An official appointed by Russia to oversee a partially occupied region of Ukraine has urged Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to take his own life in response to a major Ukrainian counteroffensive.
“Many are saying that the Defense Minister, who allowed things to come to this, should simply shoot himself like a [real] officer,” said Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the administration that Russian officials established in the part of Kherson that they control.
Stremousov published that statement in a video on his social media account, even as he assured Russian state media that “the situation is under control.” Yet Ukrainian officials claim, and even Russian defense ministry maps acknowledge, that the invading forces are giving way before a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has forced Russian President Vladimir Putin to order a “partial mobilization” of Russian conscripts.
“I want to celebrate the personnel of the operative-strategic group ‘Oleksandriya’ for creating conditions for a successful offensive, for planning and preparing active actions in the Kherson region,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday. “Those of our actions that already yield a tangible result. And there will be more.”
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Shoigu, whom Putin tapped as defense minister in 2012, has claimed that “over 200,000 reservists have joined the Armed Forces” since Putin ordered the draft last month. “The personnel of the units that have been set up are undergoing training at 80 training grounds and six training centers,” he said Tuesday.
Yet the attempt to draft new forces has prompted an exodus of fighting-age Russians from the country amid complaints that the mobilization is badly organized. One video reportedly recorded near Belgorod, near the Russian-Ukrainian border, appears to feature a group of angry Russian conscripts airing their grievances that “officers treat us like cattle” and that the government has failed to provide food, medical care, training, and adequate equipment.
“There’s practically zero training,” the protesting forces say, according to a translation published by the War Translated project. “Our weapons are from [the] ‘70s and ‘80s. People are sick. They have pneumonia, fever. Helmets can be bent with a finger. The majority of personnel have neither helmets nor armor.”
Russian mobiks, location unspecified, recording an address to the public, saying they were abandoned, they are all sick, they were given weapons which are not registered anywhere, they have to buy their food, and there are mentally unstable people among them. pic.twitter.com/bfqrqduPv1
— Dmitri (@wartranslated) October 5, 2022
Stremousov’s macabre advice to Shoigu echoes a broader indictment of Russia’s military leadership, aired by a prominent state media broadcaster. “The guilty should be punished. We don’t have capital punishment, unfortunately, but for some of them, it would be the only solution,” Russia-1 anchor Vladimir Solovyov said this week. “They don’t even have an officer’s sense of honor because they are not shooting themselves.”
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Nevertheless, Stremousov put a bold face on the situation in an interview with TASS, a Russian state media outlet.
“The Ukrainian armed forces haven’t made any advance, and our military is working,” he said.
