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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[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 44 points 1 year ago (1 children)

is somehow losing to the minor Western allies

How are you defining "losing" here? They're occupying the separatist parts of Ukraine and can do so indefinitely.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Their original objective was to topple the government in Kiev, and they've gotten fairly continuously further from that. Saying they're winning has "Mission Accomplished!" energy at this point.

They're occupying Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea if that's what you mean, although it's in question if they can do that or anything else including exist indefinitely.

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Their original objective was to topple the government in Kiev

According to who? If you read the article from U.S. military analysts posted elsewhere in this thread, not even they think that was the point of the early war thrust towards Kiev.

Interesting you mention "Mission Accomplished" -- would you say the U.S. and its media did a good job of accurately informing the public about the War on Terror? Would you say they had good intentions?

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What did they decide the Kiev thing was about? Was it a botched attempt at a decapitation strike to prevent basically everything else that happened?

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's very much worth a read. The broad strokes are:

There's a notable difference between the attack towards Kiev and the attack in the separatist regions (it also talks about attacks in southern Ukraine outside the separatist regions, but I think it says they're basically similar to the Kiev attack).
The attack in the separatist regions were to hold territory with an amenable population. So you have a lot of troops, tons of artillery, and they dug in elaborate fortifications that they will actually stay and defend.
The attack towards Kiev was an opportunistic raid to divert troops from the main thrust of the attack in thr separatist regions. The article talks about similar raids the Russian Empire did in the Napoleonic Wars, the Union calvalry did in the U.S. Civil War, pretty sure it mentions a Soviet one in WWII, etc. It involved much less artillery because it wasn't intended to hold ground and they wanted to avoid unnecessarily antagonizing civilians they didn't want to govern anyway.
On that last point, the article also talks about how Russian missile strikes have largely avoided the most damaging civilian targets. It gives an example of striking an electrical substation that converts electricity into a type usable by trains instead of striking electrical infrastructure that is more general purpose (and would shut down broader civilian electricity, too).

The Kiev attack's goal appears to have been "disrupt, divert, and if you see opportunities, take them." I bet if the Ukrainian government had shown signs of folding or if the defense of Kiev had been weaker they would have pushed for more, but that didn't happen, the separatist regions were taken successfully, and the Russian Kiev column had no more reason to be there.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Okay, sure. That fits.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

According to who? If you read the article from U.S. military analysts posted elsewhere in this thread, not even they think that was the point of the early war thrust towards Kiev.

All I see is a chain of threads that go mostly nowhere. No, a wargame from 2002 is not relevant.

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Here is the comment with the article I referred to.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, that's the one I'm talking about. Is it buried somewhere in the tiny print of the image of some magazine that somebody has highlighted all over?

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago

Had you bothered to read the article you'd see it's not talking about a 2002 war game, but the ongoing war in Ukraine.

[–] CascadeOfLight@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Man where the fuck is that forest, all I can see around here are a bunch of trees.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Their original objective was to topple the government in Kiev

Citation needed.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Here's a map of the invasion a few weeks in. Kiev (Киев if you can't read Cyrillic) is the capital of the nation. What does it look like they tried to achieve right off the bat?

Edit: Oooh, Wikipedia has an animation if it's still not clear.

[–] Ram_The_Manparts@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

Lmao, okay.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Well, there war goals were to protect Donbass, kill a shitload of Nazis, and de-militarize Ukraine. Plans change but it still looks like they're doing what they set out to do.

[–] yata@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

It is funny how you critical thinkers uncritically regurgitate Putin propaganda without any hesitation.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ukraine is looking plenty militerised, and more pro-Western than ever.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There are a finite number of 18-35 year old men.

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Kill nearly every young man in Ukraine" is their main path to victory, but Russia has only about 4x the population of Ukraine, so they'll have to mind their casualty ratios pretty well. And avoid any more coups.

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Presumably the young men of Ukraine will realize that throwing themselves on to the enemy guns is a losing proposition at some point before that but who knows?

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 year ago

It's not though. Russia, even assuming continued political unity, may well run out of weapons to give to it's troops, and then their K:D ratio will pass 4:1 easily.

Apologies if we already discussed this, I've spent way too much time in this thread already and it's blending together.