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.
I do not see much evidence that Ukraine will just shatter the second it stops getting western support, though. Of course they’ll be disadvantaged, but it’s not like they’re the ANA, is it? I wrote here about it a bit so I wont bother repeating the comment just to save us both some time lol.
Russia can gain more advantage by waiting things out but even if the west stopped supporting it they still have no route forward to ‘total victory’ as the Russian leadership imagined (quick and easy replacement of the Ukrainian government with one friendly to Russia and beholden entirely to it), just a slightly more advantageous occupation of some parts of the country. Ukrainians wont just give up though, taking big cities is an immensely difficult thing against a dedicated defender and the further in they get, the more difficult it is to defend supply lines.