where are the damn ATACMS, America? Guarantees of delivering Abrams for years on end no-matter-what?
"We could have won if we tried harder" is U.S. cope from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq. Afghanistan...
I'm not American. And no the American cope is "We won Vietnam because we had a higher kill count".
I'm German. And yes we won WWII because we got rid of the Nazis.
Both flavors of cope abound regarding Vietnam. I didn't mean to imply I assumed you were American; I'm just pointing out that "if we really took the gloves off they wouldn't stand a chance" is (1) false, (2) a way the public gets sold on the next war, and (3) a silly thing to say when whatever "gloves off" scenario one imagines isn't going to happen.
You Germans didn't get rid of the nazis, you were the nazis
My family tree very much would like to disagree.
And in any case it's irrelevant as liberation from the Nazis, indeed, was a liberation. How can you lose when that happens. You know who's pissed that "we lost the war"? Actual Nazis.
So when are you going to Ukraine to sign up for the frontline?
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 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