While it may be Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine, it is one of his loyal top military advisers that could take the fall for recent setbacks on the ground.
NBC News is reporting that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, a loyal top military adviser to Putin, may be taking the fall and serving as a scapegoat for recent military setbacks on the ground in Ukraine as dissent in that country over the war heightens.
"Shoigu's job now is to be Putin's bulletproof vest," Mark Galeotti, who heads the Russia-focused consultancy Mayak Intelligence, told NBC News. "At the moment, his main value is exactly that he soaks up the criticism, which otherwise would inevitably be heading Putin's way."
The New York Times reported Tuesday that Ukrainian forces have been breaking through Russian-occupied areas in the south and east in Ukraine, areas that Russian troops once occupied and part of the regions annexed by Russia during recent referendum votes in those areas to become part of the Russian Federation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told his nation Tuesday that his forces liberated "several settlements" in the southern Kherson region.
"The Ukrainian army is carrying out a pretty fast and powerful advance in the south of our country as part of the current defense operation," the Times reported Zelenskyy saying. "Dozens of settlements have already been liberated from the Russian sham referendum this week alone."
As the bad news from the battlefield trickles its way into Russia, NBC is reporting that there is growing dissatisfaction with the way Russia is proceeding in the war, but no one has yet blamed Putin himself, pointing to an easier target, Shoigu, instead.
"Many people say that if they were the minister of defense, who allowed things to reach this state of affairs, they would shoot themselves," Kirill Stremousov, the acting governor of Kherson's Russia-installed administration, said in a four-minute video posted on his Telegram channel Thursday, according to The Moscow Times.
Although he didn't mention Shoigu by name, he instead said the criticism was aimed at a small group of "unskilled commanders."
According to NBC News, Shoigu, 67, was appointed to the post in 2012 after serving as the minister of emergency situations which included natural disasters and "security emergencies."
He is considered one of Putin's closest allies and has a reputation of being loyal to Putin, the report said.
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