CURRENTTIME — broadcast
20260806 210000 UTC
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[00:00:25] improvement of the structure of the Ministry of Defense continues
[00:00:28] in connection with the
[00:00:31] needs and experience of the special
[00:00:34] military operation. Personnel rotation of personnel.
[00:00:37] Putin announced the unification of the rear services
[00:00:40] of the Ministry of Defense. He strives to improve the
[00:00:44] leadership of the war, but at the same time not to nominate any
[00:00:47] general who would look like his competitor. And about
[00:00:51] the change of the head of the UAV troops. The previous chief
[00:00:54] was engaged in selling plumbing. In parallel, in Russia,
[00:00:57] assassination attempts continue on the heads of factories
[00:01:00] involved in the production of
[00:01:02] drones.
[00:01:07] Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts and the Current Time TV channel shows.
[00:01:10] The program "Face to Face with the Event" is on air. Hello, and today we will talk about
[00:01:14] reshuffles in the Russian army. They were personally announced by Vladimir
[00:01:17] Putin. In the public part of the meeting with the military, Putin
[00:01:21] spent as many as 7 minutes on this, judging by the video recording of the
[00:01:24] Kremlin press service. There are some curious moments in these
[00:01:27] reshuffles, in particular, the appearance.
[00:01:40] The large-scale reshuffles in the Ministry of Defense, the Russian president
[00:01:43] vaguely explained by the needs and experience of
[00:01:46] the special military operation, as the Kremlin calls the war with Ukraine. The previous major
[00:01:49] reorganization, or rather a purge, was in this sector 2 years ago,
[00:01:53] when after the change of the Minister of Defense, the entire management team
[00:01:57] and many colleagues of the former head of the department, Shoigu, were arrested. The current
[00:02:01] reshuffles are not so radical and are rather connected with the not so
[00:02:05] fast advance of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine. Official
[00:02:08] Russian media interpret the reshuffles as sending combat
[00:02:12] generals to repair the rear. Colonel-General Valery Saladchuk
[00:02:16] from the position of commander of the troops of the Central Military District became
[00:02:19] Deputy Minister of Defense to organize logistical support
[00:02:23] for the troops. For Deputy Minister Colonel-General Alexander
[00:02:26] Sanchik, who was previously responsible for the material and technical support
[00:02:29] of the troops, now the organization of weapons orders, equipment and
[00:02:32] technical support. Komsomolskaya Pravda describes it this way: everything that
[00:02:36] concerns weapons is now in one hand, all rear
[00:02:40] services are also in one fist. Another Deputy Minister of
[00:02:43] Defense, Alexey Krivoruchko, has been reassigned to develop
[00:02:47] promising weapons of military and special equipment.
[00:02:50] The story with especially promising equipment - drones received its
[00:02:54] continuation with the appointment of Colonel-General Denis Lyamin
[00:02:57] as head of the troops.
[00:03:30] Chief of the General Staff, you, being one of
[00:03:34] the most qualified specialists, as I have already said,
[00:03:37] will bring to completion
[00:03:40] the formation of this new branch of troops, unmanned
[00:03:44] systems, and will lead it in the near future. In place of those moved up the
[00:03:48] career ladder, Colonel-General Andrey Ivanaev was appointed
[00:03:52] the new commander of the troops of the Central Military District. He previously commanded
[00:03:55] the troops of the Eastern District, and his place as acting
[00:03:59] was appointed.
[00:04:30] Commanders know best what the soldiers need right now.
[00:04:33] The details of what the soldiers need right now remained
[00:04:37] behind the scenes. Meeting with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
[00:04:41] The key difference of the current reshuffles, from those de facto purges in
[00:04:44] the Ministry of Defense two years ago, which our correspondent mentioned, according
[00:04:48] to analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War, is
[00:04:52] that these are precisely reshuffles among current commanders, and
[00:04:55] not promotions of new ones, but who could change something, somehow inject
[00:04:59] fresh blood, so to speak metaphorically, but the unified
[00:05:01] rear services are curious against the background, as noted by the Institute for the Study
[00:05:05] of War, of the ongoing successful air attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We
[00:05:09] have discussed many times in our broadcasts, our experts said that: it is
[00:05:12] simply impossible to completely cover all of Russia with air defense systems, even if
[00:05:16] we take into account only those production facilities, organizations,
[00:05:19] factories, and so on that are extremely important for the military-industrial complex and for the Russian army. And
[00:05:23] therefore, the Russian authorities are ready to outsource defense to those
[00:05:26] corporations that can afford it. At the same time, the task in the minds of the
[00:05:30] Kremlin is most likely not to overdo it with the appointment of
[00:05:33] self-confident chiefs too high, too
[00:05:36] long, so that it does not turn into political competition for
[00:05:40] Putin. This is what analyst Sergey thinks.
[00:06:12] it's clear, in general, he has, he must have complaints
[00:06:15] against them, but he must solve two tasks that
[00:06:19] are easily readable: he strives to improve, as it were,
[00:06:22] the leadership of the war, but at the same time not to nominate any
[00:06:26] general who would look like his competitor, that is, this is
[00:06:29] the most important task that he always set for
[00:06:32] himself, and even for some unpopular,
[00:06:35] for example, action, like the withdrawal of troops from Kherson, he appointed
[00:06:39] Surovikin, as we remember, immediately after that he removed him. because
[00:06:42] Surovikin looked not sufficiently such a
[00:06:46] pale figure, so I think that now it's about the
[00:06:49] same, Putin is trying to pick some simultaneously
[00:06:52] faceless, but at the same time, as it were, better coping with the work
[00:06:56] generals. And with us live military expert Nikolai
[00:07:00] Mitrokhin. Nikolai, hello,
[00:07:02] hello, I want to know for starters your impression, what in practice
[00:07:06] can change in the Russian army with these reshuffles, what would you
[00:07:09] pay attention to first of all here?
[00:07:42] from the complete halt of the Russian offensive on the main
[00:07:45] central sector of the front, well, accordingly, as it were,
[00:07:48] uh, the head of this central
[00:07:51] grouping is moved, and in his place the commander of a successful
[00:07:54] grouping is appointed, will it help or not,
[00:07:58] as it were, an open question, I would say probably not, because
[00:08:01] the problem of the center grouping is not that
[00:08:05] uh, the command there is not decisive
[00:08:08] enough, it's that they reached Slavyansk...
[00:08:22] at the same time, as it were, the Ukrainians managed to significantly
[00:08:25] reduce logistics during the end of
[00:08:28] July, beginning of July, end of June, beginning of
[00:08:31] July, and the grouping was left without additional, so
[00:08:34] to speak, without additional supplies, well,
[00:08:38] Putin knows best who he wants to see there as
[00:08:41] commander. But what can be
[00:08:45] opposed to what is happening at the front right now, I mean
[00:08:48] the very fact that the war has essentially transformed
[00:08:51] into a drone race, whoever has more of them, whoever is more active, essentially
[00:08:55] controls the situation in the widest gray
[00:08:58] zone along the combat line of contact, so to speak, if I'm not
[00:09:01] mistaken, it's up to 50 km this whole story turns out to be,
[00:09:04] can this really change the situation in the Karmatorsk
[00:09:07] direction? Well, hardly, although
[00:09:10] what is it called?
[00:09:43] including, as you rightly said, at the expense of, as it were,
[00:09:46] the active use of drones, so
[00:09:49] I don't see Russia significantly advancing after
[00:09:53] some reappointments, another question is
[00:09:56] that, in fact, as it were, the
[00:09:59] problem of Russia with
[00:10:03] increasing the number of used
[00:10:05] drones, well, that is, it is clear
[00:10:09] that production and use in Ukraine
[00:10:13] is growing at a much higher rate than in Russia,
[00:10:17] Belousov, after his appointment, set
[00:10:21] the goal of at least achieving parity, or even
[00:10:25] surpassing Ukraine in terms of drones, and the first year
[00:10:28] after his appointment, the situation changed in this
[00:10:31] regard, but for the last six months, there has clearly
[00:10:34] been a complete stagnation,
[00:10:38] well, Russia again began to seriously lose
[00:10:41] the drone race, production, that is,
[00:10:45] the main problem is the scale of production of these very drones,
[00:10:49] and there, insiders, so to speak, Russian military personnel began to talk about
[00:10:53] the fact that... again the same situation with
[00:10:57] corruption schemes, with supplying the troops with
[00:11:00] low-quality drones and so on and so forth, they blamed
[00:11:04] the former acting head of
[00:11:07] unmanned troops, nicknamed "Toilet,"
[00:11:11] because he was engaged in plumbing before he started
[00:11:14] doing, we'll actually get back to him and want to tell his story in more detail
[00:11:18] a little later, and yes, the reason for the discontent of the so-called
[00:11:21] Z-bloggers with his candidacy and his position in these very.
[00:13:02] As a result, the supply really recovered in the last month or so, a little less than
[00:13:06] a month, in the last 3 weeks, the supply of toilets in general
[00:13:09] and completely
[00:13:12] resumed, despite some losses, but they are apparently not significant
[00:13:16] enough to stop all this movement, so
[00:13:20] the situation here depends on the actions of two sides, how consistent Ukraine will be,
[00:13:23] how much it will have...
[00:13:55] how much his managerial competence will be enough to broaden
[00:13:59] this bottleneck in the connection between
[00:14:03] drone manufacturers and military drone consumers, I
[00:14:06] don't know, only time will tell, and what do you think, by the way, about
[00:14:09] Putin's reluctance to promote one chief or another too much, our
[00:14:13] interlocutor Sergey Shelin sees exactly such a strategy, so to speak, in
[00:14:16] the Kremlin? Well, frankly, I
[00:14:20] don't believe that a general capable of
[00:14:24] becoming...
[00:14:55] experienced commanders, that is, it is rather a response to the appointment of
[00:14:58] Daropatov as commander-in-chief,
[00:15:01] rather than, as it were, to internal Russian political intrigues,
[00:15:04] well, I already spoiled it separately, today I want to talk about a specific unit of the Russian
[00:15:08] army with specific former and current warlords with curious
[00:15:11] call signs, or rather nicknames, even the call sign there was a little different,
[00:15:15] well, again and again, Vladimir Putin or his warlords make promises, sometimes
[00:15:19] with specific deadlines, about the creation of such UAV troops, but from the Russian
[00:15:22] from... the speech of the Russian president before the generals, it became clear: a new branch of troops
[00:15:26] - quote, is only being formed, although people are already
[00:15:29] actively being recruited there, well, at least such attempts are being made,
[00:15:33] the appointed head of drones, Lieutenant General Denis.
[00:15:36] he suddenly became,
[00:16:37] with the help of certain individuals, a monopolist
[00:16:41] in the supply of, for example, FPVs to the Russian armed forces of the Russian Federation
[00:16:44] during the SVO. The removal of Vaganov from his post was met positively
[00:16:48] in the Z-community. Vaganov - the "Toilet" menace, removed from
[00:16:52] his post for 500 billion, plus a general technological lag
[00:16:56] behind the enemy of a year, plus the lives of soldiers. If the rear services
[00:16:59] need a deputy for toilets, then the ministry
[00:17:02] knows one genius, whose call sign starts with G. In this
[00:17:06] matter, I do not intend to dispute his
[00:17:09] competence. Under Vaganov, the Ministry of Defense launched a large-scale campaign to
[00:17:13] recruit drone operators into new troops. In early
[00:17:16] 2026, advertisements met Russians on social
[00:17:20] networks and billboards. Drone operators,
[00:17:24] students, IT specialists, electronics and
[00:17:27] radio engineering specialists were invited to the troops. In March
[00:17:30] 2026, the publication "Important Stories," citing Ministry of Defense
[00:17:34] documents, reported on the department's plans to recruit almost 80,000
[00:17:38] people into drone troops by the end of the year. The recruitment failed. Almost six months
[00:17:41] later, in July, at a meeting of the Ministry of Defense board, they reported on the training
[00:17:45] of a much smaller number of specialists. A trained
[00:17:47] unit is capable of independently performing tasks in individual operational
[00:17:51] and tactical directions. In total, during the past period, about
[00:17:55] 800 specialists have been trained. According to the plan, among the 80
[00:17:58] thousand people were supposed to be, among others, students of civilian
[00:18:02] universities. In April, the publication Groza recorded at least
[00:18:05] 269 training
[00:18:07] sessions, in which students were agitated to go and serve allegedly in UAV
[00:18:11] troops. Students in various regions had their re-examination periods shortened,
[00:18:14] were threatened with academic problems and manipulated with
[00:18:18] expulsion. The Russian campaign to recruit into
[00:18:21] unmanned systems troops is accompanied by several assassination attempts on
[00:18:25] public drone makers. In late July in Tula, they tried to shoot
[00:18:29] Andrey Cherizov, the head of the company Russian Air Transport
[00:18:32] Laboratory. The company is engaged in the production of Ovod
[00:18:36] drones. Now doctors assess his condition as stable.
[00:18:39] The commander not only founded the company, but also personally designed the first
[00:18:43] Ovod attack drones, and then tested them himself on the front
[00:18:46] line. Thus, the small Tula company Ovod turned into one
[00:18:50] of the leading manufacturers of combat drones in Russia with a worldwide
[00:18:53] name. On the evening of August 4, the general director of Ural-Drone-Zavod
[00:18:57] Vladimir Tkachuk survived an assassination attempt. Tkachuk's car was
[00:19:00] blown up by unknown persons near Yekaterinburg. His driver died, and he himself
[00:19:04] is in critical condition. Shkachuk is known for starting
[00:19:07] to produce Upyr drones. They are actively used by Russia
[00:19:11] on the front. His company's revenue for 2025 amounted to
[00:19:14] about 6 billion rubles. Meduza calls him the author of
[00:19:18] the "War-Obsessed" Z-channel. Tkachuk launched it back
[00:19:21] on VK after the start of hostilities in southeastern
[00:19:24] Ukraine. We will continue the topic with military expert Nikolai
[00:19:28] Mitrokhin. Nikolai, well, in the community, estimates of a year of lag are heard. And
[00:19:31] how would you assess this lag in drones in Russia from.
[00:19:35] primarily, probably, from the scale of production, in
[00:20:07] Russia they are smaller, but in terms of
[00:20:11] technical characteristics they are similar, that is, I, for
[00:20:15] example, observed today how Russian drones on an optical fiber
[00:20:19] video hunt for people in the streets of Sumy,
[00:20:22] for example, well, to Sumy, it's still about 17
[00:20:26] km in a straight line to the front, taking into account
[00:20:29] that the operators do not sit directly on the
[00:20:32] front line, this means that somewhere
[00:20:35] drones with a fishing line
[00:20:38] with an optical fiber cable for 25-30 km, well,
[00:20:42] now they are already, as it were, terrorizing, as it were,
[00:20:46] a large regional center where normal life is still going on, or
[00:20:49] trying to. So, in
[00:20:53] this regard, as it were,
[00:20:56] well, in terms of production volume, Russia
[00:20:59] is not sufficient, in terms of technical characteristics, it is quite
[00:21:02] sufficient, in terms of advanced technologies, there is a competition here, that
[00:21:06] is, there are systems that are advanced in Ukraine,
[00:21:10] for example, as it were, - what concerns heavy, heavy
[00:21:13] front-line drones that perform tasks like Baba
[00:21:17] Yaga, well, Russia has them. Most likely, Russia
[00:21:50] will try to solve
[00:21:53] the problem of massively increasing mass production
[00:21:57] of this type of drones, frankly, it's strange to me that
[00:22:00] Russia is not able to
[00:22:03] do this, well, perhaps the problem is in
[00:22:06] equipment supplies, that is, sanctions are working
[00:22:10] and
[00:22:12] Russia simply does not have enough equipment for such production, perhaps
[00:22:16] the problem is in corruption, which is also quite possible. Well,
[00:22:20] this banquet, as it were, of the head
[00:22:22] of the Aerospace Forces showed that, in general, the generals are living large,
[00:22:26] and if the generals are living large, it means that, as it were, money is not going where it should, well, thank
[00:22:30] God, we would say, you mentioned these videos, yes, of attacks on civilians,
[00:22:34] I want to slightly expand the context, there was information that, firstly, the Russian army calls
[00:22:37] this "human safari," well,
[00:22:41] and another such very bloody, very bloody episode of this
[00:22:44] war, saying a lot in this context, but if
[00:22:48] we return to what to these...
[00:23:20] in the village, in the city of Revda in Sverdlovsk Oblast, as far as I read, such
[00:23:23] immigrant human rights websites, I don't think
[00:23:27] very much, well, but a much greater effect
[00:23:30] was had, real cases spread
[00:23:34] including in the patriotic Russian press, well,
[00:23:37] when indeed experienced drone operators
[00:23:41] were deployed, transferred to assault troops, they died there in the first
[00:23:45] attack, well, this Uzyk case, which has become
[00:23:48] a meme already, well, the fact that such Uzyks did not receive
[00:23:52] any punishment, well, this most likely affects
[00:23:55] many much more strongly than any arguments
[00:23:59] of human rights defenders, well, therefore
[00:24:02] - since Russian society
[00:24:06] doesn't really trust the state and
[00:24:09] the generals, therefore, such a campaign, frankly
[00:24:11] speaking, inflated in terms of numbers of people,
[00:24:15] and of course unsuccessful, but we need to pay attention
[00:24:19] to something else, we need to pay attention to really operating Russian
[00:24:22] units, drone units, in particular,
[00:24:26] Rubicon, which has not been mentioned here yet, well, that
[00:24:29] is - under the brand of specifically taken units,
[00:24:33] which are successful, effective and really guarantee
[00:24:36] their - recruited employees, well,
[00:24:40] relatively, by the standards of this profession, safety,
[00:24:44] and we can recruit, I think, much more
[00:24:47] people, as it were, than we would like.
[00:24:51] Well, therefore - we'll see,
[00:24:54] what will happen, as it were, but the appointment, conditionally speaking, of a tank
[00:24:57] general to recruit, to recruit
[00:25:00] civilians for such an intelligent, relatively military
[00:25:03] specialty, this is not, I think, the best choice,
[00:25:07] well, but we'll see how it goes, well, and separately
[00:25:11] I want to emphasize what we mentioned in our story, two assassination attempts
[00:25:14] in a row, it turns out, on
[00:25:16] civilians, but clearly related to
[00:25:20] the military-industrial complex of Russia, clearly the products were either intended for
[00:25:24] use, or were already used at the front, correct me if necessary,
[00:25:27] but it feels like assassination attempts on those involved in the army and military-industrial complex have
[00:25:31] become more widespread in the sense that if before it concerned only Russian generals, which,
[00:25:35] by the way, generally forced them to take at least some additional
[00:25:38] security measures, now it concerns civilian
[00:25:41] chiefs as well, to what extent does this task generally arise before
[00:25:44] the Russian army, before the Russian authorities, I would even say, to
[00:25:48] strengthen security for such... centers?
[00:26:03] During this time, several were killed and even more survived assassination attempts in
[00:26:07] various forms, so this is nothing new, another question
[00:26:10] is that there was a certain period,
[00:26:14] let's say, from last September, rather
[00:26:18] to this spring, when
[00:26:21] the number of such assassination attempts decreased,
[00:26:24] possibly as a result of this,
[00:26:28] it became a result of the fact that after the killing of some prominent
[00:26:31] general,
[00:26:46] another question is that these DIY masters,
[00:26:50] yes, heads of relatively
[00:26:53] small projects, this is still
[00:26:56] a relatively easy target for assassination attempts,
[00:27:00] but in the industry of...
[00:27:32] what is being done and how the leaders of
[00:27:36] such projects know their risks, well, if
[00:27:39] I understood correctly, you are talking about these two specific cases, basically about such a thing as
[00:27:43] outsourcing for the Ministry of Defense, where small private companies are engaged in all this, as you called them,
[00:27:47] DIY masters, who decided to earn money from the war, and well,
[00:27:50] and accordingly, there is less probability that the Russian authorities will generally think about their
[00:27:54] protection, since they are supposedly supposed to measure the risks, but it is not at all a fact that they
[00:27:58] understand what is generally at stake in this situation and
[00:28:00] therefore. the question of greed, because
[00:28:04] this last citizen, with such
[00:28:07] turnovers, could have provided himself with professional security at his
[00:28:10] own expense, well, if he did not do this, he is either a very stupid
[00:28:14] person, or very greedy, or both
[00:28:16] together,
[00:28:19] well, and accordingly, I will also mention today, I will ask you very briefly, our
[00:28:22] airtime is gradually running out, I mentioned that partially air defense is outsourced to
[00:28:26] private companies and there was a specific law on this matter that it is possible
[00:28:29] to purchase equipment, will this continue
[00:28:32] further or will Russia still have to expand the air defense zone, at least to companies
[00:28:36] that are extremely important for the country?
[00:28:39] In Russia, at the state level, the
[00:28:42] air defense zone is not expanding, it is shrinking, that is,
[00:28:46] the defense of Moscow is being strengthened, Pantsir
[00:28:50] installations are all being moved to it, there are fewer and
[00:28:52] fewer missiles, the percentage of Ukrainian drones
[00:28:56] breaking through is getting higher and higher, well, unfortunately, our airtime is running out,
[00:28:59] but you managed to answer my question.
[00:29:02] Thank you very much for that, military expert Nikolai Mitrokhin was with us today, we'll see you tomorrow,
[00:29:06] dear viewers, goodbye,
[00:29:26] the amazing story of Alexander Gabyshev,
[00:29:28] who is known for walking from Yakutia to Moscow.
[00:30:04] In Ukraine, we have always talked about unique places
[00:30:07] and unique people, but that was
[00:30:10] before, since February
[00:30:13] 2022, everything changed
[00:30:16] because of the war, we are showing a new
[00:30:20] history of Ukraine, about
[00:30:23] an incredible strength of spirit, about fighting despite
[00:30:26] everything.
[00:30:31] Watch. Local project of Radio Svoboda and Current Time TV channel,
[00:30:35] what is really happening in Ukraine.
[00:30:52] Ukraine scales up middle strikes. The Ukrainian army
[00:30:56] actively hits the operational rear of the Russian army under attack.