But instead the invaders got hot blood and cold steel - And
collaborators will be dealt with accordingly.

`````````````````````````

Russia's Grave Miscalculation: Ukrainians Would Collaborate

The solicitation to commit treason came to Oleksandr Vilkul on the
second day of the war, in a phone call from an old colleague.

Vilkul, the scion of a powerful political family in southeastern Ukraine
that was long seen as harboring pro-Russian views, took the call as
Russian troops were advancing to within a few miles of his hometown,
Kryvyi Rih.

“He said, ‘Oleksandr Yurivich, you are looking at the map, you see the
situation is predetermined,’” Vilkul said, recalling the conversation
with a fellow minister in a former, pro-Russian Ukrainian government.

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“Sign an agreement of friendship, cooperation and defense with Russia
and they will have good relations with you,” the former colleague said.
“You will be a big person in the new Ukraine.”

The offer failed spectacularly. Once war had begun, Vilkul said, the
gray area seeped out of Ukrainian politics for him. Missiles striking
his hometown made the choice obvious: He would fight back.

“I responded with profanity,” Vilkul said.

If the first months of the war in Ukraine became a military debacle for
the Russian army — deflating the reputations of its commanders and
troops in a forced retreat from Kyiv — the Russian invasion also
highlighted another glaring failure: Moscow’s flawed analysis of the
politics of the country it was attacking. The miscalculation led to
mistakes no less costly in lives for the Russian army than the faulty
tactics of tank operators who steered into bogs.

The Kremlin entered the war expecting a quick and painless victory,
predicting that the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy would
fracture and that leading officials in the largely Russian-speaking
eastern region would gladly switch sides. That has not happened.

The political myopia was most significant in the country’s east,
political analysts say.

In all but a tiny number of villages, Russia failed to flip local
politicians to its side. Ukrainian authorities have opened 38 cases of
treason, all targeting low-level officials in individual instances of
betrayal.

“Nobody wanted to be part of that thing behind the wall,” said
Kostyantyn Usov, a former member of Parliament from Kryvyi Rih,
referring to Russia’s isolated, authoritarian system.

He said that system had dismal appeal in Ukraine and noted the absence
of widespread collaboration with Russia, including among Ukrainians who
speak Russian and share the country’s cultural values.

“We are part of something bright,” he said of Ukraine. “It is here, with
us, in our group. And they have nothing to offer.”

Other prominent, once Russian-leaning politicians including Ihor
Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, and Hennady Trukhanov, the mayor of
Odesa, also remained loyal and became fierce defenders of their cities.

Along with leaders in the southeast, Ukrainian people also resisted.
Street protests against occupation in Kherson continue despite lethal
dangers for participants. One man stood in front of a tank. Kryvyi Rih’s
miners and steelworkers have shown no signs of pivoting allegiance to
Russia.

“Before the war, we had ties to Russia,” said Serhiy Zhyhalov, 36, a
steel mill engineer, referring to familial, linguistic and cultural
bonds. But no longer, he said. “No one has any doubts that Russia
attacked us.”

Ukraine’s southeastern regions, an expanse of steppe and blighted
industrial and mining cities, is now the focus of fighting in the war.

Driving south from Kyiv, the highway leaves behind the dense pine
forests and reedy swamps of northern Ukraine, and the landscape opens
into expansive plains. Farm fields stretch out to the horizons, in
brilliant, yellow blossoming rapeseed or tilled black earth.

In many ways, the region is entwined with Soviet and Russian history.
The iron and coal industries shaped southeastern Ukraine. In and around
the city of Kryvyi Rih are iron ore deposits; the coal is farther east,
near the city of Donetsk.

The two mineral basins, known as the Kryvbas and the Donbas, gave birth
to a metallurgical industry that drew in many nationalities from around
the Czarist and Soviet empires from the late 19th century onward, with
Russian becoming the lingua franca in the mining towns. Villages
remained mostly Ukrainian-speaking.

The region for years elected Russian-leaning politicians such as Vilkul,
a favorite villain to Ukrainian nationalists for promoting Soviet-style
cultural events that angered many Ukrainians. He staged, for example, a
singalong party in Kryvyi Rih to belt out “Katyusha,” a Russian song
associated with the Soviet World War II victory.

More substantively, Vilkul ascended in politics under the former,
pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, in whose government he served
as deputy prime minister until street protesters deposed Yanukovych in 2014.

Much of the rest of Yanukovych’s Cabinet fled with him to Russia. But
Vilkul remained in Ukraine as a de facto political boss of Kryvyi Rih
while his aging father served as the city’s mayor.

And he caught Moscow’s eye. In 2018, Vilkul said, he was told through an
intermediary that “the time of chaos is over” and that he should now
follow orders from Moscow if he wished to remain in politics in the
southeast. He said he refused.

The Russians, he said, had not even bothered to court him, they only
leveled demands. He said Moscow took the same approach to other
politicians in Ukraine’s east. “They didn’t even try to convince us,” he
said. “They just thought we would be, a priori, on their side.”

On the eve of the war, Vilkul was most likely the Russian-leaning
politician in Ukraine with the broadest popular support. “I was alone on
this level,” he said. He was also viewed by Moscow as a promising
potential convert to its side when it invaded Ukraine.

That’s when the call came to Vilkul’s cellphone from Vitaly
Zakharchenko, a Ukrainian in exile in Russia who had served as interior
minister under Vilkul in Yanukovych’s government. He recommended Vilkul
cooperate with the Russians.

“I told him to get lost,” Vilkul said. “I didn’t even consider it.”

Vilkul said he had been misunderstood — by Russia’s leadership and his
nationalist opposition at home. A great-grandfather, he said, had fought
White Russians in the civil war. The Vilkul family, he said, “has been
fighting Russians on this land for a hundred years.”

The Kremlin, he said, had misinterpreted his respect for World War II
veterans and support for rights of Russian speakers as potential support
for a renewed Russian empire, something he said was a mistake. He called
the Russians “classic megalomaniacs.”

“They mistook common language and values like attitudes to the Second
World War and Orthodoxy as a sign that somebody loves them,” he said.

A second offer, this time presented publicly by another Ukrainian exile,
Oleh Tsaryov, in a post on Telegram, came about a week later, when
Russian troops had advanced to within 6 miles of the city. “My fellow
party members and I have always taken a pro-Russian stance,” the post
said, referring to Vilkul and his father, and added ominously that
“cooperation with the Russian army means preserving the city and lives.”

Vilkul responded with an obscene post on Facebook.

On the first days of the invasion, Vilkul ordered the region’s mining
companies to park heavy equipment on the runway of the city’s airport,
thwarting an airborne assault, and on approach roads, slowing tank
columns. The tires were then popped and engines disabled.

The city’s steel industry began to turn out tank barriers and plates for
armored vests. Zelenskyy, whose hometown is Kryvyi Rih, appointed Vilkul
military governor of the city on the third day of the war, though the
two had been political opponents in peacetime.

Vilkul has taken to wearing fatigues and a camouflage bandanna. A parade
of Ukrainian nationalists, including the leader of the Right Sector
paramilitary, Dmytro Yarosh, and a prominent activist and military
officer, Tetiana Chernovol, once sworn enemies of the Vilkul family,
have shown up in his office to shake his hand.

“If we fight the Russians,” he said, “were we ever really pro-Russian,
in essence?”

https://news.yahoo.com/russias-grave-miscalculation-ukrainians-collaborate-154623413.html
--
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for
light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

On Sat, 7 May 2022 21:26:57 -0400
JeSSe <zo@so.org> wrote:

> In all but a tiny number of villages, Russia failed to flip local
> politicians to its side.
>
> "Nobody wanted to be part of that thing behind the wall," said
> Kostyantyn Usov, a former member of Parliament from Kryvyi Rih,
> referring to Russia’s isolated, authoritarian system.

Which makes it rather strange that West Ukrainian fascists have been at war with East Ukraine for almost the last decade.

Maybe East Ukrainians truly are "separatists", that despite their Russian heritage they do not want to be part of Putin's Russia.

The only thing for sure is they definitely don't want to be a part of the Ukraine controlled by Kiev.

Not even military attacks upon them nor executions carried out by Kiev's fascists have convinced them they should remain a part of Ukraine.

Maybe Putin did overestimate his ability to take Ukraine. Just as America did in Vietnam, just as Rumsfeld did when he promised victory in Afghanistan would come within weeks, cost just few million dollars, and end with Afghans throwing rose petals at the feet of American invaders.

It is almost certain Putin underestimated NATO's ability to fight our war on Russia from behind the sidelines, by having Ukrainians sacrifice themselves on NATO's behalf. It's a huge advantage to have people you don't care about dying on your behalf than your own and I don't think Putin understood NATO's game plan until too late.

The only thing we do know is that those Ukrainians who have sacrificed their lives in failing to defend Ukrainian territory won't be taking any further part in the fight. Those who retreated, ran away to fight another day, will be the ones who will.

It's far better to cut one's losses, strategically retreat, consolidate, live and fight another day, secure a chance to win, than to pointlessly sacrifice oneself, and doom one's country to defeat

I don't know why you and the rightwing believe losing the battle, losing lives. and losing the war, is so much better than losing the battle but winning the war, why you would rather have people die and lose rather than live and win.

I can only guess it's because you are idiots, believe people are mere cannon fodder, don't care who dies, and you get your erection-fixes from death rather than from victory.