Russia's Military Incompetent Disarray
"The top officers apparently saw me as a source of threat and rapidly issued an order to get rid of me, which was signed by the defence minister in just one day.""The Ukrainian military has failed to break through our army's defences, but the top commander hit us in the rear, treacherously and cowardly beheading the army at this most difficult moment.""I faced a difficult situation with the top leadership when I had to either keep silent and act like a coward, saying what they wanted to hear, or call things by their names.""I didn't have the right to lie for the sake of you [his troops] and our fallen comrades."Major General Ivan Popov, commander, 58th army, Zaporizhzhia region
General Ivan Popov has been commanding forces in the Zaporizhzhia region Andrei Gurulyov |
Now,
that has a familiar ring to it, doesn't it? General Popov accusing the
higher command of treason, claiming they withheld direly needed weaponry
from his forces, placing them in danger, ignoring his appeals. Haven't
we heard all that before, repeatedly, from yet another source? Wasn't
that exactly what mercenary Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was going on
about? And didn't Prigozhin psych his mercenaries up to a march on
Moscow, insisting that Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu and the
head of Russia's armed forces, Gen Valery Gerasimov be fired?
Oh,
and taken before a military court to stand trial for treason. Prigozhin
swore that his troops were abandoned, never provided with the necessary
equipment they needed to deliver a more forcefully lethal argument to
the Ukrainian counteroffensive; more, that while his troops were facing
the Ukrainian military, the Russian military behind his troops were
actually firing on Wagner. General Popov, while singing from the same
outraged hymnal, stopped right there, deigning not to lead an
insurrection of his own, faithful to the core.
Now,
relieved of his duties in defence of his troops' survival. The
"treacherous" stab in the back he detailed to his troops fighting the
Ukrainian counteroffensive earned him the recognition of dismissal for
angering the military leadership. And all for the inconsequential
details of a shortage of radars to track enemy artillery, resulting in
massive Russian casualties. General Popov addressed an audio message to
his troops under the call name "Spartacus", addressing his men as "my gladiators", a dramaturgy certain to appeal to those loyal to a leader who cared for their safety.
At
48, General Popov rose from platoon commander to become leader of a
large group of forces, encouraging his soldiers' appreciation and
loyalty with an easygoing, approachable attitude -- in sharp contrast to
the stiff formality of command usually in practise in the Russian
military. According to Russian military bloggers, he is recognized for
the avoidance of unnecessary losses whereas other commanders were more
inclined to risk their men's lives in the greater interests of achieving
campaign successes.
His
dismissal, the bloggers predict, will have a morale-damping effect on
the footsoldiers of the Russian military with one describing the
situation as a "monstrous terror attack against the army's morale", augmenting another's declaration that the situation dealt a "terrible blow to the entire army".
The first deputy speaker of the upper house of parliament, head of the
main Kremlin party United Russia, backed the general, claiming "the Motherland can be proud of such commanders".
Another
senior officer -- Lt.-Gen. Oleg Tsokov -- was dispatched by a Ukrainian
missile strike just days earlier. Senior command in the Russian
military have altogether from the first weeks of the invasion, fared
extremely poorly; losses at that level and in those numbers are hugely
unusual. General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov evidently shrugged
off the charges when Popov remarked on the need to rotate his exhausted
troops fighting the Ukrainian counteroffensive since early June. The
original cause of Popov's dismissal.
General
Gerasimov was seen in a video released by the Defence Ministry meeting
with military officers, marking the first time he has been seen since
Prigozhin demanded his ouster last month during the uprising. Gerasimov
has been broadly criticized for his role during the fighting in
Ukraine. And it was he who considered Popov's complaints panicky in
nature. While he is not first in line for popularity awards among the
military or the political class, nothing much has been revealed about
the man behind the desk where the buck stops.
Ukrainian artillerymen load missiles onto a self-propelled multiple rocket launcher near Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, amid the war with Russia. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images |
Labels: Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Russian Military Incompetence, Ukrainian Counteroffensive
<< Home