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A small but growing number of senior figures in the Kremlin are beginning to question Vladimir Putin’s decision to go to war against Ukraine as the invasion nears the two-month mark, a report said Wednesday.
The critics, who occupy top posts in Russia’s government and state-owned companies, “believe the invasion was a catastrophic mistake that will set the country back years,” reports Bloomberg News, citing 10 people with knowledge of the situation.
The sources say that the decision to invade Ukraine was made by Putin and just a handful of other Russian elites such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Russian General Valery Gerasimov and Nikolai Patrushev, chairman of Russia’s Security Council.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting on the current situation in Russia’s iron and steel industry via video conference on Wednesday at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.
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As the war drags on, with Russian military casualties mounting, Putin has continued to dismiss warnings from other officials about the economic cost of the war, telling Bloomberg, telling them that Russia will pay a heavy price the West has left him no choice than to attack Ukraine.
Some of the officials are also increasingly concerned about Putin’s potential to use nuclear weapons if confronted with a war failure, the sources claimed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his speech at a rocket assembly factory during his visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the town of Tsiolkovsky April 12. (Evgeny Biyatov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
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The Bloomberg report states that support for Putin remains high among the Russian elite, with many believing the Kremlin narrative that Russia will overcome sanctions imposed by the US and its allies.
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens during a meeting of the ‘Russia, the Land of Opportunity’ supervisory board at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on Wednesday.
“Nevertheless, a growing number of top insiders have come to believe that Putin’s commitment to continue the invasion will condemn Russia to years of isolation and heightened tensions that will cripple its economy, threaten its security and erode its global influence,” he added .