Ukraine war ‘will get worse for us’, retired Russian colonel says on state TV
- Don’t swallow ‘informational tranquilisers’, military analyst Mikhail Khodaryonok warns viewers, in a rare criticism of Putin’s invasion
- Russia needed to see the reality of the situation, he says, or it ‘will hit you so hard that you will not know what hit you’
One military analyst had a brutally frank message for viewers of Russian state television: the war in Ukraine will get much worse for Russia, which is facing a mass mobilisation supported by the United States while Moscow is almost totally isolated.
Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia state media – and especially state television – have supported the Kremlin’s position. Few dissenting voices have been given airtime.
That appeared to have changed on Monday night when one well-known military analyst gave a blunt assessment to Russia’s main state television channel of what Putin casts as the “special military operation”.
“You should not swallow informational tranquilisers,” Mikhail Khodaryonok, a retired colonel, told the 60 Minutes talk show on Rossiya-1 hosted by Olga Skabeyeva, one of the most pro-Kremlin journalists on television.
“The situation, frankly speaking, will get worse for us,” said Khodaryonok, a regular guest on state television who gives often candid assessments of the situation.
