In a scathing 90-minute video analysing Russia’s execution of the war, Girkin said the “fish’s head is completely rotten” and that the Russian military needed reform and an intake of competent people who could lead a successful military campaign.
When a country starts casting around for 60-year-old veterans to send to the front, you know that something’s wrong. All hands don’t go on deck unless the ship is foundering. It’s not yet clear whether the Russian ship of state is taking on water. But its military effort in Ukraine is obviously at the SOS stage.
Putin’s failures exposed by the men forced to fight his war
paratrooper, 34-year-old Pavel Filatyev – a professional soldier from a military family – published a 141-page account of his two months in Russia’s 56th Guards Air Assault Regiment at the outset of the invasion of Ukraine.
His commander is seldom seen. The regiment’s trucks have no working brakes. The overcrowding of the field hospital is solved with an order that no more casualties will be accepted.
Filatyev describes his regiment as being in a state of anarchy. Eventually, men start shooting themselves to be allowed to leave the front.
“Fossil fuels are the currency of despots, dictators, and warmongers. Our global reliance on oil and gas is not only killing our planet but also making the world a less safe and equal place.”
Pro-Putin pollsters maintain that most Russians support the “special military operation” against Ukraine. But artificial efforts to stir public enthusiasm can’t hide the disastrous effects the war is having on ordinary Russians.
You might remember Maria Butina as the Russian spy who was convicted in the United States and later deported back to Russia, her boyfriend pardoned by Trump. In 2021, she was elected to the State Duma as a member of United Russia. The BBC host here was gobsmacked by her replies, calling her answers “preposterous.”
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