Three weeks after the Kremlin’s private mercenary army ditched Ukraine to go to war against the country’s own regular military, cracks in Vladimir Putin’s war machine are turning into massive fractures.
A top general has been dismissed after picking up where mutiny mastermind Yevgeny Prigozhin left off, even as the Kremlin is reportedly trying to purge disloyal military officers who could threaten further rebellion.
Major General Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, said he was dismissed from duty after “harshly” telling military leaders on the “very highest level” about failings on the battlefield that were leading to “mass deaths” of Russian troops.
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Echoing Prigozhin in the run-up to his armed uprising, he accused military brass of betraying their own troops by distorting the reality on the frontline: “The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks at the front but our senior chief hit us from the rear, viciously beheading the army at the most difficult and intense moment,” he said.
Among other things, he complained of a lack of proper counter artillery systems and reconnaissance of Ukrainian artillery.
“It was necessary to either remain silent and be a coward, saying what they wanted to hear, or call a spade a spade,” he said, adding that he “could not lie.”
As a result, he said, “The senior chiefs apparently sensed some kind of danger from me and quickly concocted an order from the defense minister in just one day and got rid of me.”
His comments, made in an audio message to subordinates that was subsequently shared by a federal lawmaker late Wednesday, resonated with many pro-war Russian military bloggers and propagandists, with even Kremlin mouthpiece Vladimir Solovyov suggesting he’d spoken the “truth.”
Lawmakers, too, jumped in to defend the sidelined general, with United Russia Secretary General Andrei Turchak writing on Telegram that the “motherland” can “be proud” of Popov. (Turchak did, however, take issue with fellow lawmaker Andrei Gurulyov publicizing Popov’s complaints, accusing him of putting on a “political show” by airing the military’s dirty laundry.)
With Prigozhin’s shadowy past, the Kremlin propaganda machine has apparently had a relatively easy time portraying him as a rogue madman with his own agenda following his short-lived mutiny. But Popov, who is well-respected within the military establishment, may prove a more formidable critic.
“The problems Popov spoke of are actually very important. And Prigozhin spoke of the very same problems. How else is there to get these problems across to the leadership?” pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov wrote of the scandal.
Neither the Defense Ministry, nor the Kremlin, have commented on the matter.
But a new report suggests the net is widening behind the scenes. Russia’s security services scooped up dozens of high-ranking military officers in the wake of Wagner Group founder Prigozhin’s violent uprising last month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Sources cited by the Journal on Thursday confirmed numerous reports that General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, was among those detained for questioning, reportedly after word got out that he knew about the mutiny in advance.
But the scope of the fallout is apparently much greater than previously reported. At least 13 high-ranking officers were hauled in for questioning, some of whom have since been released, and 15 were suspended or fired altogether, according to the report.
“The detentions are about cleaning the ranks of those who are believed can’t be trusted anymore,” one source was quoted saying.
Read it at Wall Street Journal
