Vladimir Putin’s former top military commander has slammed the Kremlin ruler’s failures in the war with Ukraine.
Hawkish Yuri Baluyevsky, former Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces and ex-deputy Defence Minister, claimed the dictator’s weakness is putting the country’s future in peril.
It was time for Putin to “start fighting for real,” he demanded as he broke ranks with the dictator.
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“Russia was the first to develop hypersonic weapons,” Baluyevsky said in a speech to Russia’s public chamber.
“And what did we do?
“We went around shouting on every corner: ‘We have weapons that no country has — and won’t have any time soon.’”
He mocked Putin: “But that didn’t make our country any safer.”
Baluyevsky - a retired general of the army, now 79, who served as chief of the Russian general staff from 2004 to 2008 - accused Putin of failing to respond to specific Ukrainian attacks, one on the dictator’s Kremlin apartments in 2023, and the other on the country’s AWACS military planes.
“We talked about red lines in one of our speeches—but how much redder can those lines get?
“I don’t know what you felt when a Ukrainian drone landed on the dome of the building where the Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin] is located.
“I’m not even talking about when these drones were landing on our long-range early warning aircraft.
“When these drones were striking our facilities, I kept waiting… well, when?”
The veteran commander’s attack come amid a rare outpouring of criticism amid signs of Putin’s war effort faltering, with Ukraine curbing Russian frontline advances, and striking with far greater potency deep inside the Kremlin’s territory.
Critics include pro-war bloggers and glamorous influencers.
"When will we start fighting for real? Either Russia is strong, or it won’t exist at all….
“Our ‘partners’ in the West… are telling us directly: maybe you’ll get through 2027, but in 2028 we will definitely come for you.”
Baluyevsky - known for early advocacy of pre-emptive nuclear strikes if Russia decides it faces existential threats - said: “What are we supposed to do?
“What should we do in this situation?
“Continue the Special Military Operation [against Ukraine] for several more years as a war of attrition?
“And who exactly are we going to wear down?
“All of Europe? All of NATO, along with Japan and whoever else has joined them? And what about ourselves?”
