CURRENTTIME — broadcast
20260807 073000 UTC
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[00:00:50] The improvement of the Ministry of Defense's
[00:00:53] structure continues in connection with
[00:00:57] the needs and experience of the special
[00:01:01] operation. Personnel rotation of personnel. Putin
[00:01:04] announced the unification of the rear services
[00:01:06] of the Ministry of Defense. He seeks to improve, as it were,
[00:01:09] the management of the war, but at the same time not to put forward any
[00:01:13] general who would look like his competitor. And about
[00:01:16] the change of the head of the UAV forces. The previous head
[00:01:19] was engaged in selling plumbing. In parallel, in Russia,
[00:01:23] assassination attempts continue on the heads of factories that are
[00:01:26] related to the production of drones.
[00:01:39] reshuffles in the Russian army. Vladimir
[00:01:43] Putin personally announced them. This took Putin as much as 7 minutes
[00:01:47] in the public part of the meeting with the military, judging by
[00:01:50] the video recording of the Kremlin press service. There are some curious moments in these reshuffles, in particular
[00:01:54] the appearance of a unified rear service of the Ministry of Defense.
[00:01:57] My colleague Andrei Shilov will tell more.
[00:02:05] large-scale reshuffles in the Ministry of Defense, the Russian president vaguely
[00:02:09] explained the needs and experience of the special military operation,
[00:02:13] as the Kremlin calls the war with Ukraine. The last major reorganization, or rather
[00:02:16] purge, was in this sector 2 years ago, when after the change of the Minister
[00:02:20] of Defense, the entire management team and many
[00:02:23] colleagues of the ex-head of the department Shoigu were arrested. The current
[00:02:27] reshuffles are not so radical and are more likely associated with the very slow
[00:02:30] advance of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine, official
[00:02:34] Russian media interpret the reshuffles as the direction of combat
[00:02:37] generals to mend the rear. Colonel General Valery
[00:02:41] Saladchuk moved from the post of commander of the troops of the Central Military District
[00:02:44] to Deputy Minister of Defense to organize the logistical
[00:02:48] support of the troops. As Deputy Minister Colonel General Alexander
[00:02:51] Sanchik, who was previously responsible for the material and technical support
[00:02:55] of the troops, is now in charge of organizing orders for weapons, equipment and
[00:02:58] technical support. Komsomolskaya Pravda describes it this way: everything that
[00:03:02] concerns weapons is now in one hand, all rear
[00:03:06] services are also in one fist. Another Deputy Minister
[00:03:09] of Defense, Alexey Krivoruchko, was reassigned to develop
[00:03:12] promising weapons and military and special equipment.
[00:03:16] The story with especially promising equipment, drones, got its
[00:03:19] continuation with the appointment of Colonel General Denis Lyamin
[00:03:22] as the head of the department of unmanned
[00:03:26] systems. The new type of troops is only
[00:03:30] being formed, catching up with more dynamic Ukraine in this area,
[00:03:33] where the path from the first presidential decrees to the actual creation
[00:03:36] of a type of troops took the entire year 2024. Similar
[00:03:40] troops in Russia were presented by the Minister of Defense as an idea in December
[00:03:43] 2024, and their creation was planned to be completed in the third
[00:03:47] quarter of 2025. I want to express my hope that
[00:03:50] you, and so
[00:03:54] believes the minister, the chief of the general
[00:03:57] staff, you, being one of the most qualified
[00:04:01] specialists, as I already said, will bring to
[00:04:04] completion the formation of this new
[00:04:08] type of troops of unmanned systems and lead it in the near
[00:04:12] future. In place of those promoted up the career ladder, Colonel General Andrei
[00:04:15] Ivanaev was appointed as the new commander of the Central Military District troops.
[00:04:19] He previously commanded the Eastern Military District troops, and
[00:04:23] Colonel General Pyotr Bolgarev, who was his chief of staff,
[00:04:26] was appointed as acting commander in his place. The reshuffles in the military
[00:04:30] top brass are commented on with optimism by pro-government and pro-war
[00:04:33] Telegram channels. The disruption of procurement and supply of drones to the front,
[00:04:37] which led to the actual halt of the further advance of troops,
[00:04:40] predetermined the last personnel decisions of the supreme
[00:04:43] commander-in-chief. Marshal Zhukov's famous phrase "The rear is
[00:04:46] half the victory" became the main motive for the new personnel decisions
[00:04:50] of the supreme commander-in-chief. Putin's logic is extremely
[00:04:53] clear. Who, if not combat commanders, knows best
[00:04:57] what the soldiers need right now. Our correspondent
[00:05:12] mentioned that, according to analysts at the American Institute
[00:05:16] for the Study of War, the fact that these are precisely reshuffles among
[00:05:19] existing commanders, and not the promotion of new ones, who
[00:05:23] could change something, inject fresh blood, so to speak, metaphorically, but
[00:05:27] the unified rear service is interesting against the backdrop, the Institute
[00:05:30] for the Study of War notes, of ongoing successful air
[00:05:33] attacks on the AFU. We have discussed many times on our airwaves, our
[00:05:37] experts said that it is simply impossible to cover all of Russia with air defense systems,
[00:05:40] even if one considers: strictly important for the military-industrial complex and for
[00:05:44] the Russian army production, organizations, factories and so on,
[00:05:48] including, therefore, the Russian authorities are ready to hand over defense to those
[00:05:52] corporations who can afford it, while the task in the Kremlin's
[00:05:56] mind, most likely, is not to overdo it with the appointment
[00:05:59] of confident chiefs too high, too
[00:06:02] long, so that it does not turn into political competition
[00:06:06] for Putin, so believes analyst Sergey Shelin, we spoke with him before the start
[00:06:10] of our broadcast, we... it's unlikely
[00:06:13] that we can say whether he is gripped by panic or just
[00:06:16] his usual fear, Putin actually lives in
[00:06:19] fear, so we can call it
[00:06:22] constant panic, we can not, but he is always afraid for his
[00:06:26] position as ruler of Russia, why
[00:06:30] he is changing generals now, well, he is probably
[00:06:33] dissatisfied with the results of their
[00:06:35] work,
[00:06:37] that's understandable, in general, he has, he should have complaints
[00:06:41] against them, but... he must solve two tasks that are
[00:06:44] easily calculated: he seeks to improve, as it were,
[00:06:48] the leadership of the war, but at the same time not to nominate any
[00:06:51] general who would look like his competitor, that is
[00:06:55] the most important task that he has always set for
[00:06:58] himself, and even for any unpopular,
[00:07:01] for example, action, like the withdrawal of troops from Kherson, he put
[00:07:04] Surovikin, as we remember, immediately after that he removed him, because
[00:07:08] Surovikin looked not so much like a pale figure.
[00:07:42] towards the Center group. East was considered the most
[00:07:46] successful in terms of
[00:07:49] development, in terms of attacks, among all groups
[00:07:52] of the Russian army. That is, they during
[00:07:56] the period from 2023 captured the most
[00:07:59] Ukrainian territory in reality.
[00:08:02] So, against the backdrop of a factual
[00:08:04] failure, one can directly say, for the last month, a complete
[00:08:08] halt to the Russian offensive on the most important
[00:08:11] central sector of the front, well, accordingly, the
[00:08:14] head of this central
[00:08:17] group is moved, and in his place the commander of the successful
[00:08:20] group is appointed. Will it help or not, that's an open
[00:08:23] question, I would say probably not, because
[00:08:27] the problem of the Center group is not
[00:08:30] that
[00:08:33] the command is not decisive enough, but that they reached
[00:08:36] the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk fortified area, which has been prepared since
[00:08:40] 2014. And there are totally
[00:08:44] mined fields, while the Ukrainians
[00:08:48] managed to significantly reduce logistics
[00:08:52] during late July, early
[00:08:55] July, late June, early July, and the group
[00:08:58] was left without additional, so to speak, without additional
[00:09:01] supplies. So, but Putin knows
[00:09:05] best whom he wants to see there as commander.
[00:09:09] Well, what can be opposed to what is happening at the front
[00:09:12] right now? I mean, the very fact that the war has transformed,
[00:09:15] in essence, into a drone race, whoever has more of them and whoever is more
[00:09:19] active, essentially controls the situation in the
[00:09:22] widest grey zone along the line of combat contact,
[00:09:25] as it is called, if I'm not mistaken, up to 50 km, this whole
[00:09:29] story turns out, can this really change the situation in the Kramatorsk
[00:09:33] direction? Well, probably not, although,
[00:09:36] as they say, there are always some things that the
[00:09:39] current command doesn't see.
[00:09:50] it is possible to do something there, especially if the new
[00:09:54] commander receives additional resources for his task,
[00:09:57] which were not given to the previous one, because they did not believe in the previous one, that
[00:10:01] happens. But in
[00:10:03] general, of course, the situation at the front line is stable,
[00:10:07] it will be stable, including, as you rightly said, due to
[00:10:11] the active use of drones.
[00:10:14] Therefore, I do not see Russia making significant
[00:10:18] progress after some reassignments. Another
[00:10:21] question is that the problem
[00:10:24] of Russia with
[00:10:27] increasing the number of drones
[00:10:30] used is very
[00:10:33] noticeable. So it is clear
[00:10:36] that the production and use
[00:10:39] of drones in Ukraine is growing at a much higher rate than in Russia.
[00:10:43] It seems that Belous, after his appointment, set
[00:10:47] a goal to at least achieve parity, or even
[00:10:50] surpass Ukraine in terms of drones, and in the first year
[00:10:53] of his appointment, the situation changed in this
[00:10:57] regard, but for the last six months, there has
[00:11:00] been a complete stagnation.
[00:11:02] Russia has again started
[00:11:05] to significantly lose the drone race,
[00:11:09] production, that is the main problem is the scale
[00:11:13] of production of these drones, and there, insiders, let's say,
[00:11:17] Russian military personnel started talking about the fact
[00:11:19] that - again the same situation with
[00:11:22] corruption schemes, with the supply... of substandard
[00:11:25] drones to the troops and so on and so forth, they blamed
[00:11:29] the former acting head
[00:11:33] of the unmanned forces, nicknamed Yura
[00:11:36] "Toilet," because he was engaged in plumbing before he started
[00:11:40] engaging in this, by the way, we will come back to him, we want to talk a little later,
[00:11:43] a little more in detail about his history and the reasons for the dissatisfaction of the so-called
[00:11:46] bloggers, his candidacy and his position in
[00:11:49] these very troops, which, according to Putin, are being recreated for the umpteenth time, still
[00:11:53] in the process, but... if we go back to this clearly absent parity
[00:11:57] among drones on both sides, Ukraine's obvious advantage, we clearly
[00:12:01] see these consequences, this includes clear signs of a fuel crisis, and losses at the Walberis
[00:12:05] company, which, with some
[00:12:08] how much does this factor of drone attacks on
[00:12:12] the rear affect decisions in the Kremlin, if we judge these recent decisions on
[00:12:16] reassignments, and is it possible in this situation to assume that this
[00:12:19] clear demonstration of recognizing the problem, in one form or another, in what
[00:12:22] Putin usually allows himself?
[00:12:26] I wouldn't say that, since
[00:12:29] changes in commanders regularly occur in the Russian
[00:12:32] army, you might have noticed, so to speak, most
[00:12:35] of the current commanders of directions, their age is
[00:12:38] on average 50 years old, or
[00:12:41] younger, yes, so to speak,
[00:12:43] so there is enough fresh blood there,
[00:12:47] the question is indeed in the systemic
[00:12:50] consequences of technological development in war, here
[00:12:53] on the one hand. the consequences of the Ukrainian blockade
[00:12:57] of the Russian rear are felt, another question is
[00:13:00] that this blockade is not very consistent,
[00:13:03] so on the one hand the Russian military leadership
[00:13:07] seeks to minimize it, in particular large
[00:13:10] forces were directed to
[00:13:14] accompany truck convoys in the
[00:13:17] occupied territories, that is, there are many
[00:13:21] of these mobile fire groups, they apparently shoot down some drones.
[00:13:25] As a result, supplies have actually resumed over the last,
[00:13:29] well, about a month, less than a month, in the last 3 weeks
[00:13:33] supplies to the rear have generally resumed,
[00:13:37] despite some losses, but they are apparently not significant
[00:13:40] enough to stop all this movement. So
[00:13:43] here the situation depends on the actions of two
[00:13:47] sides, how consistent Ukraine will be, how many drones
[00:13:50] of such medium
[00:13:53] range it will have to block
[00:13:57] routes, how Russia, the Russian leadership
[00:14:00] will develop and, most importantly, be able
[00:14:04] to mass produce some
[00:14:06] anti-drone measures. So, apparently,
[00:14:10] judging by the appointment of the commander of the unmanned
[00:14:13] systems forces, this will be,
[00:14:17] as it were, a more experienced leader than before, including
[00:14:20] a military one. How far his managerial competencies will be enough
[00:14:23] to expand the bottleneck between drone
[00:14:27] manufacturers and army drone consumers, I
[00:14:30] don't know, only time will tell. What do you think, by the way, about Putin's
[00:14:33] unwillingness to promote one or another chief too strongly? Our interlocutor
[00:14:37] Sergey Shelin sees precisely such a strategy, as it were, in
[00:14:41] the Kremlin? Well, frankly speaking,
[00:14:44] I don't believe that a general capable
[00:14:47] of being a political competitor to
[00:14:50] Putin can appear in Russia. In
[00:14:53] principle, the entire...
[00:15:10] In these changes, I see more of a desire to strengthen military potential,
[00:15:14] to find, as it were, normal, advanced
[00:15:17] experienced commanders directly from the fields.
[00:15:21] That is, this is rather a response to the appointment of Daropatov.
[00:16:47] had no relation to the army and was engaged in selling plumbing, which is why in the so-called
[00:16:50] "z-blogs" he acquired the nickname "Toilet."
[00:16:54] The question is that he is a complete swindler, who before the start
[00:16:57] of the story traded plumbing, from which this nickname
[00:17:00] appeared,
[00:17:02] after which he suddenly became, with the help of certain
[00:17:06] people, a monopolist in supplying to... dismissed
[00:17:17] from his post 500 billion plus
[00:17:20] general technological lag from the enemy by a year plus
[00:17:23] the lives of soldiers. If the rear services need a deputy for
[00:17:26] toilets, then the ministry knows one genius,
[00:17:30] with the call sign G starting. In this matter,
[00:17:33] I do not intend to dispute his competencies. Under Vaganov, the
[00:17:36] Ministry of Defense. launched a large-scale campaign to recruit
[00:17:39] drone operators into the new forces. In early
[00:17:42] 2026, advertisements met Russians on
[00:17:45] social networks and billboards. Drone operators, students,
[00:17:49] IT specialists, electronics and
[00:17:52] radio engineering specialists were invited to the forces. In March
[00:17:56] 2026, the publication "Important Stories," citing Ministry of Defense documents,
[00:17:59] reported on the department's plans to recruit almost 80,000 people into the drone forces
[00:18:03] by the end of the year. The recruitment failed, and after almost six months, in
[00:18:07] June, at a meeting of the Ministry of Defense Collegium, it was reported about the training
[00:18:10] of a much smaller number of specialists. The trained
[00:18:13] unit is capable of independently performing tasks in separate operational
[00:18:16] tactical directions. In total, during the past period, about
[00:18:20] 8,000 specialists have been trained. According to the plan, among the 80
[00:18:24] thousand people, students of civilian universities were also supposed to be
[00:18:28] included. In April, the publication Groza recorded at least
[00:18:31] 269 educational institutions where students
[00:18:34] were agitated to go serve allegedly in UAV forces.
[00:18:37] Students in various regions had their retake deadlines shortened,
[00:18:41] were threatened with academic problems, and were manipulated
[00:18:43] into expulsion. The Russian campaign to recruit for the unmanned
[00:18:47] systems forces is accompanied by several assassination attempts on public
[00:18:51] drone manufacturers. In late July, in Tula, they tried to shoot Andrey
[00:18:55] Cherizov, the head of the company "Russian Laboratory
[00:18:58] of Air Transport." The company is engaged in the production of Ovod
[00:19:01] drones. Currently, doctors assess his condition as stable.
[00:19:05] The commander not only founded the company,
[00:19:07] but also personally designed the first Ovod attack drones, and then personally
[00:19:11] tested them on the front line, so the small Tula company Ovod
[00:19:15] turned into one of the leading manufacturers of combat drones in Russia
[00:19:18] with a global reputation. In the evening of August 4, an assassination
[00:19:22] attempt was made on the CEO of Ural-Drone-Factory Vladimir
[00:19:24] Tkachuk. Tkachuk's car was blown up by unknown assailants
[00:19:28] near Yekaterinburg. His driver died, and he himself is in critical
[00:19:31] condition. Vladimir Tkachuk is known for starting to produce
[00:19:35] Upyr drones. They are actively used
[00:19:37] by Russia at the front, his company's revenue for 2025
[00:19:41] amounted to about 6 billion rubles. Meduza calls him
[00:19:45] the author of the z-channel "War-Obsessed," which Tkachuk launched
[00:19:48] on VK after the start of hostilities in southeastern
[00:19:51] Ukraine. We will continue the topic with military expert Nikolai
[00:19:55] Mitrokhin. Nikolai, well, the community voices estimates of a year of lag, and
[00:19:59] how would you assess this lag in drones for Russia from
[00:20:02] Ukraine, how far is this from the truth or vice versa, very
[00:20:05] close? I... would say that one should
[00:20:09] evaluate by different groups of drones,
[00:20:12] for example, Ukraine does not have jet drones or,
[00:20:15] well, does not have industrial production, Russia
[00:20:19] started producing "Tehran 5," and for Ukraine this is
[00:20:22] a significant problem. As for FPV
[00:20:26] drones, I would say this, that
[00:20:30] - it depends primarily, probably, on the scale
[00:20:33] of production, in Russia they are smaller. But in terms of technical
[00:20:36] characteristics, they are similar, that is, today, for example, I
[00:20:40] observed how Russian drones on optical fiber on
[00:20:43] a video hunted people in the streets of Sumy,
[00:20:46] for example, so... Well, about 17 km, also considering that
[00:20:54] operators don't sit right on the front line,
[00:20:57] this means that somewhere drones with
[00:21:01] a line, with an optical fiber cable
[00:21:04] for 25-30 km, are already, as it were,
[00:21:08] terrorizing a large regional center
[00:21:11] in which normal life is still going on, or at least
[00:21:15] trying to, so in
[00:21:18] this regard,
[00:21:21] but in terms of production volume, Russia
[00:21:24] is insufficient, in terms of technical characteristics it is quite
[00:21:27] sufficient, in terms of advanced technologies, there is
[00:21:30] a competition, that is, there are systems
[00:21:33] that are advanced in Ukraine, for example,
[00:21:37] as for heavy, heavy drones, frontline ones, which
[00:21:40] perform tasks like Baba Yaga, Russia
[00:21:44] has a priority in drones like Molniya,
[00:21:48] these are, let's say, medium-range drones, mainly
[00:21:51] with various technical
[00:21:54] adaptations for different tasks, so
[00:21:57] it is clear that primarily the
[00:22:01] Z-community talks about
[00:22:04] FPV drones and their shortcomings on
[00:22:08] the front, indeed, there are something like
[00:22:11] 10 Ukrainian drones for every Russian drone,
[00:22:15] and most likely Russia will try
[00:22:17] to solve the problem.
[00:23:20] recruitment into these very troops, and perhaps according to your information, there are
[00:23:23] data on personnel shortages in these very troops, it is clear that there was a campaign
[00:23:26] by human rights defenders warning that contact with the Ministry of Defense does not guarantee
[00:23:30] at all entry into this very type of troops, how effective do you think this
[00:23:34] turned out to be as such an anti-measure, so to speak, for recruitment into
[00:23:38] the Russian army? It's quite difficult to assess
[00:23:42] how such companies work on a mass scale, well, in the
[00:23:45] village in the city of Revda in Sverdlovsk region, as they say.
[00:23:49] what will happen, but the appointment,
[00:25:20] figuratively speaking,
[00:25:22] of a tank general to recruit, to recruit
[00:25:26] civilians, for such a relatively intelligent military
[00:25:29] specialty, this is not, it seems to me, the best choice,
[00:25:32] but we'll see how it goes. And I also
[00:25:36] want to emphasize what we mentioned in our story, two successive
[00:25:40] assassination attempts on
[00:25:43] civilians who are clearly involved in Russia's military-industrial complex,
[00:25:47] clearly products that were either intended to be used
[00:25:51] or have already been used at the front, correct me if necessary, but it seems that
[00:25:54] assassination attempts on those involved in the army and military-industrial complex have become more widespread,
[00:25:58] in the sense that if before it only concerned Russian generals, which, by the way, actually
[00:26:01] forced them to take at least some additional security measures, now
[00:26:05] it also concerns civilian leaders, how much does
[00:26:09] this pose such a task for the Russian army, for
[00:26:12] the Russian authorities, I would even say, to strengthen security for such
[00:26:15] leaders? Well, in principle,
[00:26:18] assassination attempts on the leaders of the Russian military-industrial complex
[00:26:22] have been happening, well, at least since 2003, from the very beginning, that is,
[00:26:26] several directors of various scientific and technical centers
[00:26:29] have been killed during this time, and even more assassination attempts
[00:26:33] in various forms, so this is nothing new, another question
[00:26:36] is that there was a certain period,
[00:26:40] let's say, from last September, rather
[00:26:43] to this spring, when
[00:26:46] the number of such assassination attempts decreased,
[00:26:50] possibly as a result of the fact that after the murder of
[00:26:53] major generals, lieutenant generals and all that, Russia carried out
[00:26:57] very intense bombings.
[00:27:01] очень интенсивные бомбёжки.
[00:27:10] the assassination attempts sharply increased, another question is that these
[00:27:14] self-made masters, yes,
[00:27:17] leaders of relatively small
[00:27:20] projects, are still a relatively easy target for
[00:27:24] assassination attempts, but in the
[00:27:27] drone production industry, other enterprises dominate,
[00:27:30] in particular. since they, it seems, should weigh
[00:28:20] the risks, but it's not at all certain that they
[00:28:23] understand what is being talked about in this situation and therefore here
[00:28:27] the question, here the question is about greed, because this
[00:28:30] last citizen, as it were,
[00:28:32] with such turnovers could have provided professional security for his
[00:28:36] money, if he didn't do that, he is either a very stupid
[00:28:39] person, or very greedy, or both together,
[00:28:42] well, and accordingly, I mentioned
[00:28:44] today, I will ask you very briefly, our airtime is gradually running out,
[00:28:48] I mentioned that air defense is partially outsourced to private
[00:28:52] companies and there was a specific law on this that you can
[00:28:54] purchase equipment, will this tactic continue
[00:28:58] or will Russia still have to expand the air defense zone at least to companies,
[00:29:02] which...
[00:30:24] Please, put all lists
[00:30:28] of extremists, neo-Nazis, I wrote it in my passport.
[00:30:33] Khulo, and this is my official and principled
[00:30:36] position, well, it's a shame, damn it, well, there's someone, but not
[00:30:39] me, well...