Vladimir Putin is reportedly facing dissent from hardline senior figures in the military and security service over “serious errors” he has made during the invasion of Ukraine.
Figures from the Russian army and FSB security service have reportedly been strongly critical of the way Putin has handled the invasion so far, amid a vicious “blame game” in Moscow.
The hardliners however, don’t think Putin has gone too far, but have been left furious he has not gone far enough in the ongoing war.
The powerful ‘soloviki’, the security bloc comprised of often conservative and ex-KGB individuals, were previously described by Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of political analysts R.Politik as people who "dominate the agenda, fuel Putin’s anxieties and provoke and escalate tension".
And now, according to a new report, they blame Putin for the “serious error” of retreating from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, instead of storming it.
As well as that, they are reportedly enraged by his decision to concentrate on a more limited war, focusing on the Donbas, instead of the entirety of Ukraine.
The internal challenges and divisions over demands for “all-out war” are significant according to Russian security expert Andrei Soldatov because they are the first time the ‘strongmen’ of Russia are putting distance between themselves and the President.
In an article with investigative journalist Irina Borogan for The Center for European Policy Analysis, he said: “Does it matter? It matters a lot. This is the very first time the soloviki are putting distance between themselves and the president. Which opens up all sorts of possibilities”.
The Soldatov and Borogan report added: "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 mobilisation” and they claimed that this “frustration” with Putin was “becoming so intense” it was spilling out.
The report also said that the FSB is united with the hardliners within the military.
This is despite the fact that the head of the Fifth service of the counterintelligence service, Sergei Beseda, is behind bars in a Lefortovo prison in Moscow, under a false name, blamed for faulty intelligence on Ukraine.
This comes as veteran Russian Spetsnaz officer turned blogger, Alexander Arutyunov, went viral on pro-military groups with a video demanding a massive escalation of Moscow's forces.
He said: "Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, please decide, are we fighting a war - or are we pleasuring ourselves?”
“Strike them all over, completely destroy all their aerodromes. Turn them into Moon craters so that not a single plane with a Bayraktar [military drone] can take off
"We must destroy all their railway lines with missiles of such big size that they spend years repairing them... If I understand it, why don’t your top guys get it? This is beyond me.”
Major General Rustam Minnekayev, the deputy commander of the Russian central military district, publicly demanded that Russia go further with its war efforts and seize the entire Ukrainian coastline in the Aral and Black seas.
“What is absent in all these discussions within the military, public or private, is any criticism of Sergei Shoigu, the Minister of Defence and the public face of the war,” added Soldatov and Borogan.
“Somehow Shoigu has succeeded in keeping the respect of the military and redirecting all the anger away from the military.
“Privately, the army, and even the secret services, have been heard to blame not only the Fifth Service of the FSB for misinforming the president, but also the president himself for making a bad call on changing the military strategy.
“In 2014, when the Russian army swiftly occupied Crimea, the military and the security services were on the same page with Putin – they fully supported his decision to annex Crimea and were enthusiastic about the way it was done.
“It is very significantly different in 2022.”
