MOSCOW — A Russian normal stated he had been dismissed as a commander after telling the navy management concerning the dire scenario on the entrance in Ukraine, the place he stated Russian troopers had been stabbed within the again by the failings of the highest navy brass.
After the June 24 mutiny by Wagner mercenaries, the most important home problem to the Russian state in many years, President Vladimir Putin has up to now stored Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov of their jobs.
Major General Ivan Popov, who commanded the 58th Combined Arms Army, stated in a voice message revealed by Russian lawmaker Andrei Gurulyov that he had been dismissed after telling the reality to the highest brass concerning the scenario on the entrance.
“The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks at the front but our senior chief hit us from the rear, viciously beheading the army at the most difficult and intense moment,” Popov stated.
Popov, whose navy name signal was “Spartacus” and who commanded Russian models in southern Ukraine, explicitly raised the deaths of Russian troopers from Ukrainian artillery and stated the military lacked correct counter artillery techniques and reconnaissance of enemy artillery.
There was no fast remark from the protection ministry and Reuters was unable to independently confirm the authenticity of the voice message. Lawmaker Gurulyov is a hardline former military commander who usually seems on state tv.
It was unclear when the message was recorded and Popov’s present whereabouts weren’t identified. The protection ministry has not stated something about his dismissal.
Such public criticism of Russia’s navy management from a battle-hardened normal lower than three weeks for the reason that Wagner mutiny, if genuine, would point out continued discontent throughout the Russian military because it fights the most important land warfare in Europe since World War Two.
Russian military
Putin, Russia’s paramount chief since 1999, has stated the mutiny risked tipping Russia into civil warfare and has in contrast it to the revolutionary turmoil of 1917.
The Kremlin has sought to challenge calm, however Russian officers and diplomats have informed Reuters that the total penalties of the mutiny—which Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin stated was aimed solely at settling scores with Shoigu and Gerasimov—have but to play out.
Neither Prigozhin nor General Sergei Surovikin, a deputy commander of Russia’s navy operations in Ukraine, have been seen in public for the reason that day of the mutiny.
Prigozhin had for months been brazenly insulting Putin’s most senior navy males, utilizing a wide range of crude expletives and jail slang that shocked Russian officers however that had been left unanswered in public by Putin, Shoigu or Gerasimov.
Popov, 48, stated he had confronted a watershed second when he informed the navy chiefs the reality.
“There was a tough situation with the senior bosses in which it was necessary either to keep quiet and be a coward or to say it the way it is,” Popov stated. He didn’t say when he raised the complaints.
“I had no right to lie in the name of you, in the name of my fallen comrades in arms, so I outlined all the problems which exist.”
Military insurgent?
In 2017, the official newspaper of Russia’s armed forces revealed a profile of Popov. It stated he had beforehand served in Russia’s warfare in opposition to separatists in Chechnya and within the 2008 warfare in Georgia.
A Telegram channel linked to Wagner mercenaries stated that Popov had raised the necessity to rotate exhausted troops from the entrance line with Gerasimov. Reuters couldn’t confirm that report.
Russia’s major state tv channels didn’t report the remarks by Popov on their major news packages on Thursday, although Kommersant, a revered Russian newspaper, did report them.
War bloggers in Russia had been break up between those that stated Popov’s remarks had been open defiance and those that stated Popov was not a mutineer however merely a well-respected normal who had fallen out with the highest brass.
“This is a dangerous precedent,” stated Igor Girkin, a former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer who helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 after which arrange pro-Russian militias in japanese Ukraine.
Popov stated his future was now unsure.
“The senior chiefs apparently sensed some kind of danger from me and quickly concocted an order from the defense minister in just one day and got rid of me,” he stated. “I await my fate.” — Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
