Putin’s war: Former Russian colonel contradicts earlier statements criticizing Russia’s military operations
Former Russian colonel contradicts earlier statements criticizing Russia’s military operations in Ukraine
From CNN’s Katya Krebs and Hira Humayun
Retired Russian colonel Mikhail Khodarenok said any talk about Ukraine being able to counterattack is a “big exaggeration,” just a day after he criticized Russia’s military operations in Ukraine saying the situation for Russia could “get worse.”
Speaking to a Russian state TV channel on Wednesday, Khodarenok said, “When people talk about Ukraine acquiring the ability to counterattack, well it’s a big exaggeration. And as concerns the actions of our supreme command, there is every reason to believe that the implementation of these plans will in the very near future give Ukraine an unpleasant surprise.”
He also said it would be impossible for the Ukrainian armed forces to gain aerial supremacy in the next few months, and in terms of gaining naval supremacy, he said, “while our Black Sea Fleet is in the Black Sea, Ukraine’s Black Sea Fleet having supremacy is out of the question.”
On Tuesday however, Khodarenok said information being spread about a “moral or psychological breakdown” of Ukrainian armed forces is not even “close to reality.” He also said Ukraine could arm 1 million people, and that Russia needs to consider that in its operational and strategic calculations.
“The situation for us, will frankly get worse,” he said on Tuesday. He also criticized Russia’s geopolitical isolation from the world, and prior to the invasion he warned that it would be more difficult than many anticipated to wage war in Ukraine.
Earlier reporting from CNN’s Tim Lister, Anastasia Graham Yooll and Taras Zadorozhnyy.
Setbacks in Ukraine trigger rare criticism of Russia’s war effort by Russian bloggers
From CNN’s Tim Lister and Taras Zadorozhnyy
The Russian army’s performance in Ukraine has been less than impressive according to Western intelligence assessments — and that viewpoint is gaining ground among some in Russia itself.
Three Russian military bloggers have suddenly launched into damning criticism of the operation, and especially the debacle of a failed crossing of the Siverskyi Donets river last week. The three bloggers combined have more than 3 million subscribers on Telegram.
A prominent former officer who regularly appears on state television also weighed in with a gloomy view of Russia’s military prospects in Ukraine.
Such public criticism of the military operation in Ukraine is very rare. The Kremlin insists the campaign is on schedule.
The carping appears to have been triggered by a catalog of setbacks, the worst being the disastrous attempts to cross the Siverskyi Donets crossing last week. Satellite imagery shows at least 70 Russian armored vehicles and tanks were destroyed and hundreds of soldiers may have been killed.
On the evening of May 12, prominent Russian military correspondent Yuri Kotenok reposted accounts and images of the failed crossing, including one from a Ukrainian source.
Kotenok, who has nearly 300,000 subscribers to his Telegram channel, reposted one account that castigated the Russian officer responsible and blamed him for crowding so many vehicles in a small area by the river.
In response to criticism from some subscribers, Kotenok retorted: “If you want fairy tales, then you have come to the wrong place. In such a case you should go to officialdom.”
He said his role was “to provide with correct assessment, to speak good of the good, and bad of the bad, but to say the TRUTH.”
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No major battlefield gains expected for either side in the coming weeks, NATO military official says
From CNN’s Vasco Cotovio
The NATO alliance doesn’t expect significant gains for either side of the battlefield in Ukraine in coming weeks, a NATO military official with knowledge of the intelligence told CNN on Wednesday.
“I think we’ll be in a standstill for a while,” the official said.
According to the official, the current NATO discussion is that the momentum has shifted significantly in favor of Ukraine and the debate within NATO circles is now over whether it is possible for Kyiv to retake Crimea and the Donbas territories seized by Russia and Russian-backed separatists, respectively, in 2014.
“I think they could [retake Crimea and the Donbas], yes,” the official said. “Not now, not soon, but if they can keep up the fight I think so.”
“I do question if they actually should fight to get their territory back,” referencing a potential backlash by the local population in some of those areas.
Analysis: Why is Turkey causing problems for Finland and Sweden’s plans to join NATO?
Analysis from CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh and Isil Sariyuce
Just when it seemed like Finland and Sweden’s accession into NATO was imminent, Turkey has taken its allies by surprise by throwing a wrench into the works.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he didn’t view “positively” the Nordic countries’ desire to join the alliance, accusing the two of being “like guesthouses for terror organizations.” He told his party lawmakers in Ankara on Wednesday that he expects NATO members to “understand, respect and support” Turkey’s security issues.
Finland and Sweden formally applied to join NATO on Wednesday at Allied headquarters in Brussels, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The decision represents a setback for Moscow, with the war in Ukraine triggering the kind of enlargement of the alliance that it invaded Ukraine to prevent.
Accession of new states however requires consensus among existing members, and that’s where Ankara comes in.
Turkey, which joined the alliance three years after it was established in 1949 and has the group’s second largest army, has said it won’t support the bids unless its demands are met.
Erdogan accused the two countries of harboring members of the separatist militant Kurdistan’s Workers Party, also known as PKK. The PKK, which seeks an independent state in Turkey, has been in an armed struggle with that country for decades and has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
The crisis has brought to the fore longstanding Turkish grievances against Western nations and NATO allies, while it has given Ankara an opportunity to use its position in the alliance to extract concessions.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-05-19-22/h_356be3fc0c2a7e5c681df25545528138
