Publicly accusing a superior officer of incompetence and betrayal would be serious enough in peacetime.
In the middle of a desperate war, and two weeks after another mutiny nearly toppled the Kremlin, Major General Ivan Popov’s voice message is nothing short of an earthquake.
The voice message has none of the hysteria of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Telegram rants.
Major General Popov speaks in the blunt, to-the-point, get-the-job-done manner of a fighting officer.
He appeals directly to his men, his “dear gladiators” (Major General Popov’s own callsign is Spartak, so the reference is to classical history), on whose loyalty he seems to feel he can rely.
Russia’s war effort has been plagued by grumbles about the brass since the war began.
Many of the frustrations of lower and mid-ranking officers and men got a publicairing on semi-official war blogs.
Later Prigozhin, the disgraced Wagner mercenary chief, emerged as a valve for anger at shortages of ammunition, poor logistics, and general incompetence.
This is the first time a senior officer has publicly voiced similar complaints.
Major Gen Popov’s specific grumble was about a lack of counterbattery fire and artillery reconnaissance.
It’s nothing new in this war. In fact, you can find plenty of soldiers on the Ukrainian side of the lines with similar complaints.
But Major General Popov goes further: he explicitly accused the army’s top officer — Valery Gerasimov, though he does not use his name — of stabbing the army in the back.
It is worse because the commander of Russia’s 58th army has credibility.
He and his men have successfully — and in defianceof the expectations even of many Russian commentators — held the line against the fury of Ukraine’s counter-offensive.
What’s more, they refused to join Prigozhin’s mutiny last month, sticking to their positions.
On Tuesday this week, the Ukrainians fired a British Stormshadow missile at a hotel in the occupied city of Berdiansk, reducing it to rubble.
The hotel was the command post for the 58th army. Major General Popov reportedly escaped — he was not there when the missile hit.
