‘Shoigu Infuriated Putin Very Much’

Is the reshuffle in the Russian Ministry of Defense connected with the offensive in the Kharkiv region?

Putin removed Sergei Shoigu from the post of Russian Defense Minister, moving the general to the post of Secretary of the Security Council instead of Nikolai Patrushev.

The post of Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation was taken by Andrei Belousov, a hereditary economist-statist who did not undergo any military service, and never had anything to do with the army.

Ukrainian military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Oleksandr Kovalenko, in a commentary for the Charter97.org website, named the complete failure of the war with Ukraine as one of the main reasons for Shoigu’s resignation:

— First of all, this is a complete failure of the so-called special military operation, this is the main reason. Shoigu is an absolutely incompetent defense minister, unprofessional, unfit for the profession, who has gathered around him the same unfit generals.

For years they were engaged in “milking” and “siphoning off” the military budget, without actually making any efforts to somehow strengthen the potential of the Russian army itself.

All this manifested itself during the special military operation, where the technical indicators and characteristics of Russian weapons were not as outstanding as they were and continue to be tried to present. The tactical and strategic “genius” of the Russian generals also leaves much to be desired. All this together contributed to further events in the form of Shoigu’s removal.

It is worth noting here that Putin is generally unusual for this kind of dismissal of high-level officials, since this is a demonstration that something is not going according to plan. Putin has this KGB complex since the times of the Soviet Union — when such replacements occur, your department, your unit, is at a disadvantage.

Therefore, Putin has always tried to avoid such open and loud dismissals. And it’s not just avoided, even when they happened, it was done with imitative praise. They remove the general, present him with the “Hero of Russia” and send him to some other position, thus removing him from the command of, for example, a group of troops or any unit, but at the same time, it seems, with some kind of honors.

In the case of Shoigu, everything happened a little differently — he did not receive any praise, or reward. There were corruption scandals involving his circle in the information space. They began to press him for information, in fact with Putin’s permission, since without his consent such pressure would not have been carried out. We can say that Shoigu infuriated Putin very much, he screwed up very badly. That's why there are such consequences.

— Is this replacement connected with the new offensive of the Russians?

—- I don’t think so. This offensive was planned for a long time, from the end of 2023 to the beginning of 2024. They talked about this, and they talked about it quite actively, that the Russians would try to create a “sanitary zone” in the “gray zone” in the Kharkiv direction.

This is exactly what we are seeing now, that is, this is a pre-worked scenario for which General Lapin, commander of the Leningrad Military District, and also the North group of troops, is responsible. Here one does not concern the other.

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