Threat From Russian Ultra-Nationalist Increases Against Putin

Sometimes ago, a leading ultra-nationalist who led the pro-Russian separatists in 2014 trying to wrest the Donbass region from Kyiv's control in 2014, told his 581,000 subscribers on Telegram that Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu should be executed by firing squad and that Russia should launch strikes on Ukrainian power plants.

Russian President according to report, Vladimir Putin is facing an increasing threat from Russian ultra-nationalist figures who are using their huge platforms on Telegram to demand a far more aggressive military mobilization in Ukraine. 

For months, Putin appeared to have established broad support for the war, while successfully drowning out dissent. But following a series of military defeats, culminating in the devastating rout in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region, the president is facing pressure on multiple fronts.

Breaking with the official line, the ultra-nationalists have increasingly become a thorn in the side of Putin's administration, causing Putin's carefully assembled 'power vertical' to splinter from the inside. 

Several people, including Girkin, have called for tactical nuclear strikes to be used on various targets in order "to drive 20 million refugees to Europe." The tactic was encouraged again on Russia's state-run Channel One, the leading propaganda outlet, by Igor Korotchenko, a military expert and editor of Russia's National Defense magazine. 

Others have accused the Kremlin  of concealing "bad news" about how poorly the war has been going for Russia — a criticism that, until now, has largely been denied a hearing in the heavily muzzled Russian media. This week, Ukrainian officials said they have retaken more than 3,000 square miles of Russian-held territory since the start of September. 

The State Duma usually rubber stamps whatever law Putin wants and is not noted for rocking the boat. So it surprised many commentators on Monday when Mikhail Sheremet, one of its members from the ruling United Russia party, said publicly that "full mobilization" in Ukraine was necessary for victory.

Attacks like that have meanwhile emboldened others from across the political spectrum to speak up in a way that seemed impossible just a few months ago. Earlier this week, liberal councillors in Moscow and St. Petersburg signed a petition demanding Putin's resignation. 

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has responded directly to the growing clamor and the nationalists' anger at Russia's retreat, saying that Russians as a whole continue to support the president. 

"The people are consolidated around the decisions of the head of state," said Peskov. "As for other points of view, critical points of view, as long as they remain within the law, this is pluralism, but the line is very, very thin, one must be very careful here." 

Since first winning the presidency in 2000, Putin has folded all of Russia's key institutions, from the media to the church and the courts, into a power vertical where the Kremlin's bureaucratic machine stands at the top. The idea was to smother any glimmer of democracy and the influence of the oligarchs by making sure all of the key decisions went through him. 

Pressure from all sides

Putin's edifice of power has withstood pressure for over 20 years from protests inspired by liberals, ecologists, pensioners and Siberians but now it is facing its biggest threat. 

As the nationalists' most prominent figurehead, Igor Girkin has been among the most searing in his criticism of Russia's military strategy. His comments have ranged from pessimistic, suggesting a belief that Russia could be defeated, and bravado, as he's sought to cajole Putin into taking more aggressive action. 

Addressing his followers last week, Girkin said: "The war in Ukraine will continue until the complete defeat of Russia. We have already lost; the rest is just a matter of time.' 

Then, on Wednesday, Girkin said that Kremlin officials were living "on the Planet of the Pink Ponies" and that Russia must commit to total war rather than entertain any illusions that the conflict could end with "peace on parity terms." 

"Just do not stop at the objects on the Left Bank [of the Dnipro river]. Kyiv and Western Ukraine must be extinguished no less, and even more ruthlessly," he said. 

Aleksandr Kots, a pro-Kremlin war journalist with 600,000 followers, used his Telegram channel on Wednesday to say that the Kremlin was hiding terrible news from the Russian public. 

"We need to do something about the system where our leadership doesn't like to talk about bad news, and their subordinates don't want to upset their superiors," he said. 

Girkin and Kots, as well as war bloggers such as Boris Rozhin and German Kulikovsky, are believed to be untouchable due to the krysha — protection — afforded them by figures in the senior echelons of the military and security services. 

Ramzan Kadyrov, the tyrannical leader of the volatile Chechen republic, is the wild card in the deck.