https://archive.li/Z0m5m

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.

    • @HelixDab2@lemm.ee
      hexbear
      1
      10 months ago

      Yes.

      Just as I would have supported the second world war, had I been alive.

      It is our moral duty to oppose evil, and what Putin is doing is unambiguously evil.

      • Flaps [he/him]
        hexbear
        1
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        If I had any skills worth a damn, I'd volunteer myself. Unfortunately, I'm nearly 50, and would be a greater liability to Ukrainian defenders than an asset.

        This is what you had to say about why you're not in a trench shitting your pants right now yourself, even though the war in Ukraine is such a crime that you're willing to start world War 3 over it. Of course you want war. You're bloodthirsty when it comes to the people the state has designated as the 'bad country'. You know who'd die in that war of yours? At first, it'd be the millions of people I teach now. Young people. They don't want to die over your ideals for which you're not even willing to lift a fucking finger but bitch and moan about it on the internet. When the working class recruits of that generation are coming home in coffins or disfigured and traumatized, it's my generations turn. And so on, so forth. In a war between two corrupt states where once again dumb fucks like you have managed to convince themselves AGAIN That THIS TIME, the state isn't lying about a war! They did it with Vietnam, they did it with Iraq twice, they did it with Afghanistan, with Yemen, with lybia and Syria, BUT THIS TIME what you're being fed is the unqmbiguous truth! THIS TIME you must be wanting the right things! Like a third world War!

        And all that would be a best case scenario, because in that case both NATO and Russia have managed to not destroy the entire world in some nuclear armageddon. You're willing to sacrifice millions, if not billions, of people, for some fucking vague ideals you're not willing to do anything for yourself, over a country that's been embroiled in civil war for the past 8 years and you didn't give a fuck about until someone else told you to.

        • @HelixDab2@lemm.ee
          hexbear
          1
          10 months ago

          I tried to join the military when I was 22, and was turned down. I was, and am, willing to fight and die when it's necessary to stop evil.

          As I said, and you clearly ignored, I would be a liability to Ukraine where I am right now. I am old and slow, and that would put younger, fitter people at greater risk of being killed than if I wasn't there. What I can do is vote for politicians that will fund their military, donate money to specific units for things like buying drones or Hilux trucks to move fighters, and so on.

          I'm aware that Ukraine has a corruption problem. That's not actually material to Russia invading and killing civilians. Louisiana has a corruption problem; that doesn't mean that Mexico should invade and bomb New Orleans' French Quarter.

          We're not talking about Vietnam, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, or even Korea. I opposed our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, because I predicted--and quite rightly--that our invasion would cost tens of thousands of civilian lives. In Syria, we should have followed through with our commitment to the rebels when Assad used chemical weapons, and we didn't; the result has been that Assad has been free to wage war against his own people, and hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died or been displaced. But none of those are Ukraine. In Ukraine, Russia is the one killing civilians, and attacking civilians targets; Russia is the one that invaded, without provocation. There was no military attack against Russia or the people of Russia by Ukraine; Russia had stolen Ukrainian territory in 2014, but that does not make the Crimean region Russian.

          • Flaps [he/him]
            hexbear
            1
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            Surely you were pleading China and Russia to invaded Amerika and start world War 3 back when the US invaded any of the previously mentioned (and many, many more) countries.

            Nah man most humane thing you ever did was getting rejected by the military

            • @HelixDab2@lemm.ee
              hexbear
              1
              10 months ago

              China did intervene to help Korea, and that's why we pulled out of Korea. And who do you think was helping fund and arm the VC forces that eventually ran us out of Vietnam? We weren't dumb enough to start WWIII over either of those then, and Russia probably isn't dumb enough to start WWIII over NATO helping fend off their aggression now.