this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2023
628 points (93.3% liked)

World News

31456 readers
1005 users here now

News from around the world!

Rules:

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 42 points 10 months ago (42 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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (7 children)

I do not think there is much evidence that the Ukrainian army is seriously demoralised or unable to make weaponry.

Also source on the bit that Ukraine has suffered far higher losses than Russia? From what I've seen UK + US intelligence agencies are saying both sides have heavy losses but Russia has had higher ones overall (that is, since the start in 2022). Ukraine has probably suffered higher losses in the counteroffensive because modern warfare is defender-sided, but since February 2022? Hmm.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

unable to make weaponry.

Didn't Russia frag all their logistics a few months ago? I thought they finally took the gloves off and started destroying infrastructure a long time ago?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Not sure if they're targeting it that effectively, not seen articles saying so yet but might be wrong. I think they're targeting civilian infrastructure as much as strategic infrastructure (same mistakes the Nazis made in the Blitz!).

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (39 replies)