Russian nationalist Girkin, who played an inglorious role in Ukraine years ago, is tough on President Putin. The military must be staffed with competent people, he demands. The middle level of the army no longer hides its displeasure with Putin and the defense minister.
According to well-known Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, there is dissatisfaction among Russian officers in Ukraine about the conduct of the war and about Russian President Vladimir Putin. The military blogger and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia annex Crimea and fight in eastern Ukraine in 2014 said in a 90-minute video there was some dissatisfaction with the top leadership.
The "head of the fish [was] completely rotten," according to Girkin. The Russian military must be reformed and staffed with competent people who could lead a successful military campaign. "It's not just me... people are by no means blind and deaf: middle-level people don't even hide their views, which are, how shall I put it, unflattering to the President or Secretary of Defense," he said Girkin in the video.
Direct public criticism of Putin is rare in Russia. But nationalist bloggers have been critical of the warfare on a number of occasions, particularly after Russia's withdrawal from Ukraine's Kharkiv region in September.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on Girkin's statements. The US military estimates that more than 100,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in both Russia and Ukraine. Russia enacted legislation shortly after the February 24 invasion of Ukraine offering prison terms of up to five years for allegedly insulting the armed forces and up to 15 years for disseminating allegedly intentionally false information.
An international search is underway for Girkin, who was once the "Minister of Defense" of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" and who now has around 735,000 subscribers to Telegram. He is charged with shooting down the Malaysia Airlines flight over Ukraine in July 2014. All 298 inmates died, including 80 children.
The Institute for the Study of War, in its daily update, also highlighted the growing discontent in the Russian-held eastern areas of Ukraine. Accordingly, the criticism of the Kremlin there, for example from Girkin and Alexander Chodakowski, the ex-security minister of the "Donetsk People's Republic", is more direct than ever before. Girkin, for example, chastised Putin for not pushing Ukrainian forces out of artillery range in the city of Donetsk. Russian military bloggers have accused Moscow of failing to counter-fire in the defense of the city of Donetsk.
