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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[+] yogthos@lemmy.ml -22 points 1 year ago (14 children)

I think many people are forgetting that the larger army, vastly outnumbering Ukrainian resources in numbers, has spent the past 9 months creating multilayered defences that the Ukrainian army has been banging their head against for the past 10 weeks. Ukraine no longer has a functioning military industry of its own or even an economy to speak of. It's entirely dependent on the west at this point.

NATO scrounged up all they had for this offensive, and US even ran out of shells to give having to resort to cluster munitions. NATO also trained Ukrainian soldiers. Now all of this is being lost without any actual progress being made. Ukraine hasn't even managed to reach the first defence line being mired in the security zone.

What we will see is that once the offensive burns itself out, Russia will start an offensive of their own against a depleted and demoralized Ukrainian army. The west will not be able to send more ammunition and equipment because it doesn't exist, and Ukraine will have lost majority of their trained and motivated soldiers who can't be replaced.

Even western sources are now admitting that Ukraine is suffering far higher losses than Russia, and that this is primarily an artillery battle where Russia vastly outnumbers Ukrainian artillery. 80% of casualties were being caused by Russian artillery.

[–] Tester@lemm.ee 7 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Yes, artillery is at the core of Russian military doctrine. But this only means the rest of its technology is not being used. Where is air superiority? Non-existent. Russia is afraid to put aircraft in Ukrainian sights. Where are the huge tank battles? Non-existent because the Western technology makes Swiss cheese out of even their heaviest armor. I am amazed that someone can still believe in the Russian military when despite overwhelming numbers, Russia has not been able to defend itself against its neighbor, 1/5th its size and certainly less prepared for war. You think it's a sign of victory that Russia is now using WW2 era tanks they are pulling out of storage? If anything, that shows exactly who is running out of materiel to run the war. And NATO has plenty of munitions. I think you are confusing production and capacity. Are the production of artillery and war machines too low? Yes, and NATO is addressing those issues. However, NATO has huge reserves of munitions sitting in warehouses that it hasn't even tapped yet. Most of the donations to Ukraine have not even been of NATO's best stock. It just happened to be a way of clearing old munitions. In some cases, both the US and Germany were going to destroy or mothball equipment only to reroute it to Ukraine. NATO is not running out of stock, it is simply getting rid of old inventory and ramping up production on new munitions. This takes time, but they are not running out. Unlike Russia.... What will Russia do next? Having their Cossacks go back to fighting on horseback when the WW2 tanks run out of parts?

[+] yogthos@lemmy.ml -16 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Where is air superiority? Non-existent.

Did you somehow miss all the videos of Russian aviation taking out tanks on daily basis, or the fact that Russia does massive air strike campaigns against entire Ukraine weekly for many months now? Meanwhile, Ukraine has no air force to speak of, and at this point doesn't even have much of air defence. What you're saying is demonstrably false.

Where are the huge tank battles?

There aren't huge tank battles because Russia is letting Ukraine blow up all their tanks in minefields and hunts them down with lancets. The battles we've seen so far are Ukrainian columns following a single mine clearing vehicle that gets taken out by a helicopter or artillery. Then the column ends up being stuck because it's in a minefield, and the rest of the vehicles are systematically destroyed. These were the first two weeks of the offensive after which Ukraine abandoned the fabled NATO tactics and went back to sending penny packets of troops to get ground down by artillery.

I am amazed that someone can still believe in the Russian military when despite overwhelming numbers, Russia has not been able to defend itself against its neighbor, 1/5th its size and certainly less prepared for war.

That's because you have absolutely no clue regarding the subject you're opining on. Here's what an actual expert has to say https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine

You think it’s a sign of victory that Russia is now using WW2 era tanks they are pulling out of storage?

What this actually shows is that Russia doesn't even feel the need to pull out its modern equipment, they're clearing out their old inventory the exact same way NATO is.

NATO is not running out of stock, it is simply getting rid of old inventory and ramping up production on new munitions.

Biden literally admitted that US ran out of high explosive shells to send. This is also admitted by mainstream media. Meanwhile, this is what the "dramatic increase in production actually looks like:

Army Secretary Christine Wormuth separately told reporters that the U.S. will go from making 14,000 155mm shells each month to 20,000 by the spring and 40,000 by 2025.

That's what Russia uses on daily basis, and Russia produces over a million shells a year

You really should spend a bit of time educating yourself instead of spreading misinformation here.

[–] whataboutshutup@discuss.online 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What this actually shows is that Russia doesn't even feel the need to pull out its modern equipment, they're clearing out their old inventory the exact same way NATO is.

Why? Do they enjoy dragging this conflict for more than a year? Is there some reason to why they don't use some sci-fi orbital blaster?

If you lived there, Ukraine or Russia, doesn't matter, and have served, you'd knew how deeply you are wrong. Bet you didn't, and I did. Post-soviet army culture is what makes me suspect they don't have anything breathtaking you think they have in worthy quantities.

Opposing western propaganda is one thing. Not taking a moment to understand you are high on russian one is another. Just take a glance at this quote of yours and say it's not copium.

load more comments (8 replies)

load more comments (10 replies)