The dismissal of a Russian military commander who accused senior officers of failing in Ukraine

A Russian military commander explained that he was dismissed from his position after he informed the military leadership of the deteriorating situation on the ground front in Ukrainewhere Russian soldiers were stabbed in the back because of the failures of senior military officers, as he described it.

In an audio message released by Russian deputy Andrei Gorolyov, Major General Ivan Popov, commander of the 58th Combined Arms Army, stated that he had been dismissed from his post.

The Russian Defense Ministry has not commented so far, and Reuters has not been able to verify the authenticity of the audio message. Deputy Gorolyov is a former army commander who appears regularly on state television.

“There was a difficult situation with the senior commanders, in which I had to either remain silent and become a coward, or describe it as it is,” Popov said.

“I did not have the right to lie in your name, in the name of my fallen comrades-in-arms, so I exposed all the problems that existed,” he added.

Ukrainian artillery shelling

He stated that he raised the issue of killing Russian soldiers in Ukrainian artillery shelling, and said that the army lacks appropriate counter-battery systems and means of reconnaissance of enemy movements.

And he added, “It seems that the senior leaders felt that I posed some kind of danger, so they quickly prepared an order from the Minister of Defense in just one day and got rid of me.”

“The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks on the front, but our senior commander dealt us a sudden blow and brutally beheaded the army in the most difficult and intense moment,” he added.