Major General Ivan Ivanovich Popov of Russia’s 58th Combined Arms Army has reportedly been fired for raising concerns and criticizing higher commanders in the military about the situation on the front in Ukraine, according to a recording shared on social media.
“The Ukrainian army could not break through our ranks at the front but our senior chief hit us from the rear, viciously beheading the army at the most difficult and intense moment,” Popov, who’s callsign was ‘Spartacus’, claimed.
“I also raised a number of other problems and expressed all this at the highest level honestly and extremely strictly. I had no right to lie, so I decided to highlight all the problematic issues that exist in the army today in terms of combat work and support,” he adds in the audio recording.
The headquarters of the units he commanded was reportedly based in the southern Russian-held city of Berdyansk, a port city in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, south-eastern Ukraine. The area was the site of a recent Storm Shadow missile strike that killed Russian Lieutenant General Oleg Tsokov.
