In an 11-minute voice message posted on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday, he admitted the campaign was not going to plan. “If today or tomorrow there are no changes in the conduct of the special military operation, I will be forced to go to the country’s leadership to explain to them the situation on the ground,” said Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of Chechnya. . “I’m not a general like those in the Ministry of Defense. But it is clear that mistakes were made. I think they will draw some conclusions,” Novaya Gazeta Europe reported, adding that all settlements would return to Russian control. “We have our men out there, fighters specially prepared for such situations. 10,000 more fighters are ready to join them. We will reach Odessa in the near future.” The criticism came after Russia’s military leadership appeared caught off guard by Ukraine’s counter-offensive against its invasion of the northeast. Russian nationalists angrily called on Putin on Sunday to make immediate changes to secure a final victory in the Ukraine war, a day after Moscow was forced to abandon its main stronghold in northeastern Ukraine. The swift fall of Izyum was Russia’s worst military defeat since its troops were forced back from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in March. As Russian forces left city after city on Saturday, Putin opened Europe’s largest Ferris wheel in a Moscow park, while fireworks lit up the sky over Red Square to celebrate the city’s founding in 1147. Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the audience during a gala concert in Moscow, Russia [Sputnik/Press service of the Moscow mayor’s office via Reuters] Moscow’s near-complete silence on the defeat – or any explanation of what happened in northeastern Ukraine – has caused considerable anger among some pro-war commentators and Russian nationalists on social media. As the defeats unfolded, the Russian Defense Ministry released video on Friday of what it said were troops being sent to the Kharkiv region. On Sunday, the defense ministry said Russian forces hit Ukrainian positions in the area with airborne troops, missiles and artillery. Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo said several pro-Russian Telegram channels say it’s a defeat, “and a senior military analyst said their troops are in an operational crisis and the Ukrainians have taken the initiative in this war “.
Moscow is silent
Neither Putin, who is the supreme commander of Russia’s armed forces, nor Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had publicly commented on the defeat as of midday Sunday. “We are proud of Moscow and we love this city with its magnificent antiquity and its modern and dynamic pace of life, the charm of its inviting parks, lanes and streets, and the abundance of business and cultural events,” Putin told the Muscovites. Transcript of Kremlin’s congratulatory message. Putin, who described his shock at being told he was a KGB spy in East Germany that “Moscow is silent” as the Berlin Wall came down, said those killed in the operation in Ukraine gave their lives for Russia. The Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. “They’re taking the piss,” wrote a prominent pro-war military blogger on Telegram who posts under the name Rybar. “Now is not the time to be silent and say nothing … that seriously damages the cause.” On Saturday, the ministry announced a “reshuffle” that would pull troops out of Kharkiv to focus on the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine – a statement that drew further ire from many Russian military bloggers. Some of the pro-Kremlin war correspondents and former and current military personnel who have amassed large Telegram followings accused the ministry of downplaying the defeat.
Defeat?
Igor Girkin, a nationalist and former FSB officer who helped launch a 2014 war in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, compared the collapse of one of the conflict’s main front lines to the Battle of Mukden in 1905 – a devastating defeat in Russo-Japanese War that caused the Russian Revolution in 1905. Ukraine hailed its rapid advance, which saw thousands of Russian soldiers flee, leaving behind stockpiles of ammunition and equipment, as a turning point in the six-month war. Girkin, who has been unrelenting in his criticism of the country’s top team, calling Defense Minister Shoigu “the cardboard field marshal”, has repeatedly said Russia will be defeated in Ukraine if it does not call for national mobilization. Nationalist anger over military failure is potentially a much bigger problem for the Kremlin than pro-Western liberal criticism of Putin: polls continue to show broad support for what Moscow calls a “special military operation.” As the capital celebrated Moscow Day with street parties and concerts on Saturday, rumblings of concern spread even to Russia’s normally servile parliament. Sergei Mironov, leader of the nominally opposition but Putin-loyal Just Russia party, said on Twitter that a fireworks display in honor of the holiday would have to be canceled because of the military situation. A message reposted on Telegram by prominent war correspondent Semyon Pegov referred to the celebrations in Moscow as “blasphemous” and the Russian authorities’ refusal to launch a full-scale war as “schizophrenic”. “Russia will become itself through the birth of a new political elite … or it will cease to exist,” it said.
