Throughout the months-long war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian military has by all appearances sustained substantial losses — Ukraine estimates it’s killed around 30,000 Russian troops and counting, and Russia’s equipment losses have also been steep. In a phone conversation between two Russian colonels apparently intercepted and recorded by Ukrainian authorities, the duo tore into Russian leaders including the defense minister and Putin himself.
The Russian military colonels apparently on the call include Maksim Vlasov and Vitaly Kovtun, the latter of whom apparently works as a doctor at the Naro-Fominsk military hospital. Vlasov, meanwhile, has been involved in Russian aggression against Ukraine for awhile, going back at least to the 2015 shelling of the now decimated Mariupol. “There are horrible losses of our guys, fuck,” Vlasov said on the call. “And you know, I am familiar with military history a bit, and I compare this to the fucking Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. It’s fucking one and the same.” In that war, the Russian military saw apparent deaths of over 126,000 troops. Losses amid the present conflict already reached one historic level — the Moskva, a large Russian warship sunk by Ukraine, was reportedly the largest Russian warship sunk in war since World War II.
“He’s a layman in his work. This is not his fucking thing. He’s just a fucking showman,” Vlasov added, referencing Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Kovtun apparently broadly agreed: “Shoigu is fucking shit,” he told Vlasov. “[There are] no contracted forces. Of course not! Why would there fucking be? They paid them 30,000 rubles [$490], where are they going to get contractees?” Kovtun also complained about Russian forces not going further in their assault on Ukraine. “A fucking rocket should fly into the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv,” he said. “That’s it, fuck it. Why didn’t [a rocket] fucking fly? I don’t fucking get it, you’re fucked, Putin — motherfucker! Why didn’t a rocket fly into Kyiv, so they’d think… fuck, yes, for fuck’s sake there’s something wrong… something hasn’t been done the right way.” The Verkhovna Rada is Ukraine’s parliament.
Russian ground forces were around Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, earlier in the war, but — despite limited incursions into the city — these troops never seized the capital, although they inflicted devastation on civilian populations near it and have targeted those inside the city with airstrikes — including a missile attack that hit the city when U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres was there. Although the focus of ground-based fighting has seemingly shifted elsewhere in Ukraine (into the country’s east and south), threats don’t appear to have completely vanished for the rest of the country. Russian forces continue their occupation of large cities including Kherson and Mariupol; in the latter locale, a lengthy stand-off between Russian forces and Ukrainian troops at the city’s large Azovstal steel plant recently ended. President Joe Biden recently signed $40 billion in additional aid tied to the war that’s meant to cover needs through this September.
