Putin Is 'Not Going To Win This War,' Warns Igor Girkin

Military blogger Igor Girkin has given more scathing criticism of President Vladimir Putin's leadership of Russian forces in his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Formerly an officer with Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), Girkin is also known as Strelkov and had played a key role in Moscow's s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent conflict in Ukraine's Donbas region.

The former commander has a big following on social media where he pulls no punches about his dissatisfaction with the wartime conduct of the Russian president and his commanders in language far removed from the Kremlin line generally followed by state media outlets.

In a video clip that has gone viral and tweeted by Ukrainian internal affairs adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, Girkin again lambasted Putin, saying, "our commander in chief is not going to win this war at all."

"Whatever victories our army achieves in this war, we are going to lose it with this kind of approach of the country's leadership," he said.

In front of a red flag of Novorossiya, a historical name for southeast Ukraine popular among separatists, Girkin said that one year ago "the enemy was attacking nowhere and Russia had the initiative. What do we see now?"

"In June 2023, Kherson is abandoned, Izium is abandoned, Kupiansk is abandoned," he said, criticizing how many Russian tanks had been destroyed "in only a few days."

"He's never seen a tank except in a parade, what's wrong with his head?" said Girkin of Putin. "He's really acting not even like an old man, but like a child." He then took aim at the "unprofessional" and "uneducated" Russian high command which meant "we have no chance of winning."

As of Wednesday, the video excerpt from a longer address on his Telegram channel had been viewed more than 1.1 million times.

Newsweek has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.

Unsurprisingly, Girkin was absent from the group of military bloggers whom Putin met on June 13 to discuss the progress of the war. Most of them were linked to state-affiliated outlets.

Girkin's latest video comes as a group of drones is believed to have targeted a Russian army base outside Moscow in the latest attack near the Russian capital in recent weeks, authorities and state media reported.

Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said that two drones were shot down just before 6 a.m. local time Wednesday as they approached the warehouse of a Russian military unit in the village of Kalininets, although later, the Russian Defense Ministry said there was a third device involved in the attack.

"There were no casualties or damage as a result of the failed terrorist attack," the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.