Two Russian colonels call Putin a ‘motherf***er’ and Sergei Shoigu a ‘totally incompetent layman’ while hinting at heavy casualties in phone call ‘intercepted’ by Ukrainian security services
- Two Russian colonels criticised Putin and Shoigu in alleged phone interception
- Bugged recordings are said to be of Maxim Vlasov, 42, and Vitaly Kovtun, 47
- In the alleged call, they hint at devastating losses on Russian side in Ukraine
Two serving Russian colonels have been ‘intercepted’ making blistering criticisms of Vladimir Putin and his defence minister Sergei Shoigu over the failing war with Ukraine.
Their outbursts in a private voice call – allegedly bugged by the Kyiv secret services – show deep dissent among the high ranks.
The expletive-laden call blames Putin for incompetence in not bombing the Ukrainian parliament and other key sites.
Shoigu – who did not rise though the ranks – is dismissed as incompetent in military affairs.
They hint at devastating losses on the Russian side in Ukraine, which have not been officially acknowledged.
The bugged colonels in the ‘intercepted’ call are named as Maxim Vlasov, 42 (left) and Vitaly Kovtun, 47 (right)
The stinging criticisms from battle-hardened colonels, published by Radio Liberty/Svoboda, are an acute embarrassment to the Kremlin.
The bugged colonels are named as Maxim Vlasov, 42, and Vitaly Kovtun, 47.
Kovtun voices high-ranking military anger in Russia that Putin failed to order the missile destruction of key sites in Kyiv linked to Volodymyr Zelensky’s government including the parliament, the ‘Supreme Rada’.
‘There must have been a f****** missile hitting Kyiv, the Supreme Rada,’ he said.
‘Why didn’t it? Why not? I don’t understand, f****** Putin, mother******!
‘Why wasn’t there a missile strike at Kyiv?
‘So that they thought: Ah yes, something is not quite right.
Sergei Shoigu (pictured) – who did not rise though the ranks – is dismissed as incompetent in military affairs in the alleged call
Two serving Russian colonels have been ‘intercepted’ making blistering criticisms of Vladimir Putin (pictured) and his defence minister Shoigu over the failing war with Ukraine
‘Why not? Hit Kyiv, hit the centre of the city, buildings of Supreme Rada and Government House.
‘Likely there isn’t anyone important there, but the building will be destroyed, and everyone will see it?’
Vlasov blasted Shoigu as a ‘totally incompetent layman…he is simply a showman’.
Kovtun tells his friend: ‘Shoigu is just s***. There aren’t enough contract soldiers – of course there aren’t, where would they come from, b**** (?)’
He complains troops were paid only 30,000 roubles a month – less than £300 at the start of the war.
He bemoans: ‘Where the f*** to recruit them?’
Shoigu is blasted for gathering around him officers from the Russian ministry of emergencies – which he used to head.
‘He hasn’t f****** served in the army at all,’ blasts Vlasov.
Pro-Russian troops pictured last week, driving a tank along a street past a destroyed residential building in the town of Popasna in the Luhansk Region, Ukraine
They are scathing, too , about ‘idiot’ General Alexander Dvornikov, 60, aka the ‘Butcher of Syria’, drafted in by Putin after early failures in the war.
Vlasov was heard saying: ‘They’ve bred the whole galaxy of f****** toadies.
‘Like this Dvornikov, he is a legendary f*****.
‘Now he invented some “Anti-Bendera Dash”. He is a total headless f*****.’
Kovtun declares’ ‘I am soon taking a pitchfork, f***, and going to “Kremlin” square, f***.
‘They’ve bred these s*** generals, various f****** Chaika and the like.
Kovtun (circled) in the alleged call voices high-ranking military anger in Russia that Putin failed to order the missile destruction of key sites in Kyiv
‘First we kill so many of our own men, then we wait for them to f****** kill more of our men.
‘Look at them f****** perking up, read what they f****** write there .’
The failure to take Kyiv and to use heavy missiles – which would have caused utter devastation in Ukraine – leaves them furious.
‘They want infantry to go, they f****** want artillery to work at a distance,’ said Kovtun.
‘Spend the f****** bombs, f***, there are f****** plenty of them, just f****** throw them! Even if they hit the wrong target, let them start fearing, f****** aim at railway stations, f****** aim at railroads, roads, for f***’s sake.’
The timing to the intercepted calls is not clear but it was after the Moskva cruiser – flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet – was sunk in a Ukrainian missile strike on 14 April.
Kovtun said: ‘They f***** destroyed the cruiser, sank the cruiser – so why not to hit them back, as revenge?
‘Hit Kyiv, do it! But no. And what does it tell us? That they don’t f****** care about us.’
He added: ‘You must be a mother****** not to respond to bombed villages.
‘As soon as our villages were hit, we should have answered, a missile should have arrived.’
On the death toll from the war, Vlasov said: ‘The losses are terrible, our guys, f******.
‘And, you know, I know a little bit of this military history, I compare this [with the] Soviet-Finnish war, 1939-40, f******, one to one , in general, as a template, f**k, let’s go.’
According to the recording, Kovtun (pictured) said: ‘They want infantry to go, they f****** want artillery to work at a distance’
It is unclear if he means that the death rate per week or month is the same.
But during the war, Soviet losses were put at 126,875 in three and a half months.
Russia has so far failed to outline its toll from the war in Ukraine.
Kyiv and Western estimates suggest a likely loss of around 30,000.
Journalists from the Skhemy – or Schemes – investigations unit at Radio Liberty sought to contact the colonels.
They played fragments of the intercepted calls to Kovtun – notably his blast at Shoigu.
Kovtun replied: ‘I don’t care, I’ll report you to the FSB and that’s it.’
Vlasov failed to comment.
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