Larry Johnson And Hyperbole. Mikhail Khodaryonok.

Larry Johnson uses  a very colorful hyperbole when describing the stream of BS in Western media re: SMO. 

The surrender of the remaining Ukrainian forces hiding in the bowels of the Avostal steel plant in Mariupol is just another brick in the wall of the sepulcher Russia is constructing for the Ukraine military and the Ukrainian Nazis (don’t forget Putin’s objectives–de-militarize and de-nazify). And what is Ukraine’s response? Pretend this is not happening. Nope, they are pushing the nonsense that this is an orderly withdrawal and a great victory. Looks like Ukraine has taken Baghdad Bob’s course on how to polish a turd (note–you cannot polish feces). In addition, Ukraine embarked on repackaged propaganda memes to try to distract the world’s attention from the havoc Russia is raining down on the Ukrainian army and its weapons depots.

Larry proceeds to "review" some of the US media propaganda, especially against the background of the events in Azov Steel and in the cauldron around Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. A very good read. 

Meanwhile, Russia, no doubt, has her own defeatists with "credentials" and one such "asset" is a former Russian General Staff colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok who is a concentrated expression of everything there is negative about Russian Armed Forces, especially considering the fact that this colonel retired in 2000 and, effectively, missed on a massive military reform of Russian Armed Forces. Well, he produced this excrement which immediately was picked up by NYT. 

A military analyst on one of Russian state television’s most popular networks left his fellow panelists in stunned silence Monday when he said that the conflict in Ukraine was deteriorating for Russia, giving the kind of honest assessment that is virtually banished from the official airwaves. “The situation for us will clearly get worse,” Mikhail M. Khodaryonok, a retired colonel and a conservative columnist on military affairs, said during the “60 Minutes” talk-show program on the Rossiya network. It was a rare moment of frank analysis in a country where criticizing the war effort can result in a prison sentence and broadcasters have generally adhered to the Kremlin’s talking points.... We are in total geopolitical isolation, and the whole world is against us, even if we don’t want to admit it,” said Khodaryonok, noting that Russia’s “resources, military-political and military-technical, are limited.”

First, about his qualifications as a competent observer of the international arena--he has none.  Nor is he that good of a General Staff officer since I personally know people who retired in the same rank as officer-operators but much later (a decade later) and know things Khodaryonok, who is stuck in 1990s psychologically and militarily, could not have possibly learn in 1998 or 2000. They are also much better professionals. But the audacity of this loser to offer his judgement on "isolation" and foreign affairs is remarkable. Not to mention the fact that he, being excluded from modern General Staff of Russia due to retiree status, can not possibly have any inkling about how modern command and control work and what intel is processed there. 

This is not the first time this defeatist demonstrated his true colors--his interview to Solovyov during the events in Kazakhstan was one of the coward, to the point of public literally rebelling in comments. Sadly, the video was removed but I wrote about it. But Khodaryonok is not just a relic of the period of a huge struggle of Russian Armed Forces in 1990s, he is a very good falsifier of military history, so much so that his deliberately misleading article (based only on 5 documents of Steppe Front in 1943) about Russian losses in Campaign of 1943 (in Russian) was demolished by none other that researchers, officers of the General Staff who accused Khodaryonok of falsifying the history. So, no wonder then that he writes most of his drivel for liberal Gazeta.Ru as well as he was promoted, together with another specimen from Carnegie Endowment Colonel Trenin, by RT. They sure know how to choose their "experts". Khodaryonok also hangs around Evgeny Satanovsky's Radio Show, Satanovsky, of course, being a verbose neocon with zero military expertise. 

So, there you go. So hysterical loser is a source for NYT but even this BS rag notes about this Russian military "expert". 

Even earlier, about a year after Russia dispatched its military to Syria in 2015 to prop up President Bashar Assad, he wrote a column for an internet news service, Gazeta.Ru, suggesting that the Syrian army was an unworthy ally, pointing out its lack of military success and corruption.

As you can see yourself, this office plankton colonel is not that great as a military prognosticator. Especially against the background of a massive geopolitical success in Syria. I have a suspicion, he most likely slept through all his lectures in VaGSH and I already sent this "expert" a message in VK (I doubt he will answer). I would love to talk to him about military events of the last 5-7 years, not to mention about international relations of which he, as I already stated, has zero clue. But then again, he fits perfectly the profile of "experts" Western media love to employ or listen to. Just look up Afghanistan or the events of the last few days. Or as Larry correctly noted, you cannot polish a turd--difficult to disagree when speaking about Khodaryonok.