We've all heard about the low morale of Russian soldiers, how they don't want to be in Ukraine and some have refused to fight. And we've viewed these reports as good news. But this Moscow Times article indicates many in the Russian military actually want to ramp up the war effort and feel Putin is holding them back.
Vicious Blame Game Erupts Among Putin’s Security Forces
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/ ... ces-a77508Russia’s army is deeply unhappy at the new and curtailed strategy Putin has ordered them to adopt in Ukraine, abandoning the big goal of capturing Kyiv for a much more modest objective of invading Donbas in the country’s east.
Last week we began to receive more and more calls and messages from our contacts in the military and in the FSB commenting on...
Does this mean that the military or the FSB has concluded that the war, with its enormous casualties and incompetent direction, was a mistake? The short answer is no, quite the opposite.
Russia’s military believes that limiting the war’s initial goals is a serious error. They now argue that Russia is not fighting Ukraine, but NATO. Senior officers have therefore concluded that the Western alliance is fighting all out (through the supply of increasingly sophisticated weaponry) while its own forces operate under peacetime constraints like a bar on airstrikes against some key areas of Ukraine’s infrastructure. In short, the military now demands all-out war, including mobilization.
The frustration is becoming so intense that it has spilled over into the public space. Alexander Arutyunov (aka, the blogger RAZVEDOS), a well-known veteran of Spetsnaz of the National Guard, made a video plea to Putin: "Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, please decide, are we fighting a war or are we masturbating?"