Replies

"This week, retired colonel Mikhail Khodarenok appeared on prime-time national TV in Russia to offer a bleak assessment of the prospects for the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. In his appearance in the May 16 episode of the Rossiya channel’s “60 Minutes” talk show, the former senior officer of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces urged his compatriots not to believe that the Ukrainian army is crumbling and predicted a deterioration of the situation for the Russian military. Khodarenok’s grim warnings grabbed the attention of multiple Western media, primarily because they were made on state TV, whose news and analysis coverage Putin’s administration relentlessly micro-manages. What some of this reporting on Khodarenok’s remarks is missing, however, is that his predictions of a difficult war in Ukraine are not exactly new. Khodarenok can be commended for being one of the few Russian experts to publicly warn in the weeks before the war that the invasion would not be a walk in the park for his country’s armed forces, to put it mildly."

"In his May 16 appearance Khodarenok urged viewers not to swallow “informational sedatives,” such as “claims of moral and psychological breakdown among the Ukrainian armed forces.” “The desire to defend your motherland … really exists there [in Ukraine]; they intend to fight to the last,” he said. Khodarenok warned that Ukraine can mobilize a one-million-strong fighting force and that ability must be part of Moscow’s strategic calculations. Russia needs to extricate itself from its “geopolitical isolation,” which cannot be fully offset by the “not exactly unconditional” support of China and India. “The situation is not normal,” he said, “when a coalition of 42 countries has gathered against us, while our resources, both military-political and military-technical, are after all limited.” “The situation will frankly get worse for us,” Khodarenok warned."

You forgot the Harvard University link.

https://www.russiamatters.org/blog/clues-views-russian-colonel-spotlight-ukraine-war-criticism-was-one-few-warn-against-invasion

Clues From Views: Russian Colonel in Spotlight for Ukraine War Criticism Was One of Few to Warn Against Invasion
May 20, 2022
RM Staff

https://www.russiamatters.org/about

About Russia Matters
Russia Matters is a project launched in 2016 by Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and made possible with support from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Stanton Foundation.

And here is some interesting, informative reporting from The Hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hD1mNrY6R4

Kim Iversen: Piss-Poor Ukraine War Reporting INSULTS American’s Intelligence
The Hill
13m:23s