Russian state TV has seen a defence columnist offer a “damning assessment” of Russia’s war in Ukraine in a clip shared online by the BBC’s Francis Scarr. In the video, Russian military pundit Mikhail Khodaryonok takes aim at Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical strategy and warns that counter to Kremlin propaganda the Ukrainian Army is not on the very of collapsing.
Mr Khodaryonok told Russia State TV: “Every matter should be viewed as a whole from the overall strategic point and desirably taking into account the near term strategic outlook.
“First of all, I must say that we shouldn’t take information tranquilisers because sometimes information is spread about some moral and psychological breakdown in the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which are allegedly on the verge of some kind of crisis in morale and so on.
“All of that to put it mildly is false.”
He added: “The situation from the overall strategic position is that the Ukrainian armed forces are able to arm a million people.”
“Considering that there is the European aid that will fully come into effect, so a million armed Ukrainian soldiers needs to be viewed as a reality of the very near future,” continued Mr Khodaryonok.
“And we need to take that into account in our operational and strategic calculations, that the situation in this regard for us will frankly get worse.”
The defence columnist went on to warn the Kremlin against “sabre-rattling” in response to Finland and Sweden joining NATO and added that Russia was isolated internationally.
He said: “Well the main thing in our business, it’s always to maintain a sense of military-political realism.
“If you go beyond it, then sooner or later the reality of history will hit you so hard that you will regret it.”
“We are in full geopolitical isolation,” he added.
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