This makes me wonder if they have both defected, leaving Putin struggling to maintain control without his lackeys and scrambling to salvage the situation.
Shreddednips i dont know if you are right however you aren't the only person picking up on this as a possibility.
Anders Aslund @andersaslund
The big Russia-Ukraine news today is that Colonel-General Sergei Rudskoi, the deputy chief of the Russian armed forces' General Staff held a press conference with two other generals. He announced changed goals of the war on Ukraine.
Rudskoi said there had been two prior variants for Russia in Ukraine.
First to limit the operation to the administrative borders of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Second “operations on the whole territory of Ukraine with implementation of measures of demilitarization and denazification"
Now Rudskoi stated that the initial goal of what Moscow calls a "military operation in Ukraine" was to take over Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.
That is a person low down in the Russian rank changes the aim of the war after one month.
This should have been done by Putin, Shoigu or Gerasimov. Why didn't they do so? They might have been all too embarrassed and kicked out their underling. Alternatively, the apparently still functioning general staff said: Enough is enough to their superiors.
To me, this looks as if the Russian General Staff is trying to salvage their remaining military resources before the Ukrainians devastate them and hold on to some gains. As the Ukrainians are starting their offensive, they have no reason to stop now. Russia must leave Ukraine!
It is interesting, and positive, that the Russian General Staff dared to stick out its neck like this. It will be very interesting to see how the Kremlin (madman Putin) responds to this. Have the Generals cast the glove?
Look at this picture! After Putin has made a complete mess of his war on Ukraine for one month, three generals from the General Staff give a press conference and say that their war aim is much less than megalomaniac Putin's. It suggests a certain tension in the Russian leadership
I think we could explain away Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov not being seen publicly by the fact that they are all cowardly and utterly convinced that there is a massive risk to them so they've all run off to separate bunkers, rather than go down the route any of them having met with a high window. And if they are suitcase holders it would be prudent. Notably even Putin has only been seen in that clip of the video call since the rally. I also note there is a very senior Russian MP who is currently gravely ill with covid (he was reported as dead and then it was said gravely ill instead) so there may be real paranoia from that too.
Shoigu was apparently last seen on 13th when rumours started to fly that he was dismissed then it was denied. Then on 17th there was a lot of Russian government and army plane action which some argued was normal but others (are still saying as its apparently ongoing) isn't normal. Then on 18th Putin had his rally. Then it went very quiet from the very top. Thats a week ago now.
And now you have these much lower ranked generals saying this - keeping in mind 7 generals are rumoured to have died. Men the same rank... And at least one as the result of a fragging incident. If they are burning through generals at such a rank, i cant imagine even the generals fancy being sent to Ukraine... They may feel like they have little to lose if they push back against their superiors at this point in that context. Indeed the entire point of fragging was to intimidate superior ranks and to get them to be less enthusiastic about the war in Vietnam...
So to my mind something happened around the 16th / 17th in terms of what Putin himself was thinking and how he viewed the war. There was a massive panic. And then something else happened post rally or at the rally (what happened with the cut feed). Simply because Putin hasn't been doing more rousing. It is like he is spooked.
Putin is thought to say he is prepared to lose up to 50000 troops. But to have that many dead how many wounded does that work out at? Even at 1:2 ratio thats 50000 dead and 100000 injured. Thats almost the size of the entire Russian Army at the start of the campaign! If you take it as 50000 casualties including wounded we are already past that point. And quite honestly at what point would you expect even the generals to be going 'im not doing this shit anymore'.
Whats also interesting is its not just these three that have been quiet. Lavrov is about the only one who has been seen. 3 days ago when he admitted Russia hadn't been expecting sanctions to go that far.
A few days ago, the executive director of Bellingcat commented on a CNN interview with a Putin spokesman who said Russia could not rule out nukes
Is it just me or did Peskov appear on the verge of saying "f* this, can't do this anymore".
And there was the incident of the US face to face meeting with a Russian general in Moscow where the Americans commented that he lost his calm and they thought he was going to go even more crazy and they came to the conclusion that morale in the Russian army was exceptionally low even at this high level...
I don't think a coup is on the cards. But something isn't right in the top circles of the army and the Russian state generally.
I also note, where is Belarus? Rumour was they were supposed to join the war on Monday but didn't for some reason. Yesterday was a significant day Belarus freedom day - their independence day from 1918, so its a sensitive week so perhaps that explains the delay and they will now join in... But note the change in goals. Belarusian troups going over the border to tackle Lviv doesn't fit well with the readjusted stated goals... Think about that. That also potentially an admission they cannot reasonably stop the supply chain from the west, if the Belarusian plan is canned for whatever reason. We know the Belarusians aren't being moved to the Donbas cos satellites....
And Russia transferring troops to Ukraine from occupied parts of Georgia is a clear gamble. There are now rumours of press ganging of Russian men of older than military age and the news about the youth organisation of 16/17 year olds being called up thats not normal.
Neither is withdrawing your occupying force a good sign of a successful deal in 'im getting all the foreign troops in' either. Arguably its not looking as successful a recruitment drive as wished for.
In this context, ask again, who leaked the number of deaths to Russian media before it was deleted?
Why did 3 more junior generals announce this?
No one of these things alone can demonstrate anything telling or conclusive ... But the bigger picture does start to make you wonder about the size of those cracks when you put all this different pieces together in one place.