‘We Cannot Win’ Says Top Russian Commander

Except that Donetsk is not a legally recognized country. And Khodakovsky is a militant who has been responsible for destabilizing and destroying his own country by starting a civil war.

That's not how it works, there's lots of seperatist regions the world over that don't get to just take their part of the country and leave.

Criticizing this article isn’t the same as supporting Russia lol.

They're not communist

Wait, I'm ootl what happened?

Pointing out blatant untruths, being anti-war and wanting accurate reporting rather that copium meant to inspire more people to thrown themselves to a pointless death is checks notes russian propaganda?
You would've supported the invasion of Iraq

Because I truly believe that war is horrible the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this war is a human tragedy, working people all over the world have to deal with the fallout of this war with rising energy costs and higher foodprices which certainly also caused the deaths of people, meanwhile this war is used in many western countries to push extreme austerity which will lessen the quality of life at best.

This war and all wars are a human tragedy, and at the start of it I certainly wasn't in Russias corner and I'm still not but I have lost all sympathy for Ukraine and the West because not only have there been many off ramps for Ukraine to end this conflict but western politicians have contributed to this misery. They've contributed to the deaths of so many lives. People like Boris Johnson that sabotaged the peace talks, Biden that keeps on sending more and more weapon over there so more and more people can die. I've since stopped looking at how much money they've given but around spring it was 100bn USD which would've been enough to combat world hunger for 3 years. Ukranian officials like yes Zelensky who is a clown that personally doesn't suffer from this and uses it to push his own persona and does a cool photoshoot in his sick operator outfit.

Ukraine has not approached the negotiating table in any serious manner because they insist on demanding everything back including Crimea, which just won't happen especially not in this position, so the ukranian leadership is happy to get some money from the west so they order people like you and me to walk into artillery fire or into landmines not for any reason because there haven't been any real gains but just because that's how the money is flowing in.

Ukraine totally could negotiate a peace it would be incredibly easy because Putin seems eager to want to negotiate but what Ukraine wants isn't a restoration of the border situation before the war they want Crimea as well, they are not serious about peace and everyone knows it, Ukraine will never surrender and so the only thing that can stop this senseless war is when the endless amount of money flowing into Ukraine stops or when the people of Ukraine have had enough of their bloodthirsty corrupt leadership and overthrow them.

Edit: Also sorry but quite a few people from other instances literally say fascist shit that reminds me of rhetoric that was used during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and we all know how that turned out, calling russian ethnicities in Ukraine 'occupiers' is surely not going to lead to violence towards that group.

Everything you say about Russia is true, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a proxy war where US is trying to weaken Russia. You can just be against a senseless war that's killing hundreds of thousands of people and destroying lives of millions more. Anybody who is even minimally engaging with reality can see that this war will only end one way. What the west is doing is prolonging it without changing the outcome. People of Ukraine are being cynically thrown into a meat grinder so that US can score a win in a geopolitical chess game with Russia.

What part of that comment can be construed as pro-Russia?

Because you have the reading comprehension of a grade schooler and are apparently incapable of handling such complexities as "Just because they're winning doesn't mean we support them" and "everybody in this conflict is an asshole except the non-Nazis soldiers being slaughtered so defense contractors can put in new pools in Arlington".

This isn't some law of attraction thing. Admitting that Ukraine is at best stalemated isn't going to cause them to magically lose.

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.

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.

In this case, they are quoting a primary source. So irrespective of your opinion of their journalistic integrity, this appears to be factual information.

Let's start with the fact that he's not some top Russian commander, and he's not even part of the actual Russian military. He's one of the commanders of the militias who've been fighting against the regime. the article is clearly misrepresenting his position and authority.

Here’s another source from Reuters that discusses the Ukrainian Marines retaking Urozhaine

Meanwhile, these little villages change sides pretty much every day of the conflict. You can see on the pro Ukrainian map how small this place is and that it's not even close to Russian defensive lines https://liveuamap.com/#

Perhaps you can explain why you think this is a significant event here. Seems like this is a much bigger deal https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/europe/kupyansk-ukraine-evacuation-russia-intl/index.html

If you're curious, this is the full telegram translation from DeepL:

Can we militarily bring down Ukraine? Right now and in the short term, no. When I reason in myself about our victory in this war - I don't mean that we will crawl forward like them, turning everything into bahmuts on our way. And I don't envision the easy occupation of cities.... We will enter the phase that is most disadvantageous for Ukraine in its "self-styled" state: the phase of neither peace nor war. We could be in this phase if, instead of the SWO, we recognized the territories and officially took them under guardianship. But that would be a completely different turn of history....

In our reality, which has already taken place, it will come to a "truce". We have started certain processes in the economy, caused by the increased load, but in general we have endured and caught the balance. We are balancing - not without that - but we are walking on a tightrope. Remember the crisis of the eighth year, which was called the crisis of the banking system? Back then, just one bank collapsed, setting off the domino principle, and we experienced a lot of bad things in a fairly short period of time. Now there is systematic pressure, but we are warming up, but we are holding on.

It will not be the same with Ukraine. If we don't let the internal situation in Russia to rock, we have a very high survivability with all our ailments. Ukraine is a completely different "physics". Economically and politically, it is a construct that cannot survive on its own. That is why the project of independent Ukraine was not realized and turned into a project of "who to lie under". Unfortunately, the elites oriented to Western money defeated the elites who wanted to milk Russia. Now the West gives mostly what can only bring destruction. When you read about the next aid, what you see is not money that you can saw, but iron that you have to dispose of. You can't make much money from it. Therefore, at the end of the upcoming phase, we will most likely face a global redivision of Ukraine. Translated with DeepL https://www.deepl.com/app/?utm_source=android&utm_medium=app&utm_campaign=share-translation

Don't argue with this guy. I've had a run-in with him before.

100% vatnik cocksucker and propaganda spewer.

Well, let's use the Russian definitions... Did they take Kiev within 3 days? No. Did they hold Kherson? No. Are they able to stop the Ukrainians? No. There has not been any significant ground taken by the Russians in the last few months. Were they able to defend against Ukrainian attacks on the Black Sea? No. After losing their Moskva flagship, they still are suffering attacks on infrastructure, warchips, and bridges. So I am happy to use the limited in context term of victory, while not being so pendantic that it loses meaning.

Russia's first failure was being a Fascist state that relies on Nazis for their openly imperialist agenda.

Your biggest failure is being a fascist that doesn't even realize it.

Don't be mean to them, they're manifesting victory and you're harshing the energy.

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?

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.

In your dreams. Like your failed predictions of freezing Europeans running out of Russan gas and whatnot, lol, we gonna make this reality check later on, just to remind you.

You are mentioning 2 different resources: 1. Materiel, 2. Manpower. After an initial bumpy start where Ukraine did indeed lose a few valuable pieces of equipment, you cannot point to any significant loses in the last month -- except on the Russian side. And Russia does not have extensive resources thanks to the international sanctions. Russia is now moving troops from one point of attack to another, meaning they no longer have reserves to apply. They have already gone through the prison population, and the lasty conscription drive caused many people to move abroad. They are now conscripting people who have the least motivation to fight and giving them little training. These are death sentences. Meanehile, Ukraine continues to be supported by Western financials and technology. You are perhaps expecting a "blowout" scenario like in Kherkov last year. But placing a greater value on life, Ukraine has been going slow and carefully to minimize losses on thier side. The exact thing you see as a weakness is actually resource protection.

Everyone who supports Russia is a fascist.

I absolutely love the incomprehension on the part of liberals of why Russia didn't just throw freshly mobilized troops into a meat grinder the way Ukraine is doing. Instead, they sensibly spent the time building multi-layer defences, and training the troops knowing that the west would push Ukraine into the offensive in order to justify all the spending.

And this is based on the overwhelming success of the current Russian attempts?

I'll put it on the giant pile of overconfident predictions about Russian military prowess that we already have. Kiev in 3 days, amirite?

"thrown away"

The US has just approved the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine. So that might change soon.

I am so hyped to see how long an F-16 lasts against the S-500 network. Whether or not NATO SEAD systems can counter the S-500 system is going to be one of the deciding factors in the course of the 21st century. It'll also be neat to see if NATO actually commits real weaponry or holds back the good stuff for fear of it failing and revealing that the Emperor has no clothes.

"The ghost of Kiev is changing the game!" " HIMARS is going to be a game changer!" "Storm shadow is going to be a game changer!" "Leopards are going to be a game changer!" "Challengers are going to be a game changer!" "F-16s are going to be a game changer!"

How many Ukrainians need to be sent into minefields for you libs to fuckin learn.

The F-16s will need parts, logistics, and weapons, the pilots and ground crews will need extensive training.... those jets will do nothing this year. Perhaps next year though. I agree that Ukraine is fighting with one arm tied due to NATO fears of nuclear retaliation. Is that a reasonable fear? I think so. Putin is not a sane or reasonable person. And Ukraine has shown the capability to hit Russian targets within Russian territory. If the Ukrainians were allowed to hit harder, deeper, more sensitive targets in Russia, the war would escalate -- Russia would not want to be seen as beaten by its little neighbor. A shame, agree or disagree, but right now, those are the rules of war that Ukraine must abide by for continued support from NATO.

It seems you do not play RTS games -- ignoring the fact that those are exactly like modern warfare /s -- you would know that certain systems are incredibly effective against certain other systems. Like StA missiles against Russian fighter jets and helicopters which is why you do not see them in the air much at all, and certainly not to a militarily significant degree. Perhaps you are suggesting that the Russian defenses are so powerful that Ukraine will die trying to take those hills? For every weapon, there's a counter. The Russians have mined huge areas of the occupied lands and it is indeed slow going. Slow, but continuous for the Ukrainians. It's sad that you see this war with real tragedy and absolute senselessness as a game.

The European powers are far more firmly committed.

So firmly committed that america had to blow up one of germany's pipelines? Are you having a fucking laugh?

Everyone I speak to, you know, normal people, thinks this is a fucking stupid distraction from domestic politics and the consistently declining standard of living we are seeing. America has ended european prosperity with this shit and it won't recover for 50 years. You think people here haven't noticed that?

I have to imagine direct intervention would've happened already if it was going to. Why let the Ukrainians get shoved into a meat grinder first? If you're America: it's good business and sells more guns. If you're actually reliant on the buffer zone then it's really not a game, as you say.

The US being unreliable is what will cause a full on EU army. Putin is on the EU's doorstep and former Soviet are in the EU. The EU can't ignore Putin's aggression.

Putin can hang from a barbed wire noose and also this is a US proxy war

What are you talking about? I said I don't like America. How did you get it backwards?

is somehow losing to the minor Western allies

How are you defining "losing" here? They're occupying the separatist parts of Ukraine and can do so indefinitely.

Its possible he miscalculated.

It's also possible that his cancer is accelerating and he wanted to go out with a bang.

I think it's likely a combination of the two. He thought it would be a quick skirmish and he'd be able to reunite the USSR.

I love how westerners think of themselves as the entire world. Here's what the entire world actually thinks

• https://ecfr.eu/publication/united-west-divided-from-the-rest-global-public-opinion-one-year-into-russias-war-on-ukraine/
• https://usrussiaaccord.org/acura-viewpoint-krishen-mehta-the-ukraine-war-viewed-from-the-global-south/

Meanwhile, what's actually been revealed is that everything NATO has thrown into this proxy war is now burning and turns out that fabled NATO tactics didn't even allow Ukraine to reach the first line of Russian defences.

Even western media now admits that Ukraine is on the brink of collapse.

• https://www.19fortyfive.com/2023/08/the-hard-reality-ukraines-last-gasp-offensive-has-failed/
• https://abcnews.go.com/International/ukraine-taking-heavy-casualties-counteroffensive-soldiers/story?id=102347740
• https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/08/17/ukraine-counteroffensive-melitopol/

Meanwhile, Russia has already made more significant advances in the past couple of weeks than Ukraine managed during the whole 10 weeks of the offensive https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/10/europe/kupyansk-ukraine-evacuation-russia-intl/index.html

Meanwhile, west is losing trillions while Russian economy is growing as reported by UBS https://www.businessinsider.com/war-in-ukraine-russia-richer-millionaires-billionaires-uhnw-wealth-ubs-2023-8

Maybe try engaging with reality instead of guzzling propaganda all day.

the brutality inherent to Leninism”

Nobody is fine with Crimea - except Russia, but they want more. Crimea was the price to pay for peace, but peace was broken by Russia, so Russia does not get to keep it.

They've pledged to use nukes if Ukraine counter attacks on their soil.

They have already 'annexed' oblasts they do not completely control so that threat is pretty hollow.

what's that liberal favorite again? ah yes, "whataboutism"! what does your comment have to do with anything?