A senior Kremlin adviser broke his ranks to call for a ceasefire in Ukraine, calling the invasion “inconvenient” for Russia.
Andrei Kortunov said that “many of us are depressed” during an emergency intervention, after Vladimir Putin made his country a pariah on the international stage.
The foreign policy expert, who is the director general of Russia’s International Affairs Council and serves on a commission advising the Kremlin, said he did not understand the reason for the invasion.
He said Sky News: “I was shocked because for a long time I thought that a military operation was not feasible. It was not plausible.
“My advice today, given the current situation on the ground, would be to make a ceasefire a top priority. We need to stop the conflict.
Andrei Kortunov violates rank to call for ceasefire in Ukraine, calling invasion “uncomfortable” for Russia
He said Ukraine and the West must bypass the negotiating table with Russia to end the costly war.
Putin recently narrowed his group of advisers to a small number of securocrats known as security forces, who are made up of generals, friends and spies.
Their closeness to Putin coincided with their distancing from the more qualified and experienced experts who usually inform Russia’s strongman.
Security forces have heightened Putin’s fears that the West is trying to destroy Russia, Kortunov said.
He said: “We tend to believe that the name of the game is a development, but I can imagine that some people around Mr Putin believe that the name of the game is survival.”
The Kremlin’s top adviser said “many of us are depressed” with extreme interference after Vladimir Putin made his country a pariah on the international stage
Putin recently narrowed his group of advisers to a small number of securocrats known as security forces, consisting of generals, friends and spies.
He added: “I am depressed. I think many of us are depressed.
“I think there are a lot of people in the Kremlin who need to be depressed because the cost is going to be significant, and of course, you know, we need to be depressed and because people are being killed.
“You know, this is something we should never forget.”
Dissent against the invasion is growing in the country, where opposition to the regime often leads to imprisonment.
Thousands of Russian scientists and journalists have condemned the war, risking fines or even imprisonment.
In an open letter to the increasingly isolated dictator, they said there was no “rational justification for this war” and warned that the country was “doomed to isolation”.
The foreign policy expert is the director general of the Russian Council on Foreign Relations and serves on a committee advising the Kremlin.
Kortunov says Ukraine and the West must bypass the negotiating table with Russia to end the costly war
They argue that Russian science and medicine may be abandoned due to a lack of international funding as the world turns the country into a pariah state.
More than 6,100 academics, science journalists and medics cited their name in the document, despite strict Russian laws against freedom of speech.
Any public criticism of the Russian state could result in fines of up to 6,200 British pounds or imprisonment under laws introduced in 2012.
The coalition called for an “immediate cessation of all military operations against Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, imprisoned Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has called on Russians to stage daily protests, portraying Putin as “obviously a crazy king.”
Prison Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has called on Russians to stage daily protests, portraying Putin as an “obviously crazy king”
Navalny called for protests across the country and abroad to signal that not all Russians support the war and to show solidarity with the thousands of people detained in anti-war protests in Russia since last week’s invasion.
“We can’t wait another day. Wherever you are. In Russia, Belarus or on the other side of the planet. “Go out on the main square of your city every weekday at 7 pm and at 2 pm on weekends and holidays,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter by his spokesman.
Navalny said Russia wants to be a nation of peace, but few would call it that now.
“At least let’s not become a nation of frightened silent people. “For cowards who pretend not to notice the aggressive war against Ukraine, dispersed by our obviously crazy king,” he said.
About 6,840 people have been detained in anti-war protests since the invasion began on February 24.
“I am from the USSR. I was born there. And the main phrase from there – from my childhood – was “fight for peace”. I call on everyone to take to the streets and fight for peace … Putin is not Russia.
Navalny, Putin’s most prominent opponent, was jailed last year after returning from Germany after treatment for what Western laboratory tests showed was an attempt to poison him with a nerve agent in Siberia. He said he was convicted on trumped-up charges.
Russia has denied such an attack and has dismissed speculation that Navalny’s treatment was politically motivated. He described his actions in Ukraine as a “special military operation”.
Navalny’s activist movement has already called for a campaign of civil disobedience to protest Russia’s invasion, but police have suppressed demonstrations.
About 6,840 people have been detained in anti-war protests since the invasion began on February 24, according to the ATS-Info monitoring group.
Navalny, 45, has been the Kremlin’s biggest thorn in the side for more than a decade, stubbornly describing in detail what he says is high-level corruption and mobilizing crowds of young protesters in a country where the opposition has no significant power.
But his appeal to Russians outside major cities seems limited, and the opposition’s ability to oppose Putin has been hampered by authorities’ efforts to quell dissent over the past few years and the state’s strong grip on the media.
Many opposition figures are now in exile after being identified by the authorities as “foreign agents”, a legal name used for what authorities say are foreign-funded organizations engaged in political activity.
The unity of the opposition has often been undermined by internal political differences and quarrels between factions, including during mass protests in 2011-2012, which raised Navalny’s fame but faded after police repression.