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".
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.
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.
The sad part is that if people stepped back and thought about this then it becomes obvious they’ve been lied to. Russian economy was supposed to collapse, Russia was supposed to run out of ammunition, all the wonder weapons were supposed to be game changers, the army was supposed to run away in terror from the Ukrainian offensive. We’ve literally had two years of western mainstream media being wrong about everything, and despite that majority of people in the mainstream continue to consume it completely uncritically.
I think a lot of people will be shocked when they realize that’s not true.
A point of comparison is the overnight collapse of the Afghan government and military when the U.S. withdrew. It’s not a perfect one, but it’s probably the most recent example of a lib foreign policy narrative (we are adequately managing the withdrawal from Afghanistan) unambiguously being shown as false in real time.
They were talking about the war recently and they both thought that Russia was getting their ass kicked and incompetent.
probably about once a week one of my “apolitical” friends will post a tweet/article in our group chat talking about how Russia is so fucked/they’re running out of soldiers/they have no ammo or missiles/etc. I used to be baffled at how anyone could still believe this shit but after hate-watching my country’s media for a while it makes a lot more sense. Basically every media organization we’re exposed to here is repeating the same thing and even when it’s clearly bullshit (like “Russia is going to collapse from sanctions”) they push out so goddamn much of it that it’s super easy to forget the older claims. Eventually people forget the details of each story and just remember “Russia = bad, incompetent, desperate” which I suppose means the propaganda works.
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.
I also saw they’re trying to extradite people who fled to Europe at the start of the conflict.
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”?
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.
Incredible this was posted by Polish media, i don’t even want to read the comments.
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!”
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.
