Russian pundit admits whole world against his country in rare TV moment

A Russian pundit has slammed his country's chances of success in its war against Ukraine in a frank TV interview.

Speaking on Russia's state TV, Mikhail Khodaryonok, a defence columnist and former colonel said Russia was in "full geopolitical isolation" and underestimates the capabilities of Ukraine's conscripted army.

Speaking about the Ukraine army, he said it was wrong to say they were losing morale.

"We shouldn't take information tranquilisers," he said.

Actually, Ukraine has been able to mobilise "a million people", he said and with European aid coming: "We need to take that into account in our operational and strategic calculations that the situation in this regard for us will frankly get worse."

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Besides, he said, the success of an army comes down to their training, morale and "readiness to shed blood for the homeland" and not the size of it or whether it was conscripted as he said some Russian political scientists have said.

"They intend to fight until the last man," he added.

And so he advised: "Don't engage in sabre-rattling with missles in Finland's direction. It actually looks quite amusing. After all, the main deficiency of our military-political position is that, in a way, we are in full geopolitical isolation and that, however much we would hate to admit this, virtually the entire world is against us."

Gosh. His intervention comes as the war enters its 83rd day. Ukrainian officials claimed that Ukrainian troops in the country’s north-east had pushed back Russian forces from the city of Kharkiv and advanced as far as the border with Russia and Sweden and Finland have confirmed plans to join Nato.

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