11 November 2026
During a live broadcast with Russian blogger Pavel Ivanov , retired Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov harshly criticized Putin for unleashing a full-scale war against Ukraine, calling for an immediate end to hostilities and a sit-down at the negotiating table. He recalled that the Kremlin's promised light military operation had completely failed: "You lost, you foresaw absolutely nothing. You didn't have the intelligence to understand that the war wouldn't be a light-winged operation: take off here, take a bite somewhere, and that's it, you win." The continuation of the war, according to the military man, is leading Russia toward total militarization and deep stagnation in all civilian spheres—from the economy and education to culture. Ivashov emphasized that prolonging the war destroys the country's future for the sake of one person's political survival. Leonid Ivashov, as head of the All-Russian Officers' Assembly, continues to oppose the war : as early as February 2022, several weeks before the full-scale invasion, he openly warned the Kremlin against attacking Ukraine, stating that it would threaten Russia's very existence: "As a scholar, a doctor of science, who has been studying this issue for many decades, I see that Russia today, compared to the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, and the Muscovite Tsardom, has lost the respect of humanity. This is simply shameful, humiliating, and even frightening. When, out of 193 countries at the UN General Assembly, only eight support our position, 73 abstain, and the rest are against us, that's quite frightening..." Today, not a single powerful state stands on Russia's side. Our only military and political ally is Belarus. The "SVO" was unleashed in contravention of the UN Charter. At the academy, we were taught that if the wrong decisions are made at the top, then no matter how well the soldiers below fight or resist at the tactical level, the decisions of higher command still overwhelm all the efforts of lower-level troops, subordinate units, subunits, and so on. Our instructor always gave us this example: suppose we need to cross a large river. But if the decision is made at the top to cross it along the river rather than across it, no matter how well you swim or fight, you still won't cross it. Here too, with the "SVO," a fundamentally wrong decision was made. And first and foremost, on a geopolitical level. This is what I spoke about in my well-known address. And that's why we couldn't even get military support from Belarus... On the one hand, we have the best missiles, like the Bulava, which reaches the US in so many minutes, the underwater Poseidon missiles, and so on. But on the other, we started the war on the battlefield, fighting with outdated weapons, from mess kits to bulletproof vests. Moreover, our bulletproof vests were made of foam rubber, plastic, and so on. And what was the result? We were essentially defeated in the very first days of the "SVO." “We turned out to be idiots,” General Ivashov concludes.
🇷🇺 NOT ENOUGH BRAINS... Retired Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov has publicly told Vladimir Putin that he has already lost the war against Ukraine. In an interview with Russian blogger Pavel Ivanov, the 83-year-old general addressed the Russian president directly: “You've lost. You failed to foresee absolutely anything. You didn't have a single brain cell.” Ivashov ridiculed the Kremlin's expectations of a lightning-fast victory: fly in, strike, and conquer. In his view, continuing the war is driving Russia toward economic, educational, and cultural degradation, destroying the country's future. Ivashov is neither a liberal nor a supporter of the West. A former head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Main Directorate for International Military Cooperation (1996–2001), and one of the organizers of the famous Russian paratroopers' dash to Pristina in 1999, he spent decades among Russia's hardline nationalist patriots. He headed the Union of the Russian People, participated in the activities of the Izborsk Club, opposed NATO, and supported Russian territorial claims against Ukraine. Yet back in January 2022, Ivashov became one of the first senior Russian military figures to publicly warn Putin about the catastrophic consequences of the impending invasion. In an appeal titled “On the Eve of War,” issued on behalf of the All-Russian Officers' Assembly, he described preparations for the attack as a criminal policy, declared that Ukraine had the right to defend itself, and demanded the president's resignation. The general warned that the war would turn Russia into an international pariah, cause enormous human losses, and make Russians and Ukrainians enemies for generations. At the time, less than a month remained before the full-scale invasion. Almost five years later, Ivashov is reminding Putin that all of this could have been foreseen. P.S. I'm moving from Twitter/X to Substack. Join me there, subscribe, and follow my work on my new platform. https://t.co/zkWcx5Grt1
— Mykhailo Rohoza (@MykhailoRohoza) November 10, 2026
