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.
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.
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.
lol no you don't, you've been lying through this entire thread, I bet even if you had them you wouldn't know about it because when I asked you to go outside and talk to people you ignored it, literally stop being a NEET go outside and talk to people
How, pray tell, would I know my neighbours are Ukrainian when I never talk to people?
Checkmate, projectionist.
You are a german NEET go outside, maybe when you spend some time among real life people you can get your priorities straight like instead of arguing with the scary putin-bot tankies online you can figure some way to organize so that the AfD, that's the fascist party in case you forgot, doesn't poll in second place. Unless you yourself aren't a NEET but a fascist and want the AfD to 'Take back Germany' in which case fuck off.
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.
Well what the fuck is it then?
A war of avoiding national embarrassment and getting re-elected. The equivalent of starting a bar fight because someone picked up the gal you eyed through your whisky glass for two hours.
Okay, so what you're saying is that our genocidal war in Iraq that killed a million people, displaced 30 million more, poisoned their soil and DNA with depleted uranium and created ISIS...You're saying all of that was done for even stupider reasons than the ones you think are driving the Russian Federation now.
Is that supposed to make the US look better, and not monstrous?
Or, more relevant question, why on Earth should the country that lied to start that war be trusted about anything, ever again?
Nobody has been able to give me a compelling answer that doesn't just boil down to "because other countries must be worse, have to be worse, for my worldview to make sense." And I get it, I've been there. I was a bit of an American chauvinist for a while. But the more familiar I became with history, especially in the 20th century, the more it became clear to me that America has no equivalent in the scale of it's evil.
Btw just curious, (and not the smug condescending internet kind of "curious", the real deal): Have you ever checked out Blowback? If you're a podcast person it's fantastic, season one is about the Iraq war and it really goes into depth on the history and context behind the war. Some of the reasons you mentioned, some others. Highly recommend.
Please, for god's sake log off before you strain something.
This is actually disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself. The Americans murdered a million Iraqis, and in the last few years at least 400,000 Yemenis, plus god knows who else and in what numbers.
Ah yes, the US murdering millions of people in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Afghanistan, Iraq and so on was just "foreign meddling".
You are fucking disgusting.
Are you a child, an american, or did you only start paying attention to history in February 2022?
The troubles were not an inter-state conflict.
Cyprus is a vastly complicated situation as Turkish Cypriots were in favour of British rule and Greek Cypriots wanted unification with Greece while it was a dictatorship.
I mentioned Yugoslavia. Do you read comments before replying.
Georgia is basically the same shit as Ukraine just in a bit less worse. While we're at it we can also mention Transnistria: Again, Russia. As said, it's Russia which didn't get the memo.
Only because the Irish didn't manage to win.
Now this definitely was an inter-state conflict, because Cyprus managed to break free from the British empire. And if we excluded complicated situation then we would have to exclude all wars, including the Ukraine war.
You mentioned it and then said it didn't count because of reasons. I'm saying it does count because it was a war and it was in Europe. Although under your criteria this should also be excluded because it wasn't an inter-state conflict. One of the ways that NATO justified its bombing was by saying it wasn't a state but a supranational organization and thus wasn't beholden to the UN charter.
It was another situation where a western-backed revanchist government attacks a separatist area and then Russia moves in to stop the shelling.
Hmm
Hmm. It's weird how in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine a western-backed revanchist government started attacking civilians in a separatist region all of a sudden. And how all three countries had "market liberalizations" against the will of their people. I guess it's just one of those coincidences that seem to happen whenever the US has an interest in a place.
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).
How is this an excuse? The Germanic tribes of Ukraine used to fight down to the last elderly person I hear.
Dude I'm two countries away. If Russia gets through Poland and half of Germany, sure, I'll be in the trenches. Probably wouldn't do much good but if I can't be of more use somewhere else, that's where I'll be.
Well that's better! Someone so interested in tales of Germanic valor should be ready for another Volkssturm. What I don't get is why you wouldn't sacrifice yourself in Ukraine, what with the blood relation and all. Maybe Ukrainians aren't quite as Germanic in your mind after all?
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.
[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.
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.
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Technically they fired every conscription officer in the country for bribery so I'm not sure that really supports your case.
"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.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
Stuff you don't want to hear so didn't hear, apparently: Russian torture cellars. Other things you might not want to hear include Russians castrating POWs.
I said the war is lost and Ukraine should negotiate. You said:
I pointed out how ridiculous it is to say "why not help them" is to someone who just said they believed the war was lost. Rather than continue this conversation, you went off on a tangent. Brilliant.
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
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?
Part of the reason why Russia does not want to occupy all of Ukraine.
Nor yours, but it is in the hands of NATO leadership who have stymied peace negotiations at every opportunity.
[citation needed]
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?
lol, reread what you're responding to, comrade. Friendly fire.
How’s reclaiming those territories going?
Oh you are disgusting
Disgusting is cheerleading who knows how many more deaths that if anything will only weaken Ukraine's bargaining position.
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Federatin is great I really forgot all the deep, nuanced, informative conversations I used to have on Reddit. I am learning so much here!
I don't know, we really have to look at defederating from some of these hostile communities. That rude user just told me to kill myself, whereas my polite Hexbear comrades would only send me an emoji of pig shit if we had a serious disagreemt.
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.
...broken by the separatists. Also Russian was never outlawed.
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.
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
Everyone wants the war to end. By the way of Russia losing it because Russia being allowed to win means even more war in the future: Peace on the agressor's terms is not peace, and thus cannot be the goal of any pacifist.
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.
Must've been a colossal failure, what with Svoboda having exactly one seat in the Rada.
K
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.
A tiny minority with military and political power who have been attempting genocide in the Donbas for eight years, yes.
Name them. Who are you talking about? Through which party do they act? What battalions do they field? How are they operating independently of the general staff?
Because if you mean Azov the current battalion isn't the old Azov, it's been diluted by ordinary people to the point where it's an ordinary battalion. If you're talking about Right Sector they're under general staff command when it comes to military, and have literally zero political power left in the Rada.
And those genocide claims are also bullshit. Poroshenko lost an election (among other things) over being too heavy-handed, yes, but even then anything that went down was a far cry from genocide. It's not even comparable to Russia's bombing campaign which deliberately targets civilians at their most vulnerable to inflict maximum casualties, apartment complexes in the night and shopping malls during shopping hours kind of shit.
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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.