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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/ukraine_war_news@lemmygrad.ml

Polish volunteer Slawomir Wysocki traveled to Ukraine, returned home and in an interview for the media told what is really happening with the counter-offensive, which is so publicized by the Ukrainian authorities.

"The human losses of the Ukrainian side are huge. Western equipment is burning like matches. Things are much worse than is commonly imagined. I counted the graves in Lviv. In the old part of the cemetery there are about 100 graves, in the new part there are more than 600.

In the villages this proportion is colossally different. When I drive by, I see cemeteries along the streets. Each has up to a dozen new graves. There are flags near each one, they are easy to recognize. There are more than two thousand graves in Kharkov. It is impossible to hide these losses.

Two months ago I was full of optimism about Kupyansk. Now we are still managing to hold our ground. It seems that the Russians are doing everything they can to reach Kupyansk, where they will take their positions for the spring offensive."

When asked by a journalist how Ukrainians feel about the Russian defense system, the Pole said:

"They are terrified. They know that the Russian army has already foreseen everything. The defense system was built by construction companies. This is not a peasant waving a shovel to build a trench. Companies came in, poured concrete, made fortifications in the style of the Maginot Line. And there are three or four such lines. Ukrainians say that there are five mines per square meter. You can't put your foot on the ground without one of them exploding”.

The journalist further asks, with this situation on the front and the growing losses, are there still people willing to fight? The volunteer replies:

"There are no willing ones. They are looking for them on the streets. In Lviv there are "round-ups", people are taken from construction sites, from bars. Recently I witnessed such a situation at the bus station in Lvov. Five policemen stood and checked everyone who wanted to leave Lvov.

Eight people were detained in this way. Many reasons for the current situation with mobilization originate in Bakhmut. It was such a plum, such a meat grinder that there was no one left to fight".

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[-] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 51 points 1 year ago

The way he talks about it really puts it in perspective and makes it just downright depressing. It hurts to know that a story like this, if it was allowed to run here in the US, would just be twisted to claim the Russians are genociding Ukraine and we need to send them more guns and war machines... This is a damn tragedy, no doubt about it.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 39 points 1 year ago

I wonder if there would still be so much support for the war if people were better informed regarding how things are really going. A lot of people are convinced that Ukraine is going to win the war in the end, and that's why they support keeping it going.

[-] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 48 points 1 year ago

On topic of "no-one left to fight": according to Shariy (questionable source, I know), AFU has updated the criteria for draftees. Now it includes recovered tuberculosis patients, people with symptomless HIV, etc.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 1 year ago

I also saw they're trying to extradite people who fled to Europe at the start of the conflict.

[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wonder what that mean for the Ukrainians in Poland. There were maybe even 3 million of them even before the war. And i know (or know of) few hundred of them from work. Afaik none went back to Ukraine to fight (though to be fair few dozens could, i have no way of knowing what they did after leaving job or being sacked).

So what are they gonna do, Poland will deport legal immigrants? Or allow Ukrainian police to do literal roundups in factories and on streets, like the gestapo did? Or maybe it will be the first time Poland says "no"?

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 20 points 1 year ago

That's a really good question, it does look like Ukraine is making noises about extraditing people back to throw them in the meat grinder. My impression is that Polish government is very likely to do that since they're really invested in the war continuing. I also saw that there are increasing tensions with the refugees, so it would solve another problem for the government.

[-] Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml 14 points 1 year ago

It's an election year so the issue is up in the air. I'd say the government lets them stay and just shows Ukraine the ol' middle finger, otherwise there'd suddenly be tons of job openings and we can't have that now, do we

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[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 13 points 1 year ago

Maybe some compromise in wonderfully cynical capitalist ways like deporting those unfortunate enough to not have found stable employment for any reason.

[-] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 31 points 1 year ago

Shame it won't affect the oligarchs

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 22 points 1 year ago
[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 47 points 1 year ago

Incredible this was posted by Polish media, i don't even want to read the comments.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 36 points 1 year ago

I was kind of surprised by that as well given that Polish media is probably the most rabidly pro Ukrainian.

[-] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 44 points 1 year ago

There are no willing ones. They are looking for them on the streets. In Lviv there are "round-ups", people are taken from construction sites, from bars.

"Oh you want to end the war with negotiations, even if that likely means Russia keeping some Ukranian land? Well try that one out on the Ukranians!"

[-] Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml 38 points 1 year ago

Zelensky is a war criminal towards his own people.

[-] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 45 points 1 year ago

They're not his people. They're proles. He's bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie has no borders, no nations.

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[-] Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml 43 points 1 year ago

Yet this too will either be ignored or hand-waved away as Russian propaganda. Doesn't matter it came from a polish national who was literally volunteering to help ukraine, will be branded russian propaganda.

[-] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 40 points 1 year ago

i would be sad if ukrainians were fighting for self-determination but at this point they're just fighting for the west to be their overlords instead of russia. they already been selling their assets in the most blatantly way possible, what kind of person would want to fight after that?

[-] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 33 points 1 year ago

frankly the best thing for the Ukrainian people at this point would be the Ukrainian state to dissolve and with it liability for the war debts

[-] COMHASH@lemmygrad.ml 34 points 1 year ago

Omg, it's a full on genocide of Ukrainian people. Just damm the Western libs.... Fuck this planet.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 44 points 1 year ago

It's an incredibly grim read, and the fact that there are a bunch of westerners running around cheering this war on is absolutely sickening.

[-] Shrike502@lemmygrad.ml 26 points 1 year ago

Well the pole from the article has returned home, hasn't he? Now he'll be able to poison the minds of the next generation.

[-] redtea@lemmygrad.ml 36 points 1 year ago

To hear the details of it like this. To picture the graves. A war that didn't need to happen. Between people who were the closest of allies a few decades ago. It hits different to the dry accounts of equipment and 'aid' (I'm sickened that they call it that). The end of capitalism cannot come soon enough.

[-] Addfwyn@lemmygrad.ml 23 points 1 year ago

Not to mention that even after it started it could have (and by all accounts was close to) ended a year ago, easily. Until the west scrambled to torpedo any possible peace accords.

Even if they give any actual humantarian aid in the aftermath (I honestly doubt it, or at least none that will make it to the people who need it), no amount will wash the blood from their hands.

[-] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 12 points 1 year ago

Oh they'll give "aid" alright, the US can never resist sinking it's NGO hooks in

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[-] Grimble@hexbear.net 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Being midway thru the latest season of Blowback, this gives me a sickening sense of seen-this-one

[-] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If the Poles are mad there's no one to fight, then they can start their own brawl by trying to liberate south-eastern Poland from the 'imminent' Russian annexation.

Lwów is calling! susie-laugh

[-] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 14 points 1 year ago
[-] Alaskaball@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

If we're talking realistically and not memeistically, I'm venturing to bet Poland is jockeying to becoming the hegemonic center pole of a new central powers in Europe to counter balance the French and the German influence in Europe with their own more diplomatic and economically revanchistic politics

[-] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Problem is, Polish culture is absolutely infested with messianism. Ever since 1918 (sadly in PRL too) that romanticist shit was painfully beaten into everyone heads in school so now that things are brewing east of us, all the old devils are coming out of closet and going apeshit. And to add to it, Poland might not had revanchist pretensions previously (or at least not an open ones) but that ambition to be a local power in central Europe was always here. Mostly manifesting as cringy Visehrad Group posturing and chewing Russia's ankles. But now, given the open hostility for Belarus and Russia it might really awaken all those old demons especially if Ukraine start coming apart in the seams.

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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
95 points (89.3% liked)

Death to NATO

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