Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said he was deeply affected by Russia’s defeat in Lyman on Saturday. In a Telegram message, he verbally lashed out and aggressively attacked Russian commander Alexander Lapin. He received a lot of encouragement from hard-liner circles for his statements, but at the same time this caused a deep chasm in the military command structures.
Putin’s “bloodhound” recently called on Russia to continue the fight to “liberate” the four annexed territories with all available means. Including short-range nuclear weapons. In their new analysis, the military experts from the Institute for the Study of War explain why Kadyrov’s call actually makes no sense.
Kadyrov’s call for the use of tactical nuclear weapons contradicts Putin’s actual plan. And on his own demand to continue the “special military operation” to bring more Ukrainian territory under Russian control, ISW military experts say. In addition, the Russian military in its current state is almost certainly incapable of operating on a nuclear battlefield.
“The chaotic conglomeration of exhausted contract soldiers, hastily mobilized reservists, conscripts and mercenaries that currently comprise the Russian ground forces cannot function in a nuclear environment,” writes the ISW. The reason: Any area that would be affected by Russian tactical nuclear weapons would be impassable for the Russians after a nuclear strike, which would preclude Russian advances. The military experts see this as another factor that greatly reduces the likelihood of a Russian nuclear attack.
The situation within the Russian military is also deteriorating immensely. The background is the aggressive communication among each other and the attacks on military leaders. Kadyrov blamed the failures around Lyman on the commander of the Central Military District (CMD), Colonel-General Alexander Lapin. Lapin heads the “central” group of armed forces in Ukraine.
Kadyrov explained that Lapin failed to properly equip the units operating in the Lyman area and moved his headquarters far from the front line. Kadyrov also accused the Russian General Staff, and in particular the Chief of the General Staff, Army General Valery Gerasimov, of covering up Lapin’s omissions, ISW reports.
Among other things, he received encouragement from the financier of the Wagner troupe, Yevgeny Prigozhin. He said that the higher military command should “fight barefoot with machine guns at the front lines.” Hosts of Russian state television also praised Kadyrov’s and Prigozhin’s criticism of the Russian military leadership, which they said was corrupt and disinterested in Russia’s strategic goals , report the experts.
Kadyrov, Lapin and Prigozhin all operate in the Donbass region. Their sharp criticism of their own military leadership and their aggressive verbal attacks point to the tensions within the Russian armed forces operating in Ukraine and their leadership, the military experts of the ISW analyze.
They predict that the Kremlin may also step up this criticism in order to create the conditions for personnel shifts and changes within the higher military command in the coming days and weeks. It shows the tension at the top of the Russian military.
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