After being gone for two weeks, he returns with his alter ego Gerasimov on video, but without words. His figure is the barometer of war and the internal balance of the Kremlin
Wondering where Mr. Shoigu isn’t a parlor game or an idle question. The figure of the enigmatic Minister of Defense (here is his profile) takes on the value of a kind of barometer that can show not only the progress of the war but also the internal balance in the Kremlin. Why Sergey Shoigu, 66, before the start of the socalled military special operation, did not take the hawk whispering in Vladimir Putin’s ear for a soldier, but for a politician with declared ambitions. The command of the army was only to be a stage, for him, who had gained enormous popularity in the twentyyear post as Minister of Emergencies, a kind of head of civil protection. The word dolphin does not exist in Russia, but in the chat about the possible successors of the tsar, his name always came first. And he let them go, accompanying them with a relentless media presence.
Public relations has always been his forte. And from February 24, the start of the invasion, through March 11, nothing seemed to deny this strategy. Defense Department social profiles post his words, his meetings, up to six times a day. The meeting with the withdrawing Russian soldiers who called for careful treatment of Ukrainian prisoners, the February 25 meeting with the Minister of Defense of Armenia, the March 1 speech in which he reaffirmed that Russia will go all the way, and the telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart, the nowfamous February 27 meeting with Putin, inviting him and Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov to activate nuclear defenses. And so on until March 11th.
Then nothing more. Not a word, not a photo, not an apparition. Shoigu and his alter ego Gerasimov disappear. The total solar eclipse of Russia’s two key wartime agencies only resurfaced on Saturday, when video posted to the Defense Ministry’s website shows the duo meeting with 12 other General Staff officers. Twelve days of silence filled with all kinds of speculation. The war is not proceeding as planned and as Putin was guaranteed. Thus, Shoigu would become the main target of the President’s dissatisfaction, which would overshadow him with it. Or, read the other way around, with the powerful defense minister, who distances himself from the Kremlin with his media break and is preparing for a possible and currently improbable moment after Putin. The current most likely hypothesis is that Shoigu has health problems. He had had heart surgery in the past. had heart problems. A Defense Department source told the independent website Meduza that the minister will have heart problems again. If this time they are true or only suspected, or if it is a diplomatic sickness, in short, a simple pretext to put aside a character too bulky to be kicked out now, we will only understand , if and when Shoigu and his deputy Gerasimov will find the floor again. Or if someone will do it for them.
March 27, 2022 (Modification March 27, 2022 | 12:30 PM)
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