As Russian troops continued their retreat in southeastern Ukraine, the Kremlin-appointed “governor” of the Russian-occupied Kherson region made a suggestion to Russia’s defense minister Sergei Shoigu.
“A lot of people are saying that a defense minister who let things get to this state could shoot himself, like an officer,” Kirill Stremousov said on Thursday.
Later that day on Russian state television, prominent Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Soloviev had many questions for his country’s military leadership. “Please explain to me what the general staff’s genius idea is now. Do you think time is on our side? They’ve hugely increased their amount of weapons . . . But what have you done in that time?”
After a seven-month poorly run military campaign, Russia’s state media, pro-remain lawmakers and other supporters of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine have ramped up their public criticism of the army and its leading figures. The open swipes spilling even from Russian officials such as Stremousov, rare even before the war, is even more remarkable now when a law on “discrediting the armed forces” carries a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
That such criticism has gone unpunished indicates the Kremlin is tacitly approving it and is looking for a way out of an increasingly dire situation on the frontline, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of political consultancy R. Politik.
“We’re at the point where the elite is dealing with the question of how to win the war,” Stanovaya said. “Nobody’s casting any doubt on the war itself, but on how to win, what methods to use, which tactics, and which people are going to lead the campaign. The Kremlin has let the elite know the taboo on criticizing the defense ministry and the troops has gone,” she added.
As the war drags on and Ukraine continues to push Russia’s troops back, the rosy picture painted by the defense ministry’s briefings has become difficult to sustain.
At the start of the conflict, the ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that Russia destroyed more Turkish-made TB2 drones than Ukraine had ever deployed and trumpeted the supposed capture of more than two dozen villages multiple times.
The optimism rubbed off on Putin, who insisted the “special operation” was going according to plan.