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.
this thread is wild
can we remember, everyone:
discussion on who is winning has no bearing on discussion of who is in the right, and vice versa
Russia, Ukraine, and NATO can all be evil and wrong for separate and true reasons
criticizing NATO does not amount to supporting Putin
criticizing Putin does not amount to supporting NATO
Can we also remember that Russia is a country and Putin is it's head. You don't even know the name of the top leadership of NATO. You don't say this is Biden's proxy war but you imagine every single decision is Putin's.
And also, stop psychologizing world leaders as though you have a parasocial relationship with them.
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Um, actually, geopolitics is YA literature and marvel movies.
Harry Potter
vs
Thanos
and if you disagree, you're a fascist communist putler-lover
Can't wait for people to not care anymore about the gallant people of Ukraine under Russian occupation because they got Marvel fatigue and stopped watching the war 3 seasons ago.
Haven't most people already given up on this? I thought it was just us weird politics people who don't get invited to parties now?
For what it's worth, most of the Ukraine flags that people put up in my city when the war started has been taken down months ago.
Jens Stoltenberg is the Nato top guy, some Norwegian. Commited anticommunist, also I never voted for NATO membership, noone did, in fact there was never even a choice.
Norwegian here. We are a country filled with the most mediocre people, and Jens is the most mediocre Norwegian ever.
The fact that he holds top office in NATO tells you everything you ever needed to know about that dogshit organization.
18 brumaire moment
I don't imagine that every decision is Putin's, and it's just as much Biden's proxy war as Putin's except that Putin has been head of government for the entire duration of the build-up whereas the build-up started 4 US heads of government ago. I'm just using the terminology most frequently used in the discourse.
Also I will psychologize any world leader I please, any leader of a bourgeoisie state is a horrible wretched ghoul
A democratically elected president and a dictator don't represent their people with the same legitimacy nor do they have the same concentration of powers at their personal disposal.
Putin's approval in Russia consistently polls extremely high and his decisions generally supported, whereas Biden's approval hovers around the high 30s-percentage, breaking records for lowest approval in the history of the country. And you think Putin has even a modicum of the power that the leader of the country that is world hegemon has?
Odd that Putin still has to stop obviously rig his elections considering how support is so high.
It is indeed odd that US propaganda can't make up its mind between "Putin Ebil Crazed Dictator Sole Actor Behind War" and "Russian Brainpan Predisposed to Being Big Meanies." So Which is it? Do Russians actually not support Putin and the SMO or are all of these western sources talking about his soaring approval actually just on Putin's payroll?
Those western sources also agree that he rigged his election. Not saying he needed to but it was very obvious that he did.
Do you hear what you're saying?
Putin: "Even though I have overwhelming support, I'm going to conduct a giant conspiracy to win an election I would win anyway. It may come with very high cost and no actual benefit, but YOLO. In fact it might even undermine all that support I already have. But fuck it, I'm an evil dictator, so that's what I'm gonna do."
Maybe, just maybe... no, no, hear me out... Maybe you should start questioning all the things you hear from those western sources?
Are we talking about Biden or Putin I can't keep track?
Come on. Take like ten seconds to think about what you typed out here.
Like how the American democrats put their whole ass on the scale in order to get biden to win their nomination, or how the entire american media apparatus openly collaborated with the democrats in order to drag biden's senile corpse past trump's bloated corpse to the finish line?
Russia is a product of American interference, and their government is but a reflection of the wretched system of governance that is the American government.
That means anything Russia does is bad, then, right?
That means anything Russia does is Blowback in America's face.
Polls are not trustworthy in a country with no freedom of press and repressed/assassinated political opposition.
Yes, Putin over his decades of authoritarian regime has way more power over his country than Biden or any democratically elected head of state over theirs.
Christ let me go get the fucking qoute. Third time today.
When it good country polls good and accurate
When it bad country polls bad lies and falsehoods
Every fucking time.
Evergreen quote
You have to be more specific than that I'm not clear who you're referencing.
Are you under the delusion that Ukraine is a democracy?
So the Russian Federation, a republic, built in the aftermath of the dismantling of the largest bureaucratic democracy in the world built under the eye of the West for the purpose of liberty and freedom and economic capitalism, that Russian Federation is so different than the West that we can attribute nearly all bad things done by Russia to Putin, but in the West it's such a complex and nuanced situation that it's really the whole system to blame?
Keep huffing cope. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.