Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin is marking the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine – after eight years of war in Donbas, which he did much to start – but he isn't celebrating. He sees a "bleak" outlook of mutual exhaustion, caused by poor leadership. ⬇️

2/ Girkin writes from the prison where he is now half-way through a sentence for "inciting extremism" (i.e. criticising the Russian government's mismanagement of the war):

3/ "Today officially marks the fourth anniversary of the start of the Special Military Operation (although according to some sources, it began two days earlier, but was announced to begin on 24 February 2022).

We arrived at this significant date with extremely negative results.

4/ "Just the day before, the enemy hit one of the workshops of the Votkinsk Mechanical Plant, which produces our missiles, with a Flamingo missile. The enemy launched a massive attack on the Krasnodar Territory. About five days ago, there was a massive attack on Crimea.

5/ "In fact, the enemy is shelling our territory with British [sic] missiles under their own name, and we pretend that everything is as it should be.

On the front, our "rapid advance" is, as I already mentioned, approximately 19.5 metres per day in the Zaporizhzhia direction.

6/ "And in other directions, too, things can't be said to be going well. Kupyansk has been taken and surrendered for the second time (or almost).

In short, we've reached a situation that's significantly worse than it was four years ago, in terms of our prospects for victory.

7/ "Today, I happened to catch a glimpse of our leader's speech on television at an FSB board meeting, and if you ignore the numerous "uh," "mm," and "uh"s that took up a significant portion of his speech, not from a written document,…

8/ …I remember hearing again, if I'm not mistaken, the phrase "slow down the peace process."

9/ "From this, I conclude that even 4 years after the start of the Special Military Operation, after Istanbul-1, after Istanbul-2, after the "spirit of Anchorage," there's no understanding in Moscow that a war of annihilation is being waged against us. They refuse to accept it.

10/ "This means the war will continue in the same format as it is now, with no prospect of victory and in the hope that sooner or later the enemy will wear itself out.

11/ "In reality, Russia and Ukraine are being mutually exhausted at the expense of Russian lives on both sides, at the expense of the industries of both Ukraine and Russia. Meanwhile, the main warring parties on the other side have not yet entered the fray.

12/ "At one time, the meme "Russia didn't show up for the war" was popular; this applied to Crimea and Donbas. Now, the same can be said with much greater justification about the United States, Britain, France, and all NATO countries.

13/ "They haven't yet shown up for war, but they are actively preparing for it. Actively, but unhurriedly, because we are giving them time to calmly prepare for war, to build up their military industry,…

14/ …to stockpile weapons and ammunition, and to train their armies, which are in a very dire state. We are giving them all this time. It's all very bad; that much is already clear.

15/ "So, unfortunately, there's nothing to congratulate. Congratulations are only due to our beloved leaders who brought the situation to this point: the leadership of the General Staff, the former leadership of the Ministry of Defence,…

16/ …the leadership of the Federal Security Service, and other agencies responsible for the preparation, including intelligence, of this so-called "Special Military Operation."

17/ "But the main thanks, of course, go to our Supreme Commander-in-Chief, who demonstrated a remarkable leadership style: "one step forward, two steps back, a jump in place, and then one step forward, two steps back." That's not how you fight—that's how you lose wars.

18/ "Our outlook, unfortunately, is bleak." /end

Source:
t.me/strelkovii/7347