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.

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[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Edit: found someone who finally linked some actual evidence I can observe so I may remove all of this text I crossed out and recant my entire statement depending on how convincing it is.

Edit 2: The War in Donbas, 2014...
Sounds like Ukraine went Tankie Mode to put down separatists, except instead of using literal tanks to do it, they sloppily shelled with artillery at great range. Poroshenko was in charge at the time. It was almost ten years ago but I remember just barely well enough that I still hate his fucking guts even to this day.
Finger pointing abounds as far as who exactly is responsible for all the "Russian Volunteers" who "Appeared" "of their own free will". Truth is, even if someone else may choose to blame Russia about it, my own ethical consistency doesn't let me, because even though there are some certain and concrete differences, I am ok with people who aren't Ukrainian traveling to Ukraine and volunteering to submit themselves under the command of the Ukrainian military. I understand this is going to piss off both sides. It would be hypocritical to be against one side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine while making excuses to permit the other side sending outsiders to fight in Ukraine.
The fact remains that Poroshenko's administration handled this extremely fucking poorly to say the least and that handling included the slaughter of over THREE THOUSAND CIVILIANS.
Even IF the actions of the Ukrainian leadership did not directly result in some proportion of those civilian casualties, it still happened on their turf and under their watch.
This is part of why Poroshenko lost to Zelenskyy in 2019. During 2018, Zelenskyy stated in interviews that he wanted to negotiate with Russia to bring peace to the rebellion in the Donbas region instead of blasting it to hell like Poroshenko was. Too little too late. Oh well.

It would have been nice if a neutral party could have swept in, disabled all combat capability from either faction in Donbas, overseen a vote without any guns held to anyone's heads, with full public observability by the entire world - except there are no neutral parties. Everybody is on a side.

Maybe no single nation should be in charge of Crimea and Donbas. Not even Ukraine.

Sadly, I don't think it's likely that the world will come together to oust all armed personnel, whether insurgent or loyalist, from these regions, using UN Peacekeeper forces, until shit calms down enough for the civilians who live there to self-determine their future without being coerced. Except it's highly arguable that this will fucking count as coercion TOO. -_-

Anyway,

My stance is still that Russia should have stayed the fuck home, and should go back there, and if they JUST did that, then no one else would have to die in the Donbas region.

... Unless the separatists breached the ceasefires AGAIN.
AND AGAIN
AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
AND AGAIN AND AGAIN AND...

~~you say this shit as if anyone enjoys the fact that people who live there are embroiled in a war.~~

~~This only became the case when Russia invaded.~~

~~Nobody who purports the position that Ukraine was enacting genocide ever shows evidence of ethnic cleansing happening in the Donbas region prior to the Russian invasion. Of course, evidence of it happening after the Russian invasion is everywhere: all the civilians Russia executed in the street, visible from satellite images even before areas are taken back by the rightful sovereignty of Ukraine to whence it belonged prior to the invasion. By Russia.~~

~~All people ever tell me is "trust me bro" or try to assert that absence of evidence is evidence of a coverup, which are, notably, the same techniques american conservative fascist GOP-Simps use when trying to convince others that trans people are pedophiles and rapists.~~

~~> my source: this propagandistic youtube video~~

~~my. how credible.~~

~~People will stop dying in Donbas when Russian invaders stop killing the Ukrainians who live there.~~

[–] Flaps@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

While I'm happy to see you've come back on some of your previous points, your edit is pretty fuckin heinous to say the least.

To say ukraine went 'full tankie' while the people you'd happily refer to as tankies gave you sources and insight just makes you come across as disengenous. The word tankie has no meaning and you use it to just denounce stuff you don't agree with.

Also, to say it'll be the people of Donbas who'll break peace treaties after ten years of living in a war zone without any evidence that that'll happen, even with evidence pointing to the contrary, is just fuckin vile.

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee -2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The identity of an individual who points me to external evidence has no influence on the validity of said external evidence, and the evidence must be weighed on its own merit; to believe otherwise is ad hominem. It's true that Ukraine attempted to suppress their rebellion with extremely sloppy application of brutal force and that's tankie activity no matter who is doing it to whom.

Furthermore, as far as whatever violent tendencies may be exhibited by people who have been living in a war zone for ten years, you could be right. Or it could be that they weren't the ones who violated ceasefire repeatedly back then in the first place and wouldn't be the ones to violate such a ceasefire in such a hypothetical future - since the Russians in the PRESENT have demonstrate a pattern of repeatedly violating ceasefires and MAY sabotage it in the future while trying to frame these people (which is what "might" have been happening in actuality ten years ago)

Yes, how vile an implication it is, that Russia will attempt to hold these people hostage and use them as human shields, all over again, as if we would never see it coming.

[–] Flaps@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay but now you're telling me that by that standard Joe Biden is a tankie?

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

When was the last time Joe Biden killed several thousand American rebels on American soil using the United States military?

He's unironicly a war criminal just like the last umpteen American presidents, even if we were JUST looking at his complicity in the shit America does; and the ONLY thing that makes me sad about the Trump trials is that it's only happening to ONE president we've had and not every living president.

But he still hasn't crushed an American rebellion by slaughtering thousands of Americans with artillery on American soil.

Gotta be specific with crimes.

Or are you telling me you DON'T think what Petro Poroshenko did to his own civilians was a tankie job?

[–] Flaps@hexbear.net 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't, because I think tankie is a stupid term used by stupid people. So you're saying Lincoln was a tankie?

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I could give you an honest answer or I could acknowledge how you're widely broadcasting total disinterest and outright contempt for the subject, and subsequently block you because it's clear you're not interested in any discussion in good faith and my feed MIGHT actually be better off without you in it. Can you give me any reason why I should invest the time and energy into the former instead of the latter?

[–] Flaps@hexbear.net 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Nah I dislike you just as much. Was lincoln a tankie?

[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

... Fuck.

I really WAS looking forward to blocking you. AND you didn't give me a good reason not to. BUT,

the more I think about it, the more I find myself liking your question and feel myself WANTING to explore it.

At first, I asked myself if I could say "yeah, actually" but clearly THAT would be untrue - and not just for the reason that battle tanks weren't even invented yet at the time, but because even though lots of people hurl the word "tankie" around as a blanket insult with no real meaning, I'm instead actually honestly trying to mean something specific - It's not JUST killing your own people because they oppose you politically (using the figurative "you" here, not the literal you). It's the amount of intentional civilian casualties.

When people take up arms for a cause, they're self-selecting into the combat role, after all. Executing a planned, organized attack upon a government's assets is not a civilian behavior. It's either the behavior of an enemy (to said government) soldier or the behavior of a criminal. It's not innocent. The rebels in the American civil war were certainly not innocent bystanders.

What characterizes it would have to be the intentional and systematic slaughter of non-combatant civilians who were not engaging in battlefield maneuvers.

While this DID apparently happen in the American civil war, contributing to the civilian death toll of some 50,000 people, it was largely the actions of general Sherman, who unilaterally chose, regardless of actual orders, to burn entire cities.

I can't speak for you, obviously, but if a group exhibits all the behavioral phenomenon we presently associate with, say fascism, EVEN IF the actions and events concerned occurred before fascism was ever recognized or named, illuminating these behavioral facets by CALLING it "fascism" still possess communicative utility. Maybe meet half way and call it proto-fascism.

Likewise, if one were to call Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's actions during the American Civil War "proto-tankie", I'd be hard pressed to honestly disagree with them.

When it comes to the defining incidents of the term, though - the Prague Spring - the "rebellion" didn't declare war, they merely elected someone the Soviets didn't like, and for that, 165,000 troops and just over 4,600 tanks were dispatched and nearly ALL the resulting casualties were civilians, even with the elected leader of the time telling the civilians NOT to resist for the sake of their safety. Thankfully the number of civilian casualties were relatively few, with less than a hundred murdered and only just over 250 severely wounded.

The other oft-cited incident, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, actually featured armed insurgency and makes no distinctions clear enough regarding how many of the ~3,000 Hungarian casualties exactly were armed, organized, and mobilized, so I for one hold it in less critical a light than what Sherman did in the American Civil War.

When it comes to what Petro Poroshenko did in Ukraine, he actually admitted on video that he intended to make civilians suffer and fear for their lives, to make children cower in basements, in order to coerce compliance from them. Them, meaning, people who didn't even declare any intention to pick a fight with his administration in the first place! Punishing them for the "crime" of merely living in the same municipal area as alleged insurgents.

If you don't want to call it "tankie", fine.

But this IS a pattern of politically motivated state sponsored brutality that DOES recur throughout history and whatever you DO choose to call it deserves to be named, shamed, and blamed for giving Russia any justification whatsoever to "protect civilians" in the Donbas region by invading Ukraine.

In short, Lincoln wasn't a tankie, but Sherman may have been a proto-tankie.

[–] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

chefs-kiss no notes baby keep it up

[–] eatmyass@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago

bruh...what the fuck is this

[–] PeoplesRepublicOfNewEngland@hexbear.net 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Haha one of the Failed States of America's only two based moments

https://youtu.be/AAFEWL0-1sc

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

okay so here is the old president of ukraine...

some impressions

fun little wikipedia rabbithole

Fun little CIA Rabbit hole

OSCE Special Monitoring Mission and the (in this case prolematic) Linar Passing of Time ...

Feel free to add comrads ... Wisdom llies not in choosing your trench ... it lies in viewing both trenches...

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 3 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=aHWHqj8g7Bk

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

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[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

OK for real though I am looking forward to reading up on Operation Aerodynamic.

Just because I'm not ok with the CIA sending operatives to foment rebellions, astroturf political movements, rig elections, and overthrow sovereign states does not have any influence on the fact that they definitely fucking do that shit.

The fact that they definitely do it, though, does not make it ok for anyone else to do it either.

Russia's used the "turnabout is fair play" card in 'encouraging' 'veterans' to 'volunteer' 'assisting' 'separatist insurgents' in Donbas. Although I hate to see it, and wish they hadn't done it, the rationale behind why they expected to get away with it is clear. Even right now, lots of non-Ukrainians are volunteering (with or without airquotes) to aid the Ukrainian military.
Some might tell me "that's not the same thing!!!" while others will tell me "that's LITERALLY the same thing!!!" and however one wishes to characterize it, it's definitely happening and it's going to keep happening because the utility of it is too high. Russia's gonna keep doing it. America's gonna keep doing it. Proxy war.

Now I can face the fact that the actual reason that I want Russia to lose is the same reason I want the American republican party to be extinguished AND the democrat party to be blown out afterward: conservative traditionalist fascistic authoritarian theocracies deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth and swept into the dustbin of history where they fucking belong. European influence has historically weakened these death cult brain-viruses. Europe being far more left-leaning and socialist than America may ever be in my life time makes them the preferable alternative to Russia's literal jailing and execution of LGBT people. Encoded into their very fucking law books.

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 11 points 1 year ago

Russia's used the "turnabout is fair play" card in 'encouraging' 'veterans' to 'volunteer' 'assisting' 'separatist insurgents' in Donbas

Okay so you claim that the Revolution that the left part of the Map does is Legit , and "wholisitc Peoples will" (even through its leads to Civil War ) .. the REACTION of the Part of the Country that just lost THEIR FUCKING PRESIDENT AND THE RIGHT TO SPEAK THEIR OWN LANGUAGE , is just a Russian Operation ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Maidan : "Fuck yeah TV told me ! "

"Slavyiansk , Odessa , Kramatosrk , Donestk , Luhansk , Mariupol , kherson , Kharkov , Dneperpetrosk , Crimea etc. all rebellling in Reaction ? " , "well thats just a russian operation , i can not forgive them !!!"

okay imagine Canada has a Quebecian President , he then gets unconstituionally removed by Canadian Faschist in the non french speaking Capital , the New Goverment that spend all their time proclaiming their Hate for Quebecians and forbides the french Language , and you try to go around telling me that the

"Seperatist movement gathering in Quebec is some perfidious French operation .... nothing natural about it .. they Love beeing bombed & hated , you have fallen for French Missinformation Sweety "

[–] ThomasMuentzner@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago

Sorry the first reply was to "Fronting" , your on a good way , the Maidan spell sits deep , it also sat deep in me once. True Power is True Power , and if you ever heard of "Softpower" .. this is it ...

That you currently belive that the "Maidan" is the great and Glorious Peoples Will" & "The Donbass revolution is is perfidious Russian lies" and against the will of the People" is US Softpower ..

if you ever heard about the Concept ,SOFTPOWER it is the ability of the US State to make you Hate somebody.

conservative traditionalist fascistic authoritarian theocracies deserve to be wiped off the face of the earth and swept into the dustbin of history where they fucking belong.

i think you heard about it... ,