luc, CNBC Indonesia
Thursday, 13/07/2023 22:00 WIB
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – A Russian general says he has been dismissed as commander after informing military leadership about the dire situation at the front in Ukraine, where he says Russian soldiers have been stabbed in the back by the failure of military top brass.
After the June 24 uprising by Wagner mercenaries, the biggest domestic challenge to the Russian state in decades, President Vladimir Putin has so far kept Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov in their jobs.
Major General Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Army, said in a ballot message published by Russian MP Andrei Gurulyov that he had been dismissed after telling top brass the truth about the situation at the front.
“Ukrainian soldiers were unable to break through our lines at the front but our senior chiefs attacked us from behind, savagely beheading soldiers at the most difficult and intense moment,” Popov said. ReutersThursday (13/7/2023).
Popov, whose military callsign was “Spartacus” and who commanded Russian units in southern Ukraine, explicitly raised the death of Russian soldiers from Ukrainian artillery and said the army lacked proper counter-artillery systems and enemy artillery reconnaissance.
There was no immediate comment from the Ministry of Defense and Reuters was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the voice messages. MP Gurulyov is a hardline former army commander who frequently appears on state television.
It is unclear when the message was recorded and Popov’s current whereabouts are unknown. The Ministry of Defense has not said anything about his dismissal.
Such public criticism of Russia’s military leadership from a battle-hardened general less than three weeks since the Wagner uprising, if true, would demonstrate the continued discontent within the Russian army as it fights Europe’s largest ground war since the Second World War.
Civil war
President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s most important leader since 1999, said the uprising risked plunging Russia into civil war and compared it to the revolutionary upheavals of 1917.
The Kremlin has been trying to project calm, but Russian officials and diplomats have told Reuters that the full ramifications of the uprising, which Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said was only aimed at resolving issues with Shoigu and Gerasimov, still had to be done.
Neither Prigozhin nor General Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, have been seen in public since the day of the uprising.
Prigozhin for months publicly insulted Putin’s most senior military men, using a variety of expletives and prison slang that shocked Russian officials but was not answered publicly by Putin, Shoigu, or Gerasimov.
Popov said he faced a defining moment when he told army chiefs the truth.
“There are difficult situations with senior bosses where it is necessary to be silent and be a coward or tell it as it is,” said Popov. He did not say when he filed the complaint.
“I have no right to lie on your behalf, on behalf of my fallen comrades in arms, so I outline all the issues at hand.”
Who is Popov?
In 2017, the official newspaper of the Russian armed forces published a profile of Popov. It is said he previously served in Russia’s war against separatists in Chechnya and in the 2008 war in Georgia.
Telegram channels connected to the Wagner mercenaries said that Popov had increased the need to rotate exhausted troops from the front with Gerasimov.
Russia’s main state television channel did not report Popov’s remarks on their main news program on Thursday, though Kommersanta respected Russian newspaper, reported on it.
Bloggers of the war in Russia are divided between those who say Popov’s remarks are open defiance and those who say Popov was not a rebel but simply a respected general at odds with the top.
“This is a dangerous precedent,” said Igor Girkin, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 and later organized pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.
Popov said his future was now uncertain.
“Senior leaders apparently sensed some kind of danger from me and quickly concocted an order from the minister of defense in just one day and removed me,” he said. “I’m waiting for my fate.”
Watch the video below:
Russian Missile Hits Apartment Building In Lviv, 4 People Killed
(luc/luc)
2023-07-13 15:00:00
#Russian #General #Outspoken #Reveals #Putins #Military #Failures
