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.
Crimean independence goes as far back as the 1991 Soviet collapse. Acting like it is only a 2014 thing is also nonsense.
On Jan. 20, 1991, voters were asked whether they wanted the re-establishment of the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. 94.3 percent or 1,343,825 of the 1,441,019 voters who cast ballots voted yes. (81.5% turnout)
In 1994 voters were asked whether they were in favour of greater autonomy within Ukraine, whether residents should have dual Russian and Ukrainian citizenship, and whether presidential decrees should have the status of laws. All three proposals were approved. The worst of them being 77% saying Yes.
In 2014 they conducted a referendum asked voters whether they wanted to rejoin Russia as a federal subject, or if they wanted to restore the 1992 Crimean constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine. It had 89% voter turnout and 97% said yes.
If liberals care so much about democracy, and what people actually want, liberals should also care about the fact it is clearly something Crimeans wanted. The "taking of Crimea" was a referendum vote, and very little else. The way liberals always talk of it as an invasion is incorrect, in particular because Russia already ran the port, and already ran the military checkpoints into and out of the region. They were already there.