The Ukraine war has long been a disaster for Russia. But it gets worse, according to a confidant of President Vladimir Putin.
Moscow/Kyiv – Den Ukraine war have Wladimir Putin and his apparatus of power presented in a completely different way. Within a few days Kyiv should be taken, the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discontinued and a successor installed entirely according to Kremlin ideas. A quick campaign of conquest. This was also underlined by Russia’s clearly premature success report just a few days after the start of the invasion. Fr.de reports on this.
Instead, the Russian troops in the Ukraine war have had to retreat further and further in recent months, sometimes as far as their own national borders. On top of that, they are faced with increasingly powerful and modern weapon systems, which the advancing defenders are taking from the hands of western supporters. Possibly also Leopard 2 main battle tanks soon, some of which Germany has already passed on to allies.
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At that point the general certainty of victory in the Kremlin could be over. Even if Putin, his foreign minister Sergey Lavrov or Dmitri Medvedev, once president himself, naturally continue to broadcast them. But despite the setbacks, what else can they do?
In the units at the front, however, there were already different voices. And also a former Russian intelligence officer who was in the Ukraine conflict once played a decisive role, has doubts about Putin’s success. Igor Girkin, also known by the pseudonym Igor Ivanovich Strelkov, wrote on Wednesday on his Telegram channel, where he shares his views on the war several times a day: “I have the impression that we will ‘go under’ by the end of the year. What do you think?”
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Girkin, who played a key role in the 2014 annexation of Crimea, later led the separatists in the Donbass war and is being hounded by Ukraine with promises of a bounty on his head, has often been critical of Russia’s tactics in Ukraine. He also complained that Russia needed more offensive weapons, had to stop “gas and oil supplies to/from the so-called ‘Ukraine'” and attack “the enemy’s strategic communications”.
If the proposals he had been making for months were not followed up by action by the end of spring, “defeat in the war could become almost inevitable”. He also criticized the “three-month ‘freeze’ of mobilization activities,” which made “another operational defeat inevitable.”
Girkin versus Putin: Ex-supporters in the Ukraine conflict apparently for impeachment
Girkin is particularly critical of the work of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, one of Putin’s closest confidants, and Valeri Gerasimov, who has been commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in the Ukraine war for a few days. He also writes: “In my opinion, the Russian armed forces in their current state, with the current stock of ammunition and the available forces, are only capable of limited operations.”
But the former separatist leader is also standing up to Putin. This is how the US think tank reported Institute for the Study of War a few days ago, Girkin hinted that he would support impeachment of the Kremlin chief. But not because he ordered the attack on Ukraine. But because he seems to be failing to bring the war to a successful end from the Russian point of view. In any case, Girkin doubts it more and more. (mg)
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