Ukraine: The Latest - the Russian army 'may be splintering at the top'

According to the British Ministry of Defence, Russia may be worried for the safety of its nuclear submarines after the mutiny by Wagner mercenaries last month.

They understand that submarines from Moscow’s Northern Fleet will not take part in this month’s Navy Day Fleet Review in St. Petersburg for the first time in its six year history. Now, the MOD say this could reflect the need to keep submarines on standby for operations, but adds that it could be because of security.

And this, of course, comes after reports that the Wagner paramilitary group came close to seizing a stockpile of nuclear weapons as they marched towards Moscow in June. So the MOD say, and I quote, there is a “realistic possibility that internal security concerns since Wagner attempted its mutiny have contributed to this decision.”

I think there are serious cracks showing in the Russian War machine at the very top. We’ve talked at length about the Wagner mutiny, which was one expression of that, but this is the first time that I can think of where you have a senior officer, not Prigozhin or some Z-blogger who whose job is to mouth off, but an actual senior general commissioned officer, airing exactly those complaints that we’ve heard for so long.

The central nub of his complaint, the way he tells it, was that ‘we don’t have enough counter battery fire’, ‘we don’t have enough artillery reconnaissance’, and because of that, a lot of people are dying. And he says it came to the point where he had to either, shut up, be a ‘coward’, or give them the uncomfortable bad news.

If that’s true, it suggests a military that’s really got a problem with hearing basic facts. Because this problem with artillery is a basic fact about this war. You will find soldiers on both sides who are grumbling about this and grumbling about how their superiors handle it.

And what should be happening, in both armies, is that, senior officers should be going to their superiors and banging the table and saying, look, my guys need more ammo, fighting the corner for your unit.

In various discussions I’ve had with intelligence people in this country and overseas, there is evidence this actually starting to get through to the Russian population. Most Russian media controlled by the Kremlin is all propaganda and disinformation, but suddenly people are beginning to realise the human cost of what we’re looking at here. There is a view, I think in certain security organisations, that this dam might well be about to burst.

We might be reaching some sort of tipping point.