Kathrine Frich
Some of Russia’s fiercest pro-war voices are openly mocking him.
Talking tough from a podium is always the easy part of politics.
Leaders love to project total confidence when the cameras are rolling, even if the reality on the ground looks very different.
Now, that gap between bold words and hard facts is sparking a rare backlash from some unexpected voices.
Doubts from inside
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently boasted that his military is ready to take on all of Europe. Speaking to reporters in Moscow on October 29, the Kremlin leader insisted his defenses could handle a fight with NATO right now, according to the Kyiv Post.
“First, we are ready. But we don’t want war with Europe. If any of them want it, let them prepare,” Putin told journalists, as quoted by the Kyiv Post.
Yet some of Russia’s fiercest pro-war voices are openly mocking that claim. Igor Girkin, a former FSB officer jailed in 2024 after calling Putin’s regime “incompetent,” wrote from his prison cell on Monday that the president is “delusional” if he thinks Moscow can beat NATO, the Kyiv Post reported.
“Why did Vladimir Vladimirovich think we were ready for war with all of Europe?” Girkin asked in his letter, pointing out that Russia has failed to conquer Ukraine after nearly five years of fighting while Russian cities and factories keep getting bombed. “Frankly, I don’t know. Most likely, it’s just a rhetorical phrase intended to reassure himself.”
Heavy battlefield losses
Other Kremlin allies are also warning that the military is stretched to its limit. Aleksandr Khodakovsky, a former Ukrainian commander who defected to Moscow in 2014, urged leadership to seek peace soon. Writing on Telegram on Sunday, he argued that Russia must face the truth about its own limited capabilities.
“The war must be stopped because it is obvious that the expectations associated with the war [a swift defeat in Ukraine] have given way to the consequences [strong opposition from Europe] that the war inevitably entails,” Khodakovsky wrote, according to the Kyiv Post.
Meanwhile, the toll on the front lines keeps climbing. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told his troops on Sunday that October 2026 brought the highest number of Russian casualties in the entire war, while Kyiv’s forces took back more land than they lost over the past two months.
Pro-war bloggers are also sounding the alarm over deep Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. On October 30, the Telegram channel Archangel Spetsnaz reported that Ukraine had launched over 1,000 drones in a single day, sparking 11 separate fires at an oil refinery in the Samara region.
