The Men Putin Needs Just Abandoned Him - Jason Jay Smart
Something big is happening right now inside the Russian army, and Moscow is desperate to hide it. When you look past the missiles, and then you will see the real fight, and it is inside the Russian officer corps.
Control-first governance has triggered a terminal failure loop: collapsing competence, logistics friction, and a professional exit. Communication restrictions now choke horizontal coordination, stalling small-unit resupply and maintenance. Because fear punishes honesty, errors repeat, and trust in command evaporates.
Where casualties meet political risk, quiet refusal, slow execution, and selective compliance have replaced open dissent. This exodus of engineers and administrators leaves the war machine unrepairable, making every failure costlier and more permanent.
Leverage is now cheaper than rebuilding competence. Zelenskyys disclosure of a $12 trillion pitch to the US reframes the war as a strategic incentive problem rather than a budgetary one. The result is long-term weakening: fewer leaders, crippled repair capacity, and control tools that only accelerate the exodus.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro: Putins Telegram Ban & Army Conspiracies
01:20 - Russian Officer Mutiny: The Enemy Behind the Front
02:13 - The Kremlins Fear: Why Officers Are Sabotaging Orders
03:07 - Wagner 2.0: Why Tanks Are Guarding Moscow
04:41 - Russian Comms Failure: Ukraine Intercepts Radio Intel
05:30 - Putins Meat Assaults: Why Russian Soldiers Desert
06:21 - The Silent Mutiny: Russian Officers Sabotage Orders
07:34 - Ukraines Counter-Offensive: Russia Loses 200km² of Land
08:48 - The $12 Trillion Lie: Russias Fake Peace Framework
10:55 - Caribbean Collapse: Russia Running Out of Jet Fuel
11:51 - Outro: Why the Russian Army Is About to Snap