Igor Girkin, a former colonel in Russia’s F.S.B. intelligence agency and the former “defense minister” of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, said in a video interview posted online on Monday that Russia had made a “catastrophically incorrect assessment” of Ukraine’s forces.Allahpundit adds this:
“The enemy was underestimated in every aspect,” Mr. Girkin said…
“We can definitively say that nothing is going to plan,” countered Pavel Luzin, a Russian military analyst. “It has been decades since the Soviet and Russian armies have seen such great losses in such a short period of time.”…
The failures in Ukraine have started to create fissures within Russian leadership, according to Andrei Soldatov, an author and expert on Russia’s military and security services.
The top Russian intelligence official in charge of overseeing the recruitment of spies and diversionary operations in Ukraine has been put under house arrest along with his deputy, Mr. Soldatov said.
Even Russia’s defense minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, who vacations with Mr. Putin and has been spoken of as a potential presidential successor, has suffered a loss of standing, according to Mr. Soldatov’s sources.
Another retired Russian general who leads a group of retired and current service members issued a statement in January, before the war, claiming that an invasion would be “pointless,” would alienate Ukraine forever, and conceivably would even threaten Russia’s existence. When the Times caught up to him this week, he said curtly, “I do not disavow what I said.”Yes, and one wonders what those surrounding Mr. Putin in the Kremlin are thinking about all this.
For former Russian military leaders, the fiasco in Ukraine must be personal to some degree. After all, it’s not just conscripts who are dying under Ukrainian fire. At least 15 officers with the rank of captain or higher have reportedly been killed in less than a month.
Western military experts have puzzled over that, concluding that it would be impossible absent a serious breakdown in Russian capabilities.
There must be a failure of operational security — i.e. western penetration of Russian battlefield communications — on top of a failure of organization at the front lines. Top commanders are putting themselves in harm’s way to try to restore order in the ranks and some are paying for it with their lives.
With Russia deprived of some of its most skilled commanders, the military’s morale problem will get worse.
Ukrainian intelligence intercepted a Russian communication that indicates morale aamong the troops is very low:
Fascinating, claimed intercepted call from Russian officer near Mykolaiv to superiors in Russia. He says:
— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) March 23, 2022
- This is worse than Chechnya
- 50% of troops have frostbite
- They can’t evacuate the dead
- Don’t have enough tents
- RU plane dropped a bomb on their own position 🧵 pic.twitter.com/3KjGrqD5jZ
- Troops don’t have body armor. When one complained to commander was told “son, be strong”
— Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) March 23, 2022
- This special operation is a “madhouse”
- Being told not to destroy buildings - it’s insanity. Unless we destroy everything and turn into dirt along with the civilians, nothing can happen
How long will these Russian troops put up with this before they all just decide to leave, regardless of what their officers tell them?Ukrainian commander in Mykolaiv tells us Russians are abandoning many vehicles near the city. "They have no will to fight. They don't even have food. It's -10 with snow here, they don't want to be here."
— Neil Hauer (@NeilPHauer) March 11, 2022