Kathrine Frich
The retired general sees zero chance of a Russian victory this year.
Loyalty is everything inside the halls of power in Moscow.
For years, the official line on the war has gone largely unchallenged in public, but a respected voice from the old guard has just shattered the silence.
A scathing critique
Retired Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov is not just any critic.
At 83, the former senior aide to Soviet defence minister Marshal Dmitry Ustinov remains one of the country’s most respected military minds, having once rubbed shoulders with leaders like Fidel Castro and Slobodan Milosevic, according to the Daily Express.
Now, he is tearing into the Kremlin’s war effort in Ukraine. While talking to Russian blogger Pavel Ivanov, the veteran commander aimed his remarks at Colonel Igor Korotchenko, the editor-in-chief of the National Defence journal who once echoed Vladimir Putin’s goal of wrapping up the invasion in everything from three days to two weeks.
Everyone knew who the real target was. As the Daily Express reported, Ivashov used the interview to deliver a blistering assessment of the Russian president’s strategy, saying:
“You’ve already lost. You failed to foresee absolutely anything. Didn’t you have the brains to understand that this war wasn’t going to be some easy, lightweight operation where you just flutter up, peck at something and that’s it, you’ve won?”
Who pays the bill
The retired general sees zero chance of a Russian victory this year. Looking further ahead, he told Ivanov that even a deal at the negotiating table will not let Moscow off the hook for the destruction.
“Perhaps some kind of resolution will come next year, but the problem of reconstruction will remain regardless,” Ivashov warned, according to the Daily Express. “We may conclude a peace agreement and sign it, but it will inevitably raise the question of those responsible being obliged to rebuild what was destroyed.”
Meanwhile, ordinary Russians are about to feel the pinch at home. Ivashov pointed out that the state’s newly approved spending plan hikes the defence budget by 27% for next year, and that cash has to come from somewhere.
“The military budget, the money for the war. Where will they get it from? The process of what is known as sequestration, or budget cuts, has already begun,” the 83-year-old general explained in the interview cited by the Daily Express.
Instead of investing in the country’s future, the Kremlin is raiding everyday public services to keep the troops funded.
“They’ll take the money from civilian programmes that sustain people’s lives, education and other purely humanitarian areas, including pensions and so on. They’ll take it from the civilian sector,” Ivashov added, warning that “there will be no development in the country as a whole, not in education, not in culture, virtually nowhere. Instead, Russia will undergo further militarisation.”
