- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- russia@sopuli.xyz
- cross-posted to:
- europe@feddit.org
- russia@sopuli.xyz
cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/44744329
Here is an Invidious link for the YT video (18 min) that is embedded in the article.
As Russia enters 2026, many Russian opposition figures, especially those living in exile, have suggested that Putin is leading their country to disaster; even though, to this day, most Russians instinctively dismiss those who advance such views as renegades or even traitors. A new commentary, however, more sweeping and damning than theirs was offered last week by retired Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov in response to Putin’s direct line television program held on December 19.
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Ivashov points out that while Putin was beaming to his audience and telling everyone how well the Russian economy was doing, even Moscow television showed scenes of people in Russia’s federal subjects begging for water, road repair, and money for medicines … "I watched [Putin’s] whole 4-hour show, and I didn’t see a leader, a commander, or a protector of the people. I just saw a guy living in a fairy tale while the rest of the country is struggling to survive on 16,000 rubles [$130] a month.”
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Ivashov is someone whom all Russians recall as the hero of Pristina. In 1999, General Leonid Ivashov, as a senior Russian military official, led a rapid deployment of Russian forces into Pristina ahead of NATO troops blocking their advance in an effort to assert Russian influence during the Kosovo conflict. His act heightened tensions with NATO, signaling Moscow’s willingness to challenge Western operations and complicating alliance coordination in the region.
Ivashov is now appearing once again in a different form, this time emerging once again to challenge Russian President Putin, predicting Russian defeat in its war with Ukraine. While the aging Ivashov – now 82 – has previously criticized Putin and his policies, most notably in 2022 when he denounced the war in Ukraine and even called on Putin to resign, his remarks this past week came immediately after Putin’s live call-in address.
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About Putin’s war in Ukraine that the retired general is the most critical. In a direct jab at the Russian Chief of the General Staff Valerii Gerasimov, and the way he has conducted the war, Ivashov says, the Russian High Command is not impressing anyone, and Putin remains stuck at “the tactical level,” talking about taking this or that tiny village or even a single house, noting that Ukraine, backed by NATO tech and satellite intel, is hitting Russia where it hurts (oil refineries and airfields), while Russia is just firing off its weapons at easy targets like apartment blocks and schools rather than militarily significant ones.
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During his online statement Ivashov offered a long laundry list of things that, in his opinion, were failing inside Russia:
Planes: “We can’t build our own passenger jets. We’re basically cannibalizing old Boeing’s for spare parts.”
Space: Ivashov describes how the last working manned launchpad at Baikonur was accidentally destroyed due to poor maintenance. Russia in effect can no longer deploy men into space.
Food: Ivashov warns that the food available in Russians stores is becoming extremely harmful because it is filled with palm oil because the economy is so constrained.
Corruption: He mentions that 11 trillion rubles ($1.2 trillion) were allegedly stolen by the Russian Ministry of Defense. He points out that almost every major corrupt official is a member of the ruling party.
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One thing is for certain. And that is that he is definitely not wrong.
No fear of heights
He’s 82 years old. You lose fear of height in that age. Lucky ones keep enough sense to effectively criticize stuff. He seems one of them.
Indeed. I don’t say that to mock him, more so to mock the gremlin in the kremlin
deleted by creator
I posted this in another thread, but when reading the comments it may fit also here.
Ivashov is for sure pro-Russian in principle, and certainly not what we would call pro-Western or a friend of democracy. He and his fellow generals warned, however, of a war against Ukraine already early 2022.
On 1 February 2022, roughly three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, Leonid Ivashov, then chairman of the All-Russian Officers Assembly, published a piece titled, ‘On the Eve of War?’ – Appeal of the All-Russian Officers Assembly to the President and Citizens of the Russian Federation, warning about a war against Ukraine:
Today mankind is living in expectation of war. A war inevitably means human casualties, destruction, suffering for large masses of people, loss of the habitual way of life, and the disruption of the vital systems of states and peoples. A big war is an enormous tragedy, someone’s grave crime. And it so happens that Russia has found itself in the center of this imminent catastrophe.
And this is perhaps happening for the first time in its history. In the past, Russia (the Soviet Union) waged necessary (justified) wars, generally when there was no other way out, when the vital interests of the state and society were under threat. But what is threatening Russia’s existence today? And are there really any such threats anyway?
He then continues criticizing Putin’s foreign policy:
Naturally, in order for Ukraine to remain a friendly neighbor for Russia, Russia would have had to demonstrate the attractiveness of its state model and system of government. But Russia never became a friendly neighbor; its model of development and foreign policy mechanism for international cooperation repelled almost all its neighbors and beyond. Russia’s appropriation of the Crimea and Sevastopol, and their nonrecognition as Russian by the international community (meaning that the majority of countries in the world still believe they belong to Ukraine) are convincing proof of the failure of Russian foreign policy and the unattractiveness of its domestic policy. Attempts to use ultimatums and the threat of force to make [others] “fall in love with” Russia and its leaders are pointless and extremely dangerous.
Ivashov, usually maintaining a hard line against the West, refused the Kremlin’s public propaganda of Nato being a threat:
As far as external threats are concerned, they definitely exist. But in our expert opinion, they are not critical at the moment, and do not pose a direct threat to the existence of Russian statehood and its vital interests. Strategic stability has been preserved overall, nuclear weapons are under reliable control and groups of NATO forces are not amassing or displaying any threatening activity. Therefore, the explosive situation surrounding Ukraine is primarily artificial and self-serving for some internal forces, including in Russia.
He then addresses the threat a war could pose to the Russian state:
The use of military force against Ukraine will, first of all, call into question Russia’s very existence as a state. Second, it will turn Russians and Ukrainians into mortal enemies. Third, thousands (tens of thousands) of young, healthy people will die on both sides, which will naturally have an effect on the future demographic situation in our dying countries. On the battlefield field – if there is a battle – Russian troops will face not just Ukrainian soldiers, many of whom will be [ethnically] Russian, but also NATO troops and equipment, while NATO member states will be obligated to declare war against Russia … In addition, there is no doubt that Russia will be added to the category of countries that pose a threat to peace and international security, subjected to the most severe sanctions, transformed into a pariah in the eyes of the international community and probably lose the status of an independent state. There is no way that the president, the government and the Defense Ministry do not understand these consequences.
Finally, they address Putin himself, demanding his resignation:
We, Russia’s officers, demand that the Russian president abandon the criminal policy of provoking a war in which Russia will find itself alone against the united forces of the West and create conditions for implementing Art. 3 of the Russian Constitution [which states that the people are the only source of power – Trans.] and resign.
A bit too optimistic, the average russian isn’t willing to do anything and buys into putin’s chauvinist worldview (85% of russian support the annexation of Crimea even with adjustments for preference falsification).
There is a thing about Russian statistics. Many say what administration wants to hear, just in case.
These are not russian statistics.
Preference falsification refers to people lying due to the sensitivity of the topic.
The funny thing is that the level of preference falsification (with respect to Crimea specifically) was found to be so low that it was within the margin of error (i.e. 85% was seen as a valid result because preference falsification was too insignificant too evaluate). That’s damning for russian society.
FWIW, support for the full scale invasion saw a preference falsification level of 10%; therefore we go from 75% to 65% support for the full scale invasion of Ukraine. That being said the authors stated that believe the 65% figure is likely an underestimate.
The overwhelming majority of russians still support invading Ukraine and annexing our territories.
I can share multiple papers (and even counter arguments) on this topic if you want.
Yeah, if you believe the official statistics that is. But when did Russian government ever lied, right?
I was referring to results accounting for preference falsification:
https://sh.itjust.works/post/52675124/22959080 (post a bit higher in this thread).
There is no methodology nor raw data in that post, so it’s just saying words at this point.
Those “86%” Russian numbers were always plucked out of polling manipulation, trick questions, and carefully curated focus groups, as long as Russian government existed. Nowadays, when there are wartime rules, it’s not even that complicated. “Do you aggree with the government position, or do you want to go to jail for 12 years?” is a question that will give you whatever result you wish with no polling manipulation requiredThose “86%” Russian numbers were always plucked out of polling manipulation, trick questions, and carefully curated focus groups
This is actually not true. An overwhelming majority of russians are supportive of chauvinism and imperialism (and a strong majority are genocidal imperialists). This is a fact.
Believe it or not there are ways to evaluate preference falsification, you can read the papers (methodology, results and analysis) yourself.
Baseline research on support for the fullscale invasion:
https://www.levada.ru/en/2024/05/17/conflict-with-ukraine-assesments-for-march-2024/
The level of support for the Russian armed forces has not changed significantly since the beginning of the conflict – the majority of respondents (76%) support the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine, including 48% “definitely support” and another 28% “rather support” the action of Russian army. 16% are against.
Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for the full scale invasion:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20531680221108328
when asked directly, 71% of respondents support [full scale invasion of Ukraine], while this share drops to 61% when using the list experiment
Baseline support for annexation of Crimea:
https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/05/19/crimea-3/
The vast majority of Russians (86%) consistently support the accession of Crimea to Russia – this indicator has fluctuated slightly since 2014. 9% do not support the accession.
Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for annexation of Crimea:
https://www.jiia.or.jp/en/column/2022/09/russia-fy2022-01.html
Using the list-experiment technique, Timothy Frye and others showed that Putin’s approval rating after the annexation of Crimea was actually high, at around 80%. In their study, they made a list of famous Russian politicians and had respondents answer how many of these politicians they supported. They then estimated Putin’s approval rating by adding the name “Putin” to the list for only one group[*]3 and thus concluded that the high approval ratings after the annexation of Crimea were not very different from the findings of opinion pollsters.
A high level overview of russian support for the invasion of Ukraine (a summary, but with links to relevant research, albeit some sources will be in russian):
Younger people still support the war in high numbers, though their support is lower than that of the older generation: 75–80 percent of people fifty-five and older support the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, while 61 percent of young respondents in Levada polls share this sentiment.
And this is just Ukraine, even the allegedly liberal russian “opposition” openly supports the occupation of Ichkeria and sees nothing wrong with mass scale killing of civilians committed by the russians in the 90s and 2000s.
There’s a difference between annexing Crimea and annexing Ukraine.
Crimea is Ukraine.
Crimea is part of Ukraine, but not it’s entirety.
So when Ukraine took land across the border in Kursk Oblast in 2023, they weren’t attacking Russia, just Kursk Oblast?
If you attack a region, province, or member state of a nation, you are attacking that nation.
“Why are you so mad? I didn’t hit you, just your face! It’s only a part of you, after all!”
Only if you’re Russian. To the rest of the world, including Crimea, there is no difference.
Putin likes to get someone old and revered to astroturf for him, like Tereshkova did. This to me looks like someone is trying to use a retired colonel to pretend it’s not some oligarchs trying to change the course, but the voice of people and reason.
This is exactly how russia works.
Ivashov is just another imperialist russian.
Defenestration in … three … two …
KGB agent 1: Stop! I have a few doses of Novichok with ending shelf time!
KGB agent 2: And what am I supposed to do with this bucket of polonium tea?
KGB agent 3: Please-please-please, choose me. And my axe!
Easy! Just dump the Novichok in the trash in a generic perfume bottle so some unsuspecting housewife is poisoned!
It may sound like an open door, but I see a window of opportunity here… 🫣😶
from 5 floors this time.
