A retired Russian colonel made critical comments on Russian state TV concerning the invasion of Ukraine – surprising in their critique of President Vladimir Putin's misjudgment.
The "special military operation" ostensibly united the world against Russia, former Russian air defense commander Mikhail Kodaryonok said Monday, according to a translation of a video posted on Twitter.
"The main deficiency of our military-political position is that, in a way, we are in full political isolation, and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us," Kodaryonok said. "And it's that situation we need to get out of."
Putin's invasion of Ukraine not only outstretched the military capability against the strong-willed Ukrainians protecting their homeland, but the escalations unified opposition world wide, Kodaryonok added.
"The main thing in our business, it's always important to maintain a sense of military-political realism," he said. "If you go beyond it, then sooner or later the reality of history will hit you so hard that you'll regret it.
"What is, in this respect, the most important thing? Don't sable rattle.
"Again, let's look at the situation as a whole from the overall strategic position. Don't engage in saber rattling with missiles in Finland's direction. It actually looks quite amusing."
Kodaryonok pointed to past being prologue: Military will power means as much as fire power, and Ukraine has proven stronger in the former.
Russian soldiers are told to invade, while Ukraine is determined to protect their home.
"The way an army is recruited never determines the level of an army's professionalism," Kodaryonok said. "By the way, in our country that dogma has become very firmly entrenched in the minds of some of our political scientists: That is a man is a contracted soldier, he's a professional – far from it, far from it.
"But a desire to protect one's homeland, in the sense that it exists in Ukraine, it really does exist there: They intend to fight until the last man."
The will to die for one's country has a large impact on military might and "high-combat readiness," according to Kodaryonok.
"Ultimately, victory on the battlefield is determined by a high level of morale among personnel, which sheds blood for the ideas which it's prepared to fight for," Kodaryonok concluded. "The classics [Marxist-Leninists] were in this regard absolutely correct."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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