Russian former liberal politician Boris Nadezhdin criticized President Putin in a talk show on the state-controlled NTV television channel on Monday.
Nadezhdin compared Putin to Tsar Nicholas I and said the war will lead to “the fall of the regime”.
Nadezdjin has been a recurring guest and said last autumn that “it is absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine”.
The fact that certain opposition voices are allowed on state television is a way to produce a scapegoat that can be publicly reprimanded, Abbas Galljamov, an independent political analyst, told the AP news agency.