An interview with the Ukrainian commander whose surrender might have had the single largest contribution to Russian forces occupying the southeast of Ukraine. He is now defecting to Russia.

submitted by Nightjar from youtube.com

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This man is Kuzmenko Dmitry Victorovich, who as I understand was the commander of the 194th Territorial Defense Battalion in the Kherson region, which again to my understanding was the force tasked with defending Ukraine from Russia incursion via Crimea.

An interesting thing he mentions is that he surrendered his forces and didn't fight back, as opposed to in Kiev, Kharkiv, etc. I wonder what the reasoning was.

One possibility is simply that he was pro-Russian this entire time and wanted to see Ukraine reabsorbed into the Russian Federation. Another possibility is that he simply didn't think Ukraine would be able to hold their own against Russia and as such there was no point, in which case he is probably surprised that Kiev, Kharkiv, etc. were able to defend their territories.

Regardless, his surrender of these Kherson region defense forces without a doubt explains why Russia was so easily able to take the Kherson and Zaporizhia oblasts so quickly. For the Kherson oblast, this is self explanatory. And for Zaporizhia oblast, presumably all their forces were prepared to defend against Russian forces coming from Donbass territory to their east, not from Russian forces coming from Crimea to their west, as it was the job of Kherson defense forces to defend that axis.

What's also strange is he looks morally totally defeated, not enthusiastic at all. I wonder what is going on through his mind. Perhaps he really thought all of Ukraine would fall quickly and regrets not defending Ukraine as was done elsewhere and feels guilty for not fighting back and instead being responsible for Ukraine losing 2 oblasts, when retrospectively they probably could have held the Russians back if they tried as was done elsewhere.

Additionally, he also talks about active partisan elements in Kherson.

And lastly, the Russian flags in the background and portraits of Putin should squash any doubt as to what Putin's intentions are with this territory, he intends to bring it into the Russia Federation, although at this time Russia state media is denying this.

Overall, fascinating interview.