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00:00:25improvement of the structure of the Ministry of Defense continues
00:00:28in connection with the
00:00:31needs and experience of the special
00:00:34military operation. Personnel rotation of personnel.
00:00:37Putin announced the unification of the rear services
00:00:40of the Ministry of Defense. He strives to improve the
00:00:44leadership of the war, but at the same time not to nominate any
00:00:47general who would look like his competitor. And about
00:00:51the change of the head of the UAV troops. The previous chief
00:00:54was engaged in selling plumbing. In parallel, in Russia,
00:00:57assassination attempts continue on the heads of factories
00:01:00involved in the production of
00:01:02drones.
00:01:07Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcasts and the Current Time TV channel shows.
00:01:10The program "Face to Face with the Event" is on air. Hello, and today we will talk about
00:01:14reshuffles in the Russian army. They were personally announced by Vladimir
00:01:17Putin. In the public part of the meeting with the military, Putin
00:01:21spent as many as 7 minutes on this, judging by the video recording of the
00:01:24Kremlin press service. There are some curious moments in these
00:01:27reshuffles, in particular, the appearance.
00:01:40The large-scale reshuffles in the Ministry of Defense, the Russian president
00:01:43vaguely explained by the needs and experience of
00:01:46the special military operation, as the Kremlin calls the war with Ukraine. The previous major
00:01:49reorganization, or rather a purge, was in this sector 2 years ago,
00:01:53when after the change of the Minister of Defense, the entire management team
00:01:57and many colleagues of the former head of the department, Shoigu, were arrested. The current
00:02:01reshuffles are not so radical and are rather connected with the not so
00:02:05fast advance of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine. Official
00:02:08Russian media interpret the reshuffles as sending combat
00:02:12generals to repair the rear. Colonel-General Valery Saladchuk
00:02:16from the position of commander of the troops of the Central Military District became
00:02:19Deputy Minister of Defense to organize logistical support
00:02:23for the troops. For Deputy Minister Colonel-General Alexander
00:02:26Sanchik, who was previously responsible for the material and technical support
00:02:29of the troops, now the organization of weapons orders, equipment and
00:02:32technical support. Komsomolskaya Pravda describes it this way: everything that
00:02:36concerns weapons is now in one hand, all rear
00:02:40services are also in one fist. Another Deputy Minister of
00:02:43Defense, Alexey Krivoruchko, has been reassigned to develop
00:02:47promising weapons of military and special equipment.
00:02:50The story with especially promising equipment - drones received its
00:02:54continuation with the appointment of Colonel-General Denis Lyamin
00:02:57as head of the troops.
00:03:30Chief of the General Staff, you, being one of
00:03:34the most qualified specialists, as I have already said,
00:03:37will bring to completion
00:03:40the formation of this new branch of troops, unmanned
00:03:44systems, and will lead it in the near future. In place of those moved up the
00:03:48career ladder, Colonel-General Andrey Ivanaev was appointed
00:03:52the new commander of the troops of the Central Military District. He previously commanded
00:03:55the troops of the Eastern District, and his place as acting
00:03:59was appointed.
00:04:30Commanders know best what the soldiers need right now.
00:04:33The details of what the soldiers need right now remained
00:04:37behind the scenes. Meeting with the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
00:04:41The key difference of the current reshuffles, from those de facto purges in
00:04:44the Ministry of Defense two years ago, which our correspondent mentioned, according
00:04:48to analysts at the American Institute for the Study of War, is
00:04:52that these are precisely reshuffles among current commanders, and
00:04:55not promotions of new ones, but who could change something, somehow inject
00:04:59fresh blood, so to speak metaphorically, but the unified
00:05:01rear services are curious against the background, as noted by the Institute for the Study
00:05:05of War, of the ongoing successful air attacks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. We
00:05:09have discussed many times in our broadcasts, our experts said that: it is
00:05:12simply impossible to completely cover all of Russia with air defense systems, even if
00:05:16we take into account only those production facilities, organizations,
00:05:19factories, and so on that are extremely important for the military-industrial complex and for the Russian army. And
00:05:23therefore, the Russian authorities are ready to outsource defense to those
00:05:26corporations that can afford it. At the same time, the task in the minds of the
00:05:30Kremlin is most likely not to overdo it with the appointment of
00:05:33self-confident chiefs too high, too
00:05:36long, so that it does not turn into political competition for
00:05:40Putin. This is what analyst Sergey thinks.
00:06:12it's clear, in general, he has, he must have complaints
00:06:15against them, but he must solve two tasks that
00:06:19are easily readable: he strives to improve, as it were,
00:06:22the leadership of the war, but at the same time not to nominate any
00:06:26general who would look like his competitor, that is, this is
00:06:29the most important task that he always set for
00:06:32himself, and even for some unpopular,
00:06:35for example, action, like the withdrawal of troops from Kherson, he appointed
00:06:39Surovikin, as we remember, immediately after that he removed him. because
00:06:42Surovikin looked not sufficiently such a
00:06:46pale figure, so I think that now it's about the
00:06:49same, Putin is trying to pick some simultaneously
00:06:52faceless, but at the same time, as it were, better coping with the work
00:06:56generals. And with us live military expert Nikolai
00:07:00Mitrokhin. Nikolai, hello,
00:07:02hello, I want to know for starters your impression, what in practice
00:07:06can change in the Russian army with these reshuffles, what would you
00:07:09pay attention to first of all here?
00:07:42from the complete halt of the Russian offensive on the main
00:07:45central sector of the front, well, accordingly, as it were,
00:07:48uh, the head of this central
00:07:51grouping is moved, and in his place the commander of a successful
00:07:54grouping is appointed, will it help or not,
00:07:58as it were, an open question, I would say probably not, because
00:08:01the problem of the center grouping is not that
00:08:05uh, the command there is not decisive
00:08:08enough, it's that they reached Slavyansk...
00:08:22at the same time, as it were, the Ukrainians managed to significantly
00:08:25reduce logistics during the end of
00:08:28July, beginning of July, end of June, beginning of
00:08:31July, and the grouping was left without additional, so
00:08:34to speak, without additional supplies, well,
00:08:38Putin knows best who he wants to see there as
00:08:41commander. But what can be
00:08:45opposed to what is happening at the front right now, I mean
00:08:48the very fact that the war has essentially transformed
00:08:51into a drone race, whoever has more of them, whoever is more active, essentially
00:08:55controls the situation in the widest gray
00:08:58zone along the combat line of contact, so to speak, if I'm not
00:09:01mistaken, it's up to 50 km this whole story turns out to be,
00:09:04can this really change the situation in the Karmatorsk
00:09:07direction? Well, hardly, although
00:09:10what is it called?
00:09:43including, as you rightly said, at the expense of, as it were,
00:09:46the active use of drones, so
00:09:49I don't see Russia significantly advancing after
00:09:53some reappointments, another question is
00:09:56that, in fact, as it were, the
00:09:59problem of Russia with
00:10:03increasing the number of used
00:10:05drones, well, that is, it is clear
00:10:09that production and use in Ukraine
00:10:13is growing at a much higher rate than in Russia,
00:10:17Belousov, after his appointment, set
00:10:21the goal of at least achieving parity, or even
00:10:25surpassing Ukraine in terms of drones, and the first year
00:10:28after his appointment, the situation changed in this
00:10:31regard, but for the last six months, there has clearly
00:10:34been a complete stagnation,
00:10:38well, Russia again began to seriously lose
00:10:41the drone race, production, that is,
00:10:45the main problem is the scale of production of these very drones,
00:10:49and there, insiders, so to speak, Russian military personnel began to talk about
00:10:53the fact that... again the same situation with
00:10:57corruption schemes, with supplying the troops with
00:11:00low-quality drones and so on and so forth, they blamed
00:11:04the former acting head of
00:11:07unmanned troops, nicknamed "Toilet,"
00:11:11because he was engaged in plumbing before he started
00:11:14doing, we'll actually get back to him and want to tell his story in more detail
00:11:18a little later, and yes, the reason for the discontent of the so-called
00:11:21Z-bloggers with his candidacy and his position in these very.
00:13:02As a result, the supply really recovered in the last month or so, a little less than
00:13:06a month, in the last 3 weeks, the supply of toilets in general
00:13:09and completely
00:13:12resumed, despite some losses, but they are apparently not significant
00:13:16enough to stop all this movement, so
00:13:20the situation here depends on the actions of two sides, how consistent Ukraine will be,
00:13:23how much it will have...
00:13:55how much his managerial competence will be enough to broaden
00:13:59this bottleneck in the connection between
00:14:03drone manufacturers and military drone consumers, I
00:14:06don't know, only time will tell, and what do you think, by the way, about
00:14:09Putin's reluctance to promote one chief or another too much, our
00:14:13interlocutor Sergey Shelin sees exactly such a strategy, so to speak, in
00:14:16the Kremlin? Well, frankly, I
00:14:20don't believe that a general capable of
00:14:24becoming...
00:14:55experienced commanders, that is, it is rather a response to the appointment of
00:14:58Daropatov as commander-in-chief,
00:15:01rather than, as it were, to internal Russian political intrigues,
00:15:04well, I already spoiled it separately, today I want to talk about a specific unit of the Russian
00:15:08army with specific former and current warlords with curious
00:15:11call signs, or rather nicknames, even the call sign there was a little different,
00:15:15well, again and again, Vladimir Putin or his warlords make promises, sometimes
00:15:19with specific deadlines, about the creation of such UAV troops, but from the Russian
00:15:22from... 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
00:15:29actively being recruited there, well, at least such attempts are being made,
00:15:33the appointed head of drones, Lieutenant General Denis.
00:15:36he suddenly became,
00:16:37with the help of certain individuals, a monopolist
00:16:41in the supply of, for example, FPVs to the Russian armed forces of the Russian Federation
00:16:44during the SVO. The removal of Vaganov from his post was met positively
00:16:48in the Z-community. Vaganov - the "Toilet" menace, removed from
00:16:52his post for 500 billion, plus a general technological lag
00:16:56behind the enemy of a year, plus the lives of soldiers. If the rear services
00:16:59need a deputy for toilets, then the ministry
00:17:02knows one genius, whose call sign starts with G. In this
00:17:06matter, I do not intend to dispute his
00:17:09competence. Under Vaganov, the Ministry of Defense launched a large-scale campaign to
00:17:13recruit drone operators into new troops. In early
00:17:162026, advertisements met Russians on social
00:17:20networks and billboards. Drone operators,
00:17:24students, IT specialists, electronics and
00:17:27radio engineering specialists were invited to the troops. In March
00:17:302026, the publication "Important Stories," citing Ministry of Defense
00:17:34documents, reported on the department's plans to recruit almost 80,000
00:17:38people into drone troops by the end of the year. The recruitment failed. Almost six months
00:17:41later, in July, at a meeting of the Ministry of Defense board, they reported on the training
00:17:45of a much smaller number of specialists. A trained
00:17:47unit is capable of independently performing tasks in individual operational
00:17:51and tactical directions. In total, during the past period, about
00:17:55800 specialists have been trained. According to the plan, among the 80
00:17:58thousand people were supposed to be, among others, students of civilian
00:18:02universities. In April, the publication Groza recorded at least
00:18:05269 training
00:18:07sessions, in which students were agitated to go and serve allegedly in UAV
00:18:11troops. Students in various regions had their re-examination periods shortened,
00:18:14were threatened with academic problems and manipulated with
00:18:18expulsion. The Russian campaign to recruit into
00:18:21unmanned systems troops is accompanied by several assassination attempts on
00:18:25public drone makers. In late July in Tula, they tried to shoot
00:18:29Andrey Cherizov, the head of the company Russian Air Transport
00:18:32Laboratory. The company is engaged in the production of Ovod
00:18:36drones. Now doctors assess his condition as stable.
00:18:39The commander not only founded the company, but also personally designed the first
00:18:43Ovod attack drones, and then tested them himself on the front
00:18:46line. Thus, the small Tula company Ovod turned into one
00:18:50of the leading manufacturers of combat drones in Russia with a worldwide
00:18:53name. On the evening of August 4, the general director of Ural-Drone-Zavod
00:18:57Vladimir Tkachuk survived an assassination attempt. Tkachuk's car was
00:19:00blown up by unknown persons near Yekaterinburg. His driver died, and he himself
00:19:04is in critical condition. Shkachuk is known for starting
00:19:07to produce Upyr drones. They are actively used by Russia
00:19:11on the front. His company's revenue for 2025 amounted to
00:19:14about 6 billion rubles. Meduza calls him the author of
00:19:18the "War-Obsessed" Z-channel. Tkachuk launched it back
00:19:21on VK after the start of hostilities in southeastern
00:19:24Ukraine. We will continue the topic with military expert Nikolai
00:19:28Mitrokhin. Nikolai, well, in the community, estimates of a year of lag are heard. And
00:19:31how would you assess this lag in drones in Russia from.
00:19:35primarily, probably, from the scale of production, in
00:20:07Russia they are smaller, but in terms of
00:20:11technical characteristics they are similar, that is, I, for
00:20:15example, observed today how Russian drones on an optical fiber
00:20:19video hunt for people in the streets of Sumy,
00:20:22for example, well, to Sumy, it's still about 17
00:20:26km in a straight line to the front, taking into account
00:20:29that the operators do not sit directly on the
00:20:32front line, this means that somewhere
00:20:35drones with a fishing line
00:20:38with an optical fiber cable for 25-30 km, well,
00:20:42now they are already, as it were, terrorizing, as it were,
00:20:46a large regional center where normal life is still going on, or
00:20:49trying to. So, in
00:20:53this regard, as it were,
00:20:56well, in terms of production volume, Russia
00:20:59is not sufficient, in terms of technical characteristics, it is quite
00:21:02sufficient, in terms of advanced technologies, there is a competition here, that
00:21:06is, there are systems that are advanced in Ukraine,
00:21:10for example, as it were, - what concerns heavy, heavy
00:21:13front-line drones that perform tasks like Baba
00:21:17Yaga, well, Russia has them. Most likely, Russia
00:21:50will try to solve
00:21:53the problem of massively increasing mass production
00:21:57of this type of drones, frankly, it's strange to me that
00:22:00Russia is not able to
00:22:03do this, well, perhaps the problem is in
00:22:06equipment supplies, that is, sanctions are working
00:22:10and
00:22:12Russia simply does not have enough equipment for such production, perhaps
00:22:16the problem is in corruption, which is also quite possible. Well,
00:22:20this banquet, as it were, of the head
00:22:22of the Aerospace Forces showed that, in general, the generals are living large,
00:22:26and if the generals are living large, it means that, as it were, money is not going where it should, well, thank
00:22:30God, we would say, you mentioned these videos, yes, of attacks on civilians,
00:22:34I want to slightly expand the context, there was information that, firstly, the Russian army calls
00:22:37this "human safari," well,
00:22:41and another such very bloody, very bloody episode of this
00:22:44war, saying a lot in this context, but if
00:22:48we return to what to these...
00:23:20in the village, in the city of Revda in Sverdlovsk Oblast, as far as I read, such
00:23:23immigrant human rights websites, I don't think
00:23:27very much, well, but a much greater effect
00:23:30was had, real cases spread
00:23:34including in the patriotic Russian press, well,
00:23:37when indeed experienced drone operators
00:23:41were deployed, transferred to assault troops, they died there in the first
00:23:45attack, well, this Uzyk case, which has become
00:23:48a meme already, well, the fact that such Uzyks did not receive
00:23:52any punishment, well, this most likely affects
00:23:55many much more strongly than any arguments
00:23:59of human rights defenders, well, therefore
00:24:02- since Russian society
00:24:06doesn't really trust the state and
00:24:09the generals, therefore, such a campaign, frankly
00:24:11speaking, inflated in terms of numbers of people,
00:24:15and of course unsuccessful, but we need to pay attention
00:24:19to something else, we need to pay attention to really operating Russian
00:24:22units, drone units, in particular,
00:24:26Rubicon, which has not been mentioned here yet, well, that
00:24:29is - under the brand of specifically taken units,
00:24:33which are successful, effective and really guarantee
00:24:36their - recruited employees, well,
00:24:40relatively, by the standards of this profession, safety,
00:24:44and we can recruit, I think, much more
00:24:47people, as it were, than we would like.
00:24:51Well, therefore - we'll see,
00:24:54what will happen, as it were, but the appointment, conditionally speaking, of a tank
00:24:57general to recruit, to recruit
00:25:00civilians for such an intelligent, relatively military
00:25:03specialty, this is not, I think, the best choice,
00:25:07well, but we'll see how it goes, well, and separately
00:25:11I want to emphasize what we mentioned in our story, two assassination attempts
00:25:14in a row, it turns out, on
00:25:16civilians, but clearly related to
00:25:20the military-industrial complex of Russia, clearly the products were either intended for
00:25:24use, or were already used at the front, correct me if necessary,
00:25:27but it feels like assassination attempts on those involved in the army and military-industrial complex have
00:25:31become more widespread in the sense that if before it concerned only Russian generals, which,
00:25:35by the way, generally forced them to take at least some additional
00:25:38security measures, now it concerns civilian
00:25:41chiefs as well, to what extent does this task generally arise before
00:25:44the Russian army, before the Russian authorities, I would even say, to
00:25:48strengthen security for such... centers?
00:26:03During this time, several were killed and even more survived assassination attempts in
00:26:07various forms, so this is nothing new, another question
00:26:10is that there was a certain period,
00:26:14let's say, from last September, rather
00:26:18to this spring, when
00:26:21the number of such assassination attempts decreased,
00:26:24possibly as a result of this,
00:26:28it became a result of the fact that after the killing of some prominent
00:26:31general,
00:26:46another question is that these DIY masters,
00:26:50yes, heads of relatively
00:26:53small projects, this is still
00:26:56a relatively easy target for assassination attempts,
00:27:00but in the industry of...
00:27:32what is being done and how the leaders of
00:27:36such projects know their risks, well, if
00:27:39I understood correctly, you are talking about these two specific cases, basically about such a thing as
00:27:43outsourcing for the Ministry of Defense, where small private companies are engaged in all this, as you called them,
00:27:47DIY masters, who decided to earn money from the war, and well,
00:27:50and accordingly, there is less probability that the Russian authorities will generally think about their
00:27:54protection, since they are supposedly supposed to measure the risks, but it is not at all a fact that they
00:27:58understand what is generally at stake in this situation and
00:28:00therefore. the question of greed, because
00:28:04this last citizen, with such
00:28:07turnovers, could have provided himself with professional security at his
00:28:10own expense, well, if he did not do this, he is either a very stupid
00:28:14person, or very greedy, or both
00:28:16together,
00:28:19well, and accordingly, I will also mention today, I will ask you very briefly, our
00:28:22airtime is gradually running out, I mentioned that partially air defense is outsourced to
00:28:26private companies and there was a specific law on this matter that it is possible
00:28:29to purchase equipment, will this continue
00:28:32further or will Russia still have to expand the air defense zone, at least to companies
00:28:36that are extremely important for the country?
00:28:39In Russia, at the state level, the
00:28:42air defense zone is not expanding, it is shrinking, that is,
00:28:46the defense of Moscow is being strengthened, Pantsir
00:28:50installations are all being moved to it, there are fewer and
00:28:52fewer missiles, the percentage of Ukrainian drones
00:28:56breaking through is getting higher and higher, well, unfortunately, our airtime is running out,
00:28:59but you managed to answer my question.
00:29:02Thank you very much for that, military expert Nikolai Mitrokhin was with us today, we'll see you tomorrow,
00:29:06dear viewers, goodbye,
00:29:26the amazing story of Alexander Gabyshev,
00:29:28who is known for walking from Yakutia to Moscow.
00:30:04In Ukraine, we have always talked about unique places
00:30:07and unique people, but that was
00:30:10before, since February
00:30:132022, everything changed
00:30:16because of the war, we are showing a new
00:30:20history of Ukraine, about
00:30:23an incredible strength of spirit, about fighting despite
00:30:26everything.
00:30:31Watch. Local project of Radio Svoboda and Current Time TV channel,
00:30:35what is really happening in Ukraine.
00:30:52Ukraine scales up middle strikes. The Ukrainian army
00:30:56actively hits the operational rear of the Russian army under attack.