Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to address a festering discontent about the war in Ukraine, according to a prominent former commander in the conflict.
“There’s no point in listening,” former Russian intelligence officer Igor Girkin wrote Tuesday in a glum review of Putin’s address to the Russian Federal Assembly. “Today, another chance to prevent mutiny has been missed. And it’s not obvious it wasn’t the last chance.”
Girkin, a key leader in the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014, has emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most voluble critics over the last year. His irritation with the speech calls attention to a wider dispute between Putin’s formal power structure and the irregular forces and figures who have gained prominence during the war while sounding a note of pessimism about Russia’s prospects that runs contrary to Kremlin propaganda.
“Not a word about defeats, failures, difficulties,” Girkin wrote, per the War Translated Project. “Not a word about mistakes and responsibility for them of any of the authorities. Everything [in Putin’s telling] works perfectly and correctly.”
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Putin marked the impending anniversary of his campaign to overthrow the Ukrainian government by addressing Russia’s legislature. The Russian president reiterated his argument that the war amounts to a defensive struggle “to protect the people in our historical lands” against the West. He said that “the people of Ukraine have become hostages of the Kiev regime and its Western handlers” and promised economic development for “new regions” from Ukraine into Russia, although Russian forces do not control most of that territory.
“It includes restoring ... the ports on the Sea of Azov, which again became Russia’s landlocked sea, and building new, modern roads like we did in Crimea, which now has a reliable land transport corridor with all of Russia,” Putin said. “We are together again, which means that we have become even stronger, and we will do everything in our power to bring back the long-awaited peace to our land and ensure the safety of our people.”
That account of events is too optimistic for Girkin’s taste, as he has expressed doubt that Russian forces will be able to take control of the regions that Putin has claimed.
"In case the RF Armed Forces decide [to] go on the offensive, they have a maximum of a few days left to start it and 10-20 days (depending on the weather) to complete it before the start of the spring thaw,” Girkin wrote earlier this week. “As for [my judgement], it’s already too late to do anything serious. Yes, and it’s not necessary, since . . . with the current degree of training and combat readiness — it is extremely risky for our troops to attack on a large scale.”
The looming Russian offensive has presented Ukrainian officials with the daunting threat of a struggle against a potentially overwhelming force of Russian conscripts fitted from vast stockpiles of modern or refurbished Soviet-era weapons. That prospect spurred President Joe Biden and other Western leaders to orchestrate a new influx of NATO-standard artillery and other weapons, including several British and German-made main battle tanks.
"President Putin is confronted with something today that he didn't think was possible a year ago. The democracies of the world have grown stronger, not weaker, but the autocrats of the world have gotten weaker, not stronger," Biden said Tuesday in Warsaw, Poland. "There should be no doubt: Our support for Ukraine will not waver, NATO will not be divided, and we will not tire.”
Putin offered a rival rhetorical celebration of Russia’s unity in the war effort, but he made no mention of the Wagner Group mercenary force — “it is impossible to mention everyone, and I was afraid to offend anyone I might leave out,” he said — whose leader accused Russian Defense Ministry officials of treason on Tuesday.
“The General Staff head and the Minister of Defense are giving away orders to the left and right, which say that Wagner PMC should not only not be given ammo but also no help with air transport,” Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said in an audio complaint released Tuesday. “There’s a direct counter-work which is ... none other than an attempt to destroy PMC Wagner. It can be equalled to treason, in a moment when PMC Wagner is fighting for Bakhmut with hundreds of its fighters.”
Prigozhin’s fulminations dovetail with Girkin’s assessment of his “personal crisis” of diminished political influence and declining military effectiveness.
"In this regard, the capture of Bakhmut, which was predicted (including by me) before the end of February, again seems problematic. Without replenishments and a sufficient amount of ammunition (or without a large-scale involvement of units and formations of the RF Armed Forces), it may not be possible to ‘put the squeeze on’ the city," Girkin wrote earlier this week.
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Girkin panned Putin’s speech Tuesday on the basis that it failed to address such problems.
“Almost nothing was said for almost 40 minutes,” he said.