Russian State Duma Deputy Defense Committee Chairman Vladimir Shamanov has admitted in an interview that the most glaring mistake of the Russian war in Ukraine was that the Kremlin expected Ukrainians to greet the Russian military with open arms.
Going in to Ukraine in February, expecting to “be greeted with flowers,” was a big mistake, Shamanov said in an interview with journalist Oksana Kravtsova.
“Those who expected that we [in Ukraine] would be met with flowers, this is one of the main mistakes that we felt very keenly in the first five days,” he said, according to RBC.
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The Kremlin and Russian officials have framed the invasion into Ukraine as a “special military operation” designed as a peacekeeping mission to save Ukrainians from alleged Nazis and genocide, people who the Kremlin insisted desperately wanted the Russian government’s help—claims that are not based in reality.
“The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kyiv regime,” Putin said on the eve of the invasion on Feb. 24. “To this end, we will seek to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine.”
For years, Putin has repeated baseless claims that Ukrainians have been persecuting Russians and Russian-speaking citizens. The United States has repeatedly said that Russia was likely using claims of genocide to justify an invasion into Ukraine.
Shamanov referred to the conflict as a “special military operation,” falling in line with Russian leadership’s terminology. But he did not elaborate on why he thinks the Ukrainians did not actually want the Russian military to enter Ukraine.
“Today we have already overcome this component,” he said in the interview. “But there is still a lot to be done.”
Shamanov’s acknowledgement that the Russian government’s calculus has been off in Ukraine is just the latest indication that Russian military insiders are turning on Putin and the military establishment that has been roaring full speed ahead to wage war in Ukraine for more than three months now.
The conflict has also been a huge strain on the Russian government’s budget, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov acknowledged Friday.
“Money for a special operation—huge resources are also needed,” Siluanov said during a lecture at a Moscow financial university, according to Interfax.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, too, has admitted in recent days that the Russian military has been running into roadblocks and “finding it difficult” to fight in Ukraine.
Some Russian officials have been concerned from the outset that Putin’s game plan would be more difficult than the KGB veteran believed it would be, CNN reported. And as the war has dragged on, a growing contingent of Kremlin insiders have been questioning the war and Putin’s decision-making privately, according to a Bloomberg News report.
Putin’s puppets are so hopeful Putin will soon be out of power that they’re already plotting who could potentially replace him, according to a report from Meduza.
“There is an understanding, or a desire, that in the fairly foreseeable future he will not run the country,” according to sources close to the Russian presidential administration, the report states.
