Protests against the conditions under which the war in Ukraine is taking place have intensified in Russia following the accession of General Ivan Popov. The 48-year-old officer was abruptly dismissed from command of the 58th Army (which is fighting in Ukraine) over his criticism of the lack of equipment and loss of life at the front lines.
According to the story of the Boenkor (Russian military correspondents operating via Telegram and social networks), the Chief of the General Staff Valeri Gerasimov was irritated after Popov called for a rotation of soldiers at the front and listed the problems Russian fighters.
Popov threatened to go to the supreme commander, President Vladimir Putin, after which Gerasimov got Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to sign a decree calling for the dismissal of one of the most brilliant army officers in his command in less than a day.
In a voice recording released on Tuesday, the general addressed his comrades-in-arms and explained that after his criticism, the high command believed they saw him as “a danger”. The officer claimed he had spoken harshly to his superiors about what he believed to be the “greatest tragedy of the current war”; namely, the lack of a reaction team to the enemy’s artillery, the lack of reconnaissance stations to detect them, and the mass death of Russian fighters who were victims of Ukrainian attacks.
Major General Ivan Popov.
In his speech, Popov showed great empathy towards his comrades, from the rank and file to the generals fighting at the front, calling them “my dear gladiators” and saying goodbye to them by referring to himself as “Spartacus” (that’s what he was called he). a slave who led a gladiator rebellion against Rome). The recording was released on Tuesday by State Duma (lower house of parliament) Deputy Andrei Guruliov, the soldier who preceded Popov at the head of the 58th Army.
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General Popov is not a pacifist and does not speak out against the war, but rather argues that this war meets professional criteria, has adequate equipment to fight and that soldiers’ lives are valued and protected. The general is the most senior Russian military officer whose grievances have become public.
The war in Ukraine has triggered isolated protests of various kinds in Russia. Some demonstrate against the competition for pacifist reasons, others do not question it as such, but view its development critically.
Among those who position themselves against the war are the activists who have been sentenced to long prison terms for so-called false reports against the army and also for attempts to discredit it. Both things – false reports and defamation lawsuits – are loosely construed by the courts and constitute criminal offenses established in March 2022, shortly after the invasion of Ukraine.
Among those who want a war by better means are the soldiers who, often with the support of their families, protest at the front lines or on their way to the front lines because they are being thrown into combat in inhumane conditions because of a lack of them Training and equipment are lacking because of the meager supplies and the ease with which their lives are managed. The protests are scattered, lack coordination or state character, and are scattered across much of Russia.
Outbreaks of discontent recorded so far include that of the soldiers from Samara, who approached Putin and Minister Shoigu to denounce the commanders’ negligence and to demand the return to their homes of the soldiers of the 1444 regiment, who had been decimated in the city Makeevka (in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic or DPR) by a Ukrainian attack on New Year’s Eve. They said the survivors of this massacre were transported from place to place with no clear destination and had to fend for themselves without anyone keeping a record of their days of fighting (for which bonuses were paid).
Mobilized members of a motorized unit from Tatarstan also protested their subordination to the DPR military leadership, which sent them into the attack virtually unarmed. The Prosecutor’s Office of Tatarstan, to which the relatives of these soldiers applied, refused on the grounds that the DPR is not Russia.
The mobilized members of the Siberian Republic of Tuva also complained against the DPR military in a video in which they accused their hosts in Donbass of mocking them and threatening them that they would never leave there. For their part, soldiers of the Chuvash Republic rebelled because they did not receive the monthly salary of 195,000 rubles promised by Vladimir Putin.
General Popov’s grievances overlap in part with those of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary corps, but are made with little fanfare and without oaths. Both are aimed at Minister Shoigu and his chief of staff. But just as Popov’s complaint does not appear to contain any duplicity, so, according to a veteran military observer in Moscow, Prigozhin’s complaints appear to be just one contentious aspect – among several others – in his relationship with Putin.
Putin acknowledged a few days ago that the Wagners were funded from the state budget (without specifying from what item or how), but on Thursday the president declared that they did not legally exist, thereby expressing concepts that at first appear contradictory. The state budget’s funding of a group of mercenaries — who officially do not exist — raises many questions analysts can’t answer, but the opaque and uncontrolled operations are undermining the Russian state’s already fragile institutions and invoking the style of tribal dictatorships.
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