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According to the ISW, Russian officials and military bloggers blame the Russian leadership for failing to defend the country against the historic Ukrainian attack Sunday.
According to the ISW, Russian officials and military bloggers blame the Russian leadership for failing to defend the country against the historic Ukrainian attack Sunday.
What is happening?
Demostic criticism is increasing in Russia after Ukraine conducted Operation Spider Web on Sunday, damaging 40 Russian bombers deep in Russian territory.
Blaming Russian leadership
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), both Russian officials as well as Russian military bloggers blame the Russian leadership, especially the Military leadership, for filing to protect the Military infrastructure.
Insufficient protection
A main part of the criticism centers around the fact that the Russian military leadership stationed strategically important warplanes in open airfrields without sufficiant protection.
Not learning from past mistakes
Another point of criticism is that the Russian military leadership continues to fail at adapting to Ukrainian tactics and that the leadership appears to not learn from past mistakes.
Russia’s Pearl Harbor
One Russian Military blogger with nearly 200,000 followers on Telegram called the attack “Russia’s Pearl Harbor”.
He added that he can’t imagine how and with what, Russia should retaliate, as Russia does not have a lot of allies that can provide them with new warplanes.
Pleading for nuclear response
Russian state media and military bloggers are framing the Ukrainian attack as undermining Russian nuclear stability.
They use this narrative to argue that a nuclear response would be fitting.
What will Putin do?
There still has been no official statement from the Kremlin after the Ukrainian attack.
Governors in the attacked regions have, however, verified the attacks.