Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu came under immense pressure on Thursday after his forces retreated from Russia-occupied regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine and Mykolaiv and Kherson in the south.
After Ukrainian forces recaptured Lyman over the weekend and Russian troops lost all the occupied territories in the northeastern Kharkiv region last month, Acting Governor of Kherson Kirill Stremousov lambasted Shoigu in a four-minute video on Telegram, saying, “Many are saying that the Defense Minister — who allowed things to come to this — should simply shoot himself like a [real] officer.” “But you know the word ‘officer’ is an incomprehensible word for many,” he added.
Critics say Russia’s military was unprepared for war.
— Iuliia Mendel (@IuliiaMendel) October 6, 2022
🇷🇺 collaborator said NYT that Defense Minister Shoigu should consider killing himself because of his army’s failures in 🇺🇦, a remarkable challenge to the authority of Putin, who now faces growing dissent in his own camp
However, he praised the Russian soldiers fighting in the war, saying, “The Ministry of Defence does not only consist of ministers, generals, corrupt marauders and other various scum, but all those heroes who gave their lives today, who stand to the end.” He also claimed that the current military losses were due to “regrouping” and vowed that Ukrainian forces wouldn’t be able to retake Kherson, as “our defence lines are tightly locked.”
On Wednesday, the head of the lower house of parliament’s defence committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the army should “stop lying.” “The people know. Our people are not stupid. And they see that we do not want to tell them even part of the truth. That can lead to a loss of credibility,” he told Vladimir Solovyov, an ultra-nationalist sanctioned by the European Union (EU).
Like Stremousov, Solovyov reiterated that some army commanders “don’t even have an officer’s sense of honour because they are not shooting themselves.” “The guilty should be punished, we don’t have capital punishment unfortunately, but for some of them it would be the only solution,” he asserted.
The overt and increasingly strident criticism of Russian military leadership is intensifying from people who actually matter—Kadyrov, Prigozhin, among others. It will continue to get worse as Ukrainians retake key territory
— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) October 1, 2022
Putin might be forced to replace Shoigu and Gerasimov
Similarly, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that “more drastic measures should be taken, up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.” He has also blamed the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov for failing to thwart the Ukrainian “Satanists and fascists.”
Along the same lines, paramilitary company Wagner Group’s chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said that politicians, journalists, and other “near-liberal fools” should “go to the front line.”
Likewise, former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Igor Girkin said the defence leadership “will finally answer for much of what it did (or rather did not do) before and during the war.” “And that means someone will be demolished. And someone big,” he added, referring to Shoigu.
Shoigu was one of the most popular ministers and was touted as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s successor until the failures in the Ukraine invasion. Though he had no military experience, he was appointed as defence minister in 2012.
The fierce criticism of Shoigu comes against the backdrop of several Russian commanders being fired in lieu of compounding battlefield losses, including Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov and Western Military Command Alexander Zhuravlev.
Girkin sees willingness to criticise the Russian military on state media like Solovyov’s show as a key turning point. However, he isn’t optimistic if a much better replacement for Shoigu coming up from the Defence Ministry https://t.co/wG5AjW6XBv
— Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) October 5, 2022
Meanwhile, in a viral video, nearly 500 mobilised Russian troops in the Belgorod region of southern Russia complained of “cattle-like” living conditions, with weapons from the 1970s and 1980s, claiming that they are using their own personal money for food and equipment. Some were asked to sleep outside and ended up falling ill.
In response, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee Yuri Shvytkin expressed his “outrage” at the “blatant irresponsibility and, in fact, bestial attitude towards the defenders of the Motherland.” He also stated that he had “immediately sent a deputy’s request to the Investigative Committee of Russia and the military prosecutor’s office with a request to check the living conditions, food and military training of the mobilised.”