Standing in front of the desk, on the Rossiya 1 television set, Mikhail Khodaryonok remained straight in his boots. This Monday, May 16, the former Russian colonel, dark suit and striped tie, said what no one thought he would hear one day on this public channel in the pay of the Kremlin, one of the most watched in the country. “The situation can only get worse for the Russian army,” he said, glared by the star presenter of the talk show 60 minutes, Olga Skabeyeva, nicknamed “Putin’s iron doll”. “We must not swallow informational tranquilizers, continues Khodaryonok. We must not take at face value the information disseminated about a so-called moral and psychological degradation of the Ukrainian armed forces. Before affirming, most calmly in the world: “The reality is that we are in total geopolitical isolation and that the whole world is against us, even if we do not want to admit it.”
The sequence stunned millions of Internet users, accustomed to Russian propaganda on Vladimir Putin’s “special operation” aimed at “denazifying” Ukraine. “The most surprising thing is that we let him unfold his speech, totally discordant with the official line of Moscow”, points out historian Françoise Thom. All the more surprising since the senior retired officer was not at his first attempt.
On May 9, on the same channel, he judged that “sending soldiers with yesterday’s weapons in a 21st century war against those of NATO would not be the right thing to do.” Even before the invasion of the Russian army in Ukraine, the 68-year-old ex-colonel expressed his reluctance, anticipating fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Criticism wins the ultrapatriot camp
In short, Mikhail Khodaryonok’s positions were known in Russian power circles. Why then, give him the floor on the air? “The regime may be preparing the ground for unpopular measures, suggests François Thom. For example, the widening of the mobilization or the blocking of the bank accounts of men seeking to escape military service. These measures will not be accepted if Moscow continues to act as if everything is going perfectly. Putin is obliged to reveal the difficulties he encounters in order to justify them.”
The Russian president knows it: even in the camp of the ultrapatriots, he has lost points in recent weeks. Because Mikhail Khodaryonok is not the only one to have publicly criticized Putin’s adventurism. Retired General Leonid Ivashov, at the head of the influential assembly of officers, made up of veterans, also warned, from the beginning of February, that a war in Ukraine would lead Russia to its downfall. More recently, Igor Girkin, one of the star commanders at the time of Crimea’s annexation, accused current Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu of “criminal negligence” in a video posted on his Telegram channel on May 13. .
“The great unpacking has begun, and it is not about to end”, continues Françoise Thom, author of Understanding Putinism (Ed. Desclée de Brouwer, 2018). Faced with the rout of the Russian army in Ukraine, the hunt for the culprits is launched within the security services themselves. Military and intelligence agents blaming each other.
“The silovikis – these men at the helm of the Russian security apparatus – are certainly asking questions about their future, comments the historian. So far, Putin has not been clearly incriminated, but a crisis is emerging. Not to mention that with the insistent rumors about his health, some may be wondering if it is in their interest to completely obey the leader or if it would not be better to think about tomorrow to avoid, for example, landing in court. Gradually, an atmosphere of succession is settling in Moscow.” It remains to be seen who would see themselves, one day, in the costume of Vladimir Putin.