The cracks in Vladimir Putin’s war machine appear to be growing as two of his biggest allies in the senseless slaughter of Ukrainians blow up the country’s “weak” military.
Leaders of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov made his complaints public late Monday on Telegram, where he said he was “very dissatisfied” with the current state of the war.
“We said earlier that we were conducting a special military operation on Ukrainian territory, but war broke out on our territory,” he said. speak in a 13-minute audio recording that appears to refer to shelling in Russia’s Belgorod region that local authorities blamed on Ukraine over the weekend.
“We have declared martial law in the territories bordering Ukraine but they [Ukrainians] without hesitation, they fired… We, in response, were responding weakly,” he said, calling on the Russian military to “sweep out cities” whenever an artillery shell hits the territory. Russian territory.
He said that the Russian leadership should not worry about angering the West, because “all that could have happened has already happened” and “it will not get worse”.
“Europe has no power. What will they do, send their LGBT people? “
His criticism marked a full 180 from just two weeks ago, when, after weeks of urging more brutal attacks, he said he had “100% Satisfied“With Russian airstrikes, at least 19 Ukrainian civilians were killed.
Following his latest comments, pro-Kremlin bloggers cheered his candor and praised him for ditching Moscow’s fancy “special military operation” expression to call war a war. picture, with a popular channel saying “only Kadyrov is saying what all the patriots of Russia want to hear right now”.
(According to new Russian law, calling war “war” is punishable by imprisonment — Deputy Minister of the City of Moscow Alexei Gorinov had seven years in July just for doing that.)
Kadyrov’s outspoken calls for Moscow to burn Ukraine mirrored the calls made by Putin’s ally Yevgeny Prigozhin throughout the war. Prigozhin, the businessman who led a twisted recruitment campaign among prisoners for the Wagner Corporation, has begun to publicly position himself as the only person who can “win this damn war” for the President. Russia by unorthodox methods and thousands of convicts released.
In a brazen move that could show Putin’s sunken stature among Russia’s elite, Prigozhin is said to have brought complaints about the war directly to the Russian leader.
Two unnamed US officials are quoted by washington articles on Tuesday said Prigozhin had directly confronted Putin over perceived war failures, blasting the top military coin over recent setbacks.
“Prigozhin’s decision to confront Putin is just the latest sign of his displeasure,” one source was quoted as saying. post.
Putin is also said to be feeling the heat of public anger over his recent “partial mobilization”, a desperate move to bolster Moscow’s nascent military on the battlefield. but instead sparked a wave of protests and criticism from even those who had previously supported the war.
According to Yellow Folder, a Telegram channel run by former members of the Russian Federal Security Service who still have sources inside the government, the Russian leader actively floated the idea of halting the operation. until the new year.
“Putin is currently discussing how to arrange a ‘pause’ in mobilization to reassure people and relieve tension in society,” the channel reported on Tuesday.
