Yahoo TV

STORY: After more than seven months of war in Ukraine, Russia's most basic war aims are still not achieved while Russian forces have suffered a series of battlefield defeats in recent months, forcing Putin to announce a partial mobilization.

In a four-minute video message on Telegram, Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the annexed Kherson region, followed suit, publicly lambasting the "generals and ministers" in Moscow for failing to understand the problems on the front.

"Indeed, many say: if they were a defense minister who had allowed such a state of affairs, they could, as officers, have shot themselves," Stremousov, 45, said. "But you know the word 'officer' is an incomprehensible word for many."

Such public - and insulting - censure of Putin's military chiefs from within the system used to be extremely rare in Russia, but a series of defeats on the battlefield in Ukraine has prompted some of Putin's allies to rebuke top generals.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, ridiculed generals, saying the military was riddled with nepotism and that senior officers should be stripped of their ranks and sent to the front barefoot to atone for their sins.