A retired Russian general has savaged Vladimir Putin live on air, telling the Kremlin tyrant he has lost the war with Ukraine and ruined his country just to save his own skin
A furious Russian military figure has slammed Vladimir Putin live on air, brutally telling the Kremlin tyrant: “You lost.” In a humiliating broadcast that shatters Moscow’s war propaganda, retired Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov delivered a savage, no-holds-barred reality check to the ageing despot.
Appearing on a live stream alongside Russian blogger Pavel Ivanov, the prominent ex-commander openly mocked Putin’s botched invasion of Ukraine, telling the Russian president he lacked the basic brainpower to see the disaster coming.
“You lost; you didn’t foresee a thing. You didn’t have the wits to realise that the war wouldn’t be some light-hearted operation: flit in there, peck somewhere, and that’s it – victory,” Ivashov said.
Demanding an immediate ceasefire and a swift return to the negotiating table, the veteran commander warned that the Kremlin’s pipe dream of a swift victory has collapsed.
Instead, Ivashov warned that dragging out the bloody conflict is driving Russia into full militarisation, economic decay and national ruin, sacrificing the country’s future to save the political skin of one man.
Ivashov, who heads up the influential All-Russian Officers’ Assembly, has long been a thorn in Putin’s side.
Weeks before Russian tanks rolled over the border in February 2022, he sounded the alarm that invading Ukraine would threaten the country’s survival.
His explosive broadcast comes as fresh evidence exposes the catastrophic losses suffered during Putin’s meat-grinder offensive.
A cyber leak from state statistics bureau Rosstat, hacked by Ukrainian collective Silent Crow and Belarusian cyber group Cyber Partisans, uncovered more than 400,000 official death certificates explicitly tied to combat operations.
Experts warn the true body count is even higher, with UK intelligence and independent researchers estimating up to 500,000 Russian troops have already been slaughtered in nearly five years of relentless bloodshed.
Remote, impoverished regions have borne the brunt of the slaughter, with war fatalities accounting for around a third of all working-age male deaths in areas like Buryatia and Tuva.
The scathing outburst also lands as global powerbrokers scramble behind the scenes. Envoys from Washington, Kyiv and Moscow have gathered in Abu Dhabi for trilateral talks alongside US figures Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
However, despite US diplomats claiming both sides are showing hints of flexibility over disputed eastern territories like Donetsk, European leaders remain deeply sceptical of the Kremlin’s motives.
Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre admitted there is still no genuine indication Putin wants peace, even as German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hinted at potential face-to-face talks at an upcoming summit.