Give Putin Credit… Nobody Has EVER Lost THIS Badly

Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin commanders are burning their army alive, and they’re finding it increasingly difficult to recruit enough new troops to replace those that they’ve lost.

This right here is the beginning of the end.

On paper, there’s no way it should ever come to this.

When the war began, Russia could call on a vastly larger force than its opponent.

It didn’t just have a massive manpower advantage, but it also had advantages in every other metric that mattered.

From the number of tanks and armored vehicles at its disposal to its air force, which was and remains far larger and stronger than that of Ukraine.

With a good tactical plan and smart strategic thinking, Russia could and should have been able to achieve its objectives.

It would have still have suffered losses, but it could have done a dramatically better and more efficient job in this war if it had taken it seriously enough and not made the fatal mistakes of underestimating its opponent so terribly and acting with such stubborn arrogance over and over again.

Instead, Russia did make those mistakes, and not only did it fail to achieve any of its listed objectives, but as time went by, its losses started to mount up, passing one grim milestone after another.

Back in July 2024, reports revealed that the country had suffered a staggering 500,000 estimated casualties.

Less than a year later, in June 2025, the Kremlin’s casualty numbers surpassed 1 million, and the casualties have continued day after day, week after week, month after month.

By early 2026, it was being reported that the total losses of the Russian army had surpassed 1.

25 25 million soldiers either killed or wounded.

This is unprecedented.

Since the end of the Second World War, Russia or the Soviet Union has been involved in multiple wars.

It suffered 120 fatalities in Korea between 1950 and 1953.

669 more in Hungary in 1956.

96 in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

between 14,000 and 16,000 in its 10-year war with Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989 and another 12,000 to 25,000 estimated fatalities in two wars with Chetchna in the ’90s and 2000s.

Even if we add all of those fatalities up from multiple wars over six different decades, the total is a mere fraction of the hundreds of thousands of estimated fatalities Russia has endured in Ukraine.

The same applies to total casualties too, not just fatalities.

Indeed, after analyzing the numbers, the Ukrainian news outlet against the news wrote on Telegram, “The total losses in the Russian army during the four years of war were five times higher than the total number of Soviet casualties during all wars since the Great Patriotic War.

They were 17 times higher than the Soviet Union’s losses in the war in Afghanistan and 11 times higher than Russian losses in both Chetchin wars.

This truly has been by far the bloodiest and most brutal battle for Russia since World War II, and it’s only getting worse.

The figures show that Russia’s rate of losses has only increased over time.

In 2025, for example, Russia suffered the same total number of casualties as it had suffered in the first three years of the war combined.

In the final month of 2025, Russia lost around 35,000 troops.

The trend continued into 2026 with another estimated around 30,000 losses in January.

There are two big reasons why this has happened and continues to happen.

The first boils down to one word, stubbornness.

Throughout the entire war, Russia has shown a remarkable unwillingness to deviate from its doctrines.

It’s persisted with the same wasteful tactics time and time again, even when those exact strategies have failed to yield positive results on the battlefield.

Russia’s commanders have refused to adjust their optics in any way.

They’ve thrown countless men into the meat grinder, relying almost exclusively on what Ukraine has labeled the meat assault tactic, which basically consists of Russian assault squad being ordered to attack Ukrainian positions without much or even any armored support to assist or protect them.

To make matters worse, many of the soldiers who make up those assault teams are poorly trained and equipped, giving them even less chance of survival.

As such, it’s hardly surprising that Russia has seen so many losses, as it’s basically made human sacrifice a fundamental pillar of its entire military philosophy in Ukraine.

The Kremlin has made clear to the world and to its own army, that it has no quams about putting their lives on the line and letting the stacks of Russian bodies build up, if that’s what it takes to capture Ukraine, one slim sliver of land at a time.

On the one hand, there’s a certain level of twisted logic to Russia’s tactics.

Since the country does have a significantly larger force than Ukraine, it should in theory be able to grind down its enemy over time, using these brute force assaults to wear away at their defenses before eventually breaking through and pushing on towards victory.

On the other hand, this isn’t how a major military superpower should act.

A country with strong military minds and tacticians would never stick with a tactic that’s proven to be so wasteful and worthless, producing heavy losses for only the most minimal gains.

It should be able to think more strategically than that, using the many advantages at its disposal to devise ways to penetrate the Ukrainian defensive lines and capture key territories.

But Russia doesn’t seem to dedicate much time, effort, or energy to strategic thinking.

It prefers instead to single-mindedly push on with the same plan as always, stubbornly believing that it’ll all work out in the end.

That’s why even years into the war, we still see the same sorts of stories playing out, the same wasteful assaults, the same extraordinary imbalances in terms of losses and casualties between the two sides.

Look at Kupansk for example.

The city sits in a strategic location in the Kkefe region.

It’s well known as a crucial railroad junction with strong transport links deeper into Ukrainian territory.

As such, it’s been a prime target for Russian forces for quite some time, and control of the city has passed from one side to the other on several occasions over the course of the war.

Russia seized it way back in February of 2022, for example, before Ukraine regained control during the 2022 Khiefe counter offensive.

Russian forces pushed back into the city in late May 2024, but were forced out soon after.

By late 2025, the city was once more partially occupied by the Kremlin’s troops.

But in September 2025, Ukrainian forces yet again carried out a counteroffensive operation aimed at clearing the city of remaining Russian saboturs and reconnaissance groups.

Some of the country’s best fighters were dispatched to the area, including members of the famous 13th Cartier Brigade.

Slowly but surely, they stealthily made their way through the forests around the city during the autumn months before pushing forward into Kupansk and eventually raising their national flag above the ruined remains of the city’s council building.

Kev’s troops were startingly effective.

According to an intelligence assessment shared with the British military, Ukrainian forces managed to kill 27 times as many Russians as they lost in their fight to regain control of Kupansk.

While the exact figures have not been released, it’s believed that the advancing Ukrainians managed to surround around 200 Russian troops while wounding or killing thousands more in the area over the course of 2025.

Regardless of the exact statistics, a 27 to1 kill ratio is mind-blowing.

It shows just how heavily the scales have tipped in Ukraine’s favor and how badly Russia is bleeding because of its nonsensical and downright foolish tactics.

This isn’t a one-off.

Statistics and military reports show that Ukraine is consistently outperforming Russia far and wide along the hundreds of miles of front line separating the two forces.

The kill ratio at certain strategic locations has reached as high as 1 to 20 or even 1 to 25.

While the overall average has been around 1:6 or 1:7, be varing slightly depending on the source.

That means that even in the more closely competitive areas, Ukraine’s forces are still taking out up to seven Russian troops for every one of their own that gets killed.

Now, before we look at why these numbers are so utterly unsustainable and the other big reason behind them, you’re watching the Military Show.

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Russia’s tactical incompetence only tells half the story behind its catastrophic losses.

Ukraine also deserves a huge amount of credit.

Because while Russia’s entire campaign has revolved around stubborn attitudes and unwavering commitment to the same wasteful strategies, Ukraine’s defensive effort has been a completely different story.

From day one of the war, Kev’s forces have proven that they know how to innovate.

They’re not afraid to think outside of the box, shake things up, and adjust their strategies to suit the changing conditions of the conflict.

Never sticking with the same tactic for too long, always searching for new ways to surprise and catch its enemy offguard.

Ukraine’s war has been built on the bedrock of adaptability, and it’s reaped the rewards of that approach on countless occasions.

In fact, in many ways, it’s because of Ukraine’s ability to think up of so many clever strategies that the country is still in this war today.

and that it’s done such a stellar job at defending its territories and preventing Russia from pushing on and achieving its goals.

We can look, for example, at how well Ukraine has adapted to drone warfare, as an example of its remarkable ability to innovate on the fly.

When Russia began using drones to bombard Ukrainian towns and cities, wiping out civilian infrastructure and killing countless innocent people, Keev could have buckled or broken.

Instead, it adapted and it evolved.

It worked on developing its own drone army with dozens of defense companies up and down the country, creating a varied arsenal of unmanned aerial and surface vehicles to strike back at Russia.

It became a world leader in drone technology, orchestrating attacks like the iconic operation spiderweb strikes on Russian airfields in the summer of 2025 and countless more successful attacks on enemy fuel depots, oil refineries, production plants, ammunition storage facilities, and other high-value targets.

Ukraine’s forces also found ways to harness their drones along the length and breadth of the front lines, turning entire areas into veritable death traps for any unfortunate Russian assault squads that dared step foot inside.

This in turn has seen Ukrainian drones take out increasing numbers of Russian personnel as the war has progressed.

24,600 in October of 2025, for example, followed by 26,100 a month later, then a staggering 33,000 a month after that.

And drones aren’t the only way that Ukraine is whittling down Russia’s manpower advantage.

The country’s armed forces have also developed other effective frontline tactics like the bait and bleed strategy, which revolves around luring Russian assault teams down preset paths, pretending to flee from defensive locations, lulling the enemy into a false sense of security and confidence before raining down fire on them with artillery, drones, and loitering munitions from above.

Through tactics like these, Ukraine isn’t just dealing a massive blow to the Russian army’s strength in depth, but it’s also preventing the Kremlin war machine from even being able to advance in many key areas.

Indeed, charts show Russia is advancing at some of the slowest rates in its entire military history, gaining the tiniest pockets of ground in areas like Kupans, Chasifiar, and Pocross, while losing thousands of troops in the process.

And it’s only likely to get even worse for Putin’s forces from here on out.

Because Ukraine isn’t simply settling for its current numbers.

It wants to go even further with heave setting its army the target of increasing Russian losses to around 50 to 60,000 troops a month.

If that happened, there’d be no coming back for Russia, and the prospect of the country having to admit defeat and finally retreat from Ukrainian soil would become increasingly likely.

Here’s why.

For the first few years of the war, from Moscow’s perspective, it didn’t necessarily matter so much that the country suffered such heavy losses.

Even when Ukraine was able to take out 15, 20, or even 30,000 Russian troops per month, Russia was always able to counteract those losses.

It had several methods at its disposal to do this, like offering hefty financial incentives to new recruits, targeting people from poorer areas and promising that their families would be richly rewarded if they choose to sign up and fight.

Russian recruiters also put pressure on ethnic minorities like immigrants from Central Asian nations, sometimes even going as far as threatening them with deportation or imprisonment.

They refuse to fight.

The country has even been seen offering convicts, including murderers and rapists, the opportunity to cut their prison terms short if they agree to fight in Ukraine.

Thanks to these tactics, Russia was consistently able to meet and even exceed its recruitment targets.

And this made life so much harder for Ukraine because even when its army was experiencing major success on the ground, taking out scores of Russian troops and regaining lost land, more and more enemy assault squads soon arrived to replace those that had been lost.

Like some sort of invincible video game style army.

Russia appeared to have an endless supply of soldiers, never failing to replenish its ranks and keep up the pressure all along the front.

But no army is endless.

Even a vast country like Russia, with its population in excess of 140 million people, doesn’t have an infinite supply of soldiers to call on.

And eventually, Ukraine’s efforts have started to prove too much for the Kremlin to cope with.

In January 2026, for example, records show that Russia lost 9,000 more troops than it was able to recruit.

According to the United Kingdom’s Defense Secretary, John Healey, this isn’t an isolated incident either.

It’s becoming a trend.

For several months, the Russian army has steadily started to lose more men than it can bring in to replace them.

And it’s not hard to see why.

Several years into the war, the number of Russians who are actually willing to fight in Ukraine has dramatically diminished.

And most of the people who wanted to sign up have already done so.

Now, even with recruiters offering big ruble rewards for new recruits, a lot of the able-bodied individuals still living in Russia aren’t all that interested in signing up for what they see as a suicide mission.

In fact, reports show that a staggering 1 in 25 Russian men have either been killed or maimed since the conflict began, leaving fewer and fewer behind that are willing and able to replace them.

Morale has also plummeted because Russians aren’t blind.

When the war began, they might have believed the Kremlin’s claims that this so-called special military operation was necessary and that it should all be over in a matter of weeks.

But as the years have gone by, levels of trust in the government have fallen off a cliff.

Countless Russian families have been forced to mourn the losses of their loved ones or seen fathers, brothers, and sons come home with life-changing injuries and broken minds.

This is going to make it increasingly difficult for Russia to hit its recruitment targets.

And even if it manages to miraculously do so, those targets might not be high enough.

If Ukraine is able to up its game even further and start taking out 40,000 or 50,000 or even more Russians each month, killing around 60% or more of them and wounding the rest, there’s no way Russia will have any chance of maintaining its army.

Its numbers will at last begin to decline.

When that happens, offensive operations along the front lines will slow down.

The country’s commanders will have to abandon certain offensive efforts to prioritize others.

Assault squads will get smaller and weaker as new recruits will have even less training and military experience than those that came before them.

Morale will continue to decline at a record rate with more and more soldiers becoming more likely to either desert their posts or wave the white flag and surrender to the enemy at the earliest opportunity.

And all of this adds up to one clear conclusion.

Russia will have zero chance of achieving any sort of victory in Ukraine.

Even if the country increases its reliance on mercenaries and tries hiring soldiers from places like North Korea, India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Africa, as it has been doing, it’s going to find it impossible to find enough of those people.

In fact, statistics show that Russia has managed to recruit around 17,000 of these mercenaries so far from various countries, which would barely be enough to cover half a month’s losses in Ukraine.

So, while Putin and his sickopantic commanders continue to make fake claims about capturing valuable land and pushing on for victory, the truth is very different.

Not only is the country failing to make gains at reasonable speeds, but it’s losing more troops than ever before and is increasingly unable to cover up those losses.

Vladimir Putin is scared.

Russia’s president would never admit it.

He would never be out in public showing his fear to the world.

But then that’s the point.

Putin has suddenly disappeared from the Kremlin altogether.

And the reason why is that something has scared him so badly that he’s gone underground to avoid it.

Even the Kremlin isn’t safe anymore for paranoid Putin as Russia’s desperate leader tries to defend the only thing that really matters to him in this world, his own life.

It’s been a long time since Putin was last seen in the Kremlin.

According to RBC Ukraine, March 9th was the last time that any sign of Russia’s president was seen at a public Kremlin event.

It’s not like Putin hasn’t taken breaks from the Kremlin before, but this is one of the longest absences from what is supposed to be the Russian seat of power that we’ve ever seen.

And it’s happening right as Russia launches what is supposed to be a spring and summer offensive that will finally see it achieve everything that Putin wants in the embattled Dombas region.

Disregarding the likely failure of that offensive, the fact that Putin seems to have vanished into thin air during such a critical juncture tells us that something is going very wrong in the paranoid mind of the Russian president.

And the evidence is mounting that he’s doing everything that he can to stay as far away from the public eye as possible.

Let’s talk about the last public appearance for a moment.

On March 9th, Putin took part in a meeting regarding the global oil and gas markets, both of which have been upended by Operation Epic Fury in Iran.

Since then, it seems that Putin has been taking part in meetings remotely, such as on March 18th when he held an online meeting with the Russian government, supposedly conducted from his Novo residence in Moscow.

But even the legitimacy of that meeting is up for debate, as there are rumblings that his appearance was a prefilmed or canned video.

And there are certain signs that Russia’s leader has been faking his location even in these online meetings.

Office trickery is far from a new thing for Putin.

As Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty or RFl reports, November brought with it news that Putin has been actively obscuring his location for months.

How? By setting up nearly three identical offices in different locations, ensuring that nobody ever quite has a feed on where he is.

Or at least that’s what Putin was doing.

In the 160 or so days since the news broke, the Kremlin has released no videos or photos of Putin being in any of those offices, which is another sign that Russia’s leader is afraid.

His sneaky little plan to stay under the radar has been Rumble.

And the visual markers that gave the game away the first time round have been either changed or Putin has found himself some new underground bunkers and offices from which to operate.

So Putin was already in hiding even before his latest Kremlin absence.

But here’s where things get even stranger.

On March 4th, just before Putin took what has now become, shall we say, an extended leave of absence from his Kremlin duties, RFIRL published an interesting report that seems to prove that many of Putin’s appearances are being filmed well in advance of when they supposedly happen.

And what gave the game away this time? Plants.

The outlet says that March 2nd and 3rd saw Putin’s lackeyis post videos showing him supposedly meeting with officials that included the head of Russia’s federal treasury and the governor of the far eastern Amur region of Russia.

Those meetings were reported on Russian state TV along with footage and that’s where things took a turn.

According to RFl, a Chinese evergreen plant seen in the background of this March footage shows that whatever Putin had filmed in his office for the meetings actually took place somewhere between February 9th and February 17th, not in early March.

Those plants had started to rot away by early February.

RFl reports officials had clearly replaced those older plants with new ones, as shown by footage that was published by the Kremlin during February.

However, the supposed March meetings we just mentioned clearly show that the old plants are still in place.

Somebody in Putin’s circle made a mistake.

And in doing so, they revealed that Russia’s leader is filming footage of himself taking part in meetings literally weeks before Russia claims those meetings have happened.

So fake offices, abandoned offices, all sorts of timing mishaps with meetings, and now a complete disappearance from the Kremlin.

These are not the actions of a leader who is confident in himself.

A leader who has so long portrayed himself as the indomitable strongman of Russian politics, which has been the root of his power for over two decades.

Gone seemed to be the days when Putin paraded about in carefully orchestrated photographs showing him doing such manly things as working out, entering submersibles, and paragliding.

In their place is a version of Putin that is trying very hard to disappear, to hide himself away from everything.

The strong man has become the weak and scared little man of Russia, and he can’t hide away from that fact.

No matter how many tricks he tries to pull, Russia’s leader has gone underground.

And the reason why is that a few things have changed in Russia over the past couple of months.

Or should we say something pretty major has happened in Iran that has gotten Putin so spooked that he had to go into hiding.

When the US launched Operation Epic Fury, even Putin had no idea just how devastating the operation would be for Iran.

as heaps of military infrastructure went up in flames during the first day of an operation that has now lasted for almost a month.

One loss in particular sent shivers down Putin’s spine and it happened on the very first day.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Kune was killed.

This was a man who like Putin is doing right now tried everything to keep out of the sights of his enemies.

But he was still eliminated in a clinical operation that the Guardian reports took all of 60 seconds for the US and Israel to execute.

The CIA and other US intelligence services spent 6 months gathering intelligence on Kamina before the fateful February 28th strike.

And then just like that, bunker busting bombs were dropped, instantly penetrating KA’s hideout, killing him and around 40 other Iranian military commanders.

Kina never saw the attack coming, and he never believed the US would be able to hit him.

Kina was wrong, and Putin has been paying attention.

It’s no coincidence that Putin’s Kremlin disappearance, along with all his office hijinks, just so happened to coincide with the days immediately after KA’s elimination.

Putin watched as the US, which has historically been Russia’s enemy, pulled off an operation so deadly and efficient that he couldn’t help but think that it could do the same to him at any time.

Parading around in public in the Kremlin would only make it easier for his enemies to find him, Putin appears to have concluded.

And once news started breaking about how the US and Israel managed to get their man in Iran, Putin’s paranoia only grew deeper.

According to the Financial Times, it’s now believed that the US managed to track Hom’s location by hacking into traffic cameras in the Iranian capital of Tehran as part of a long-term surveillance operation.

Can you imagine what must have gone through Putin’s mind in this moment? The very kinds of devices that he is supposed to be able to rely upon to provide security may have just been watching him all along, just as they were watching Humane.

Just like that, a distrust of cameras must have formed.

That sheds a whole new light on the videos we talked about earlier.

Putin doesn’t want to be caught live streaming his location while holding meetings with Kremlin officials.

That’s why he’s using recordings, and he certainly doesn’t want to be seen in person because he never knows who could be watching and reporting back to his enemies, be they in the Kremlin itself or further a field.

Putin’s paranoia has finally gotten the best of him.

And again, there were signs that this was going to happen as soon as the US proved that it could hit somebody like Common.

But before we get into that, this is a quick reminder that you are watching the military show.

We bring you the full picture, not just the headlines.

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Cameras are far from the only type of technology that Putin hides away from.

Hints of this technophobia have been apparent since the very beginning of the Ukraine invasion.

Toward the end of 2022, the South China Morning Post carried an interesting report claiming that Putin absolutely refuses to use the internet, instead demanding that all information he needs be provided to him via physical documents.

Russia’s president won’t even use a smartphone, the same report claims.

And it says that both Russian and US officials have backed these claims.

Business Insider has also backed them by way of a former Russian intelligence officer who has since defected.

In April 2023, Gleb Carakulov explained all, stating, “In all my years of service, I haven’t seen him once with a mobile phone.

” He added, “He doesn’t use the internet or a mobile phone.

He only receives information from his closest circle, which means that he lives in an information vacuum.

” Suddenly, we start to see why Russia is failing so hard in Ukraine.

The man who is supposed to be leading the information isn’t using the tools that he needs to get his hands on the sort of time-sensitive information that he needs to react to the constant changes on the front.

Putin’s demands for physical documents mean that information he should be getting instantly isn’t arriving for hours or perhaps even days.

Putin’s paranoia is crippling the psies that he sent to Ukraine.

But more importantly, it’s crippling his ability to serve as the strongman president he has for so long claimed to be.

This is also a man who is terrified of germs.

He’s afraid of being poisoned.

Putin would prefer never to fly in an airplane because he’s afraid that it’ll be blown up while he’s inside.

You might recognize these kinds of tactics as the very ones that Putin himself has deployed against his enemies.

Perhaps Putin believes in karma.

What goes around might well come around for Russia’s leader, and he wants to be nowhere to be found when the sort of tactics he and Russia uses constantly are brought to bear against him.

What we’re starting to see here is the story of a man who has become so encompassed by his own fear that he has paralyzed himself.

No internet, no cameras, no Kremlin.

And in the wake of hommin’s elimination, Putin is also waking up to the fact that no matter how hard he tries, he won’t be able to escape what he increasingly believes could be coming for him.

It’s not just what happened to Homminina that has caused Putin to become a no-show in the Kremlin.

It’s the fact the elimination of Iran’s leader is the latest sign that the US is no longer playing by the same rule book that it has been for decades.

After all, it was only a couple of months before the launch of Operation Epic Fury that the US sent elite operatives into Venezuela to capture former President and many would say dictator Nicholas Majuro.

It also isn’t lost on Putin that both Majuro and Kina were allies to Moscow.

And yet, the US has managed to take them both down in the combined space of less than 2 days.

Again, it’s breathtaking efficiency, but it also isn’t how any of this is supposed to be happening.

Putin is the man who has always been accustomed to not playing by the rules.

when he needed something done in another country, he could make it happen.

And he could do it while giving himself enough plausible deniability to claim that he had no involvement.

But now he’s having to watch as the US very openly takes out leaders who share more than a few similarities with him.

These are despots and dictators who are falling to the US.

And both of those labels can be applied to Putin just as readily as they have been to KA and Madura.

Could he be next? That’s the big question that must be swirling around in Putin’s mind right now.

And it may be the biggest reason why he’s gone underground.

He wants to be out of sight because he’s starting to feel like he’s running the kind of brittle regime that could easily become a target for a country that has proven twice in 2026 alone that it has a knack for taking out despots.

Putin’s paranoia isn’t trapped in his own mind.

It’s not just his actions in his fake offices and his inaction in the Kremlin that tell us everything that we need to know about where Putin is right now.

The real problem for Putin is this.

He’s so desperate to be seen as the strong man in his weakest moments that he is hurting the Russian people.

We told you earlier that Putin is so deathly afraid of being tracked via the internet that he simply refuses to use it or any smartphones that could connect to it.

But at least up until this point, he recognized that the net was a useful tool for Russia’s people and its military to use.

That all seems to have gone out the window like so many of Putin’s past enemies.

Now, as Russia’s president is overseeing a crackdown on the net all over Russia, complete internet blackouts are becoming commonplace all over the country.

Digital censorship is nothing new for Russia, but sweeping internet and mobile service outages that go as deep as Moscow are.

These outages build on the selective ones that Russia has been employing for months, which it always says are a tactic to counter Ukraine’s drones, but really seem like a way for it to shut down any discourse that follows after those drones hit their targets.

CNN says that speculation about these shutdowns is rife with some claiming that they’re being done to get ahead of any efforts the Russian public might make to protest an anticipated mobilization effort by Putin.

Again, Russia’s leader is trying to protect himself from something that he thinks can hurt him.

If he doesn’t see protests, then there must be no appetite for them.

Of course, he ignores the fact that his internet mobile crackdowns are now so severe that some in Russia have resorted to using walkietalkies to communicate with one another.

Others point to the issues we’ve already discussed related to Putin’s fear after he has seen US-led regime changes in Iran and Venezuela.

If nobody can access the internet in Russia, then nobody can use it to take photos, send information, or do anything that might have the slightest possibility of revealing where Putin is.

Putin is trying to tighten his grip on Russia even as his fingers are breaking.

And the internet shutdowns are accompanied by a campaign against the social media app Telegram, which is a main source of information for many inside Russia.

The Kremlin has been working with internal tech companies for years to create Putin approved replacements for Telegram and WhatsApp.

Messenger Max is the app that those tech heads have come up with.

And once again, this just so happens to be an app that will likely give the Kremlin near limitless access to what Russian people are saying.

Putin wants his people to use the state approved and unestablished alternative rather than using Telegram, which more than 60% of the population currently uses.

Messenger Max is better.

At least Messenger Max means that Putin can have people constantly observing what’s happening on an internet that he is too afraid to use.

It’s yet another sign of fear for a man who hasn’t been seen in the Kremlin for about 2 weeks.

And these shutdowns also happen to coincide with whispers of a coup that have been rumbling in the Kremlin.

Though these whispers have since been declared wishful thinking in outlets such as the Kev Independent, the story itself is enough to strike even more fear into Putin.

The idea is that after Putin arrested yet another ally of his former defense minister Sergi Shuyigu, that former Putin lackey has been arranging a coup that would strip Putin of his power.

It doesn’t help that yet another of Moscow’s internet shutdowns happened right as Putin’s operatives were arresting former deputy defense minister Roslan Salakov, who is the Shuyu ally in question.

Everything we’ve talked about in these videos amounts to signs that Putin’s paranoia has finally gotten the best of him, and it shouldn’t come as any surprise.

Beyond what the US has been doing in other countries, Putin is overseeing a regime that is under increasing pressure.

As we speak, Ukraine has reclaimed more territory during a February counter offensive against Russian forces than it’s liberated since 2023.

Around 400 km or 154 square miles in southern Zaparisia and Denipo Petrovk regions are back in Ukraine’s hands, which is a blow to Putin’s narrative that Ukraine is a country that is on the edge of defeat.

Kremlin propagandists are even starting to turn against Putin.

One of those propagandists is Ilia Romelo, who is a lawyer who has long had a reputation as a hardline supporter of the Ukraine invasion.

Putin has rewarded this support with slots on state television, and Romeslo has repaid him with claims that 2026 is the year that Putin will be overthrown.

That’s according to the International Business Times, which reported on March 18th that Putin’s supposed ally has claimed that his president is becoming weaker and weaker year after year.

And there are clear signs that a collapse in the system that has propped Putin up for over a quarter of a century is coming.

Maybe that’s what we’re really seeing with Putin’s Kremlin disappearance along with everything else that we’ve covered in this video.

Putin is no longer the supremely self-confident leader that he has always portrayed himself to be.

After 4 years of a failed special military operation in Ukraine, and especially after seeing what the US has done in Iran and Venezuela, Putin has devolved.

He’s not all powerful anymore.

He’s a scared little dictator bouncing between hidden offices and refusing to show his face because he’s starting to think that his time is near.

And in his paranoid mind, he can’t even figure out who his enemies are.

Is it the US, the Russian people, his supposed Kremlin allies, all of them? None of them.

Putin just doesn’t know.

and his only solution is to go so far underground that nobody can get to him.

And in doing that, he neuters himself as an effective leader.

The disastrous start to Russia’s spring offensive won’t have done anything to allay Putin’s fear for his own life.

What was supposed to be the start of a dramatic Russian surge has only led to a record-breaking number of losses for Russia’s forces.

Paranoid Putin is panicking as he fails over and over to make any sort of notable progress in Ukraine.

Putin is starting to see threats in every shadowy corner of the Kremlin.

Coo whispers have exploded as something just went dark in Moscow.

This could be the end of a despot.

The fall of a tyrant.

Right now, all things point to one big thing.

Putin’s overthrow is about to happen.

The news comes from a Russian telegram channel named VCHK OGPU which claims that it has insider access to Russia’s security services and that this access has allowed it to reveal that a coup is being formed by a man that Putin would never expect to bite back.

A man who for years had been one of Putin’s closest friends and trusted confidants.

Who could this man be? Sergey Shooigu, Russia’s former defense minister.

We’ll explain the many hints that the coup is coming, the key event that led to the rumors starting, and a crazy twist to this tale that could change everything later in the video.

As for what the Telegram channel said, London Loves Business offers the key details.

It says that the channel claims to have gained access to a secret source who reveals that recent internet outages in Russia have less to do with security, as the Kremlin so often claims, and instead have far more to do with Putin’s paranoid belief that one of his oldest allies is out to get him.

The restrictions on cellular communication in the internet in the center of the capital and in some areas of Moscow suspiciously coincided with the beginning of investigative activities against the closest people to Shyu and himself.

The channel claims.

But wait, how could this even be happening when Shooyu is meant to be one of Putin’s closest allies? The answer is that allegiance in the Putin administration is often bought and sold.

And our mention of Shuyu being Russia’s former defense minister offers an interesting clue as to why Putin’s allies so rattled.

In May 2024, Putin decided that it was high time that he removed Shyigu from his position at the Russian Defense Ministry.

This decision came after Russia had found itself embroiled in a war that had lasted over 2 years with Ukraine.

That war was never supposed to happen as the supposed special military operation was meant to see Russia storm into Ukraine and take over Kev in a matter of days.

As defense minister, Shyu would have overseen all of these initial plans and would have also been the voice in the Kremlin telling Putin that his impossible goal was something that Russia could actually achieve.

Shyu was wrong.

And after 2 years of standing by his man, Putin finally dropped the axe.

And in doing so, he stripped Shooyu of a position and the status that came with it, which has served as proof that he was one of Putin’s guys.

Russia’s president turned his back on Shyu to save himself, teaching the former defense minister a very important lesson about where Putin’s priorities will always lie.

Loyalty doesn’t get you very far in the Kremlin.

And sure, you experience that firsthand.

Sure, Putin made him the secretary of Russia’s security council.

But anybody who knows anything in the Kremlin saw this for what it was, the demotion of a former ally to a position where that ally could no longer get in the way of what Putin wanted.

There were hints even back then that Shuyu was losing favor with Putin.

His dismissal from his defense minister role was preceded by the arrest of one of his key deputies, Timoranov, on accusations of corruption.

Given that corruption is what makes the Kremlin tick, you can always assume that arrested on suspicion of corruption translates to arrested because Putin sees this person as a threat.

In an article where it asked the question of why Shyu has been removed from his position, the BBC revealed that these types of reshuffles in the upper echelons of Putin’s cabinet are rare, especially during wartime.

It pointed to Sergey Lavrov, who had held the role of foreign minister in Russia for about 20 years up to 2024 and is still in that role today.

Shyu himself had been defense minister for 12 years before his dismissal.

Sure, Putin purges, but when it comes to the upper echelon, he tries to keep things stable by surrounding himself with lackeyis who will do and say whatever he wants.

So removing Shyigu sent a pretty clear message to Putin’s seemingly former ally, Putin doesn’t trust you anymore.

And perhaps just as pointedly, Putin may have started to see Shyu as a threat, even if he didn’t have the heart to have his former defense minister arrested or pushed out of a window.

Knowing Putin as well as he does, Shyu wouldn’t have needed anybody to tell him what his demotion really meant.

Putin wanted him out of the way and was trying to pate him with a meaningless position, at least compared to his old role.

This wasn’t out with the old and in with the new.

It was out with a potential enemy and in with a better lackey.

Fast forward to March 2026, and hints are emerging that both Putin and Shyu have grown increasingly distrustful of one another.

The former defense minister has been stewing his own bitterness for about 2 years, and he’s also starting to see Putin make moves against him that weaken his power even more.

There has been an arrest of another key Shoyu ally for one.

On March 9th, Medusa reported that the purge of the Russian Defense Ministry that followed Shooyu’s axing had been taken up a notch.

This time it was the turn of Russlan Salakov to be arrested on charges related to embezzlement, bribery, money laundering, and supposed ties to criminal organizations.

We’re assuming that the last charge has something to do with his former ties to the Kremlin, which is about the biggest criminal organization in Russia.

But what’s important here is that Salakov is more than just an ally to Shyu.

He is Shyigu’s closest associate, having once served as the first deputy defense minister during Shuyu’s tenure.

The news sent shock waves through the upper echelons of the Kremlin, even as Russia’s pro-war military bloggers celebrated it as yet another genius move by Putin.

Now, Salakov faces up to 20 years in prison after about three decades serving as Shuyu’s right-hand man.

If Shuyu hadn’t gotten the picture with all of the arrests that came before and followed his ousting from the defense ministry, he’ll be seeing it now.

Putin has spent two years isolating his former friend.

Shyu will know that his will be the next head to roll.

And that brings us all the way back to the coup and the evidence that it is actually happening and that Shyu is behind it all.

So far, we’ve seen hints.

We can add to those hints by pointing out that Shyu himself hasn’t been seen since March 5th, despite still serving in what’s supposed to be a fairly prominent role.

That lack of visibility has sparked even more rumors that there is a rift in the Kremlin.

However, it’s the internet shutdowns that we mentioned earlier that serve as the biggest piece of evidence that Putin’s former ally has been plotting to overthrow the Russian president.

Why? Before we go deeper into that, you are watching the Military Show and we bring you the full picture beyond the headlines.

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Returning to Shyu’s situation, he has spent the last 2 years being rejected by Putin despite his many years of loyal service.

He has then had to watch as Putin has systematically gotten rid of every major ally that Shyu had.

Doesn’t take a genius to see the writing on the wall here.

And even Shyu is smart enough to know that he needs to make a move before Putin makes it for him.

But what does that have to do with internet shutdowns? The simple answer is that the shutdowns we’re seeing in Russia right now are different from anything we’ve seen since the war began.

And if the source who spoke to VCHK OGPU is to be believed, it’s all due to Putin being terrified that Shyu is trying to orchestrate a coup.

To give you some context on the scale of Russia’s most recent shutdowns, the Moscow Times reports that mobile internet outages have raged throughout Moscow and St.

Petersburg.

That’s notable in its own right, as these are two of Russia’s most affluent cities, and thus two of the cities that Putin actually cares about.

Almost 2,500 complaints have been logged with down detector in St.

Petersburg after 6:00 a.

m.

on March 9th.

Russia has a history of shutting off mobile internet access.

Of course, it will often say that it has to do it because of drone strikes, which we’ll explore more in a moment.

And it led to Russia leading the world in internet disruptions in 2025.

With 37,166 hours of downtime that affected almost all 146 million people in the country, what we’ve seen in Moscow and St.

Petersburg is a little extreme, but it’s not outside of the ordinary.

Or is it? There’s a small wrinkle to this story that tells us that the latest outage was much more about Putin’s paranoia than anything else.

Combat Veteran News explains, noting that this latest shutdown happened to exclude key government figures that Putin wanted to keep in the loop.

“What tells us that this is more than just an external hack is that access was limited to government approved whitelists,” Combat Veteran News says.

In other words, certain cell phones could still access the internet even as most of Moscow and St.

Petersburg struggle.

And it appears that these phones have been placed on a white list that essentially makes them immune to shutdowns.

What we’re seeing here is that Putin has created a tier within the upper echelons of the Kremlin that is reserved for those whom he trusts most.

That list has been getting smaller since he launched his Ukraine invasion.

But with a white list, he’s able to cut communications for those that he targets while allowing his cronies to coordinate their efforts.

In other words, this was a government approved cutout that excluded those whom Putin needed to keep in the loop.

And Putin has been planning something like this for a while.

On February 20th, Putin signed into law a new measure that gives Russia’s Federal Security Service or FSB, the power to demand that internet service providers restrict access to their services based on Putin’s orders.

Less than a month later, we’ve just seen Putin execute on this massive overreach of power to cut off the internet for all but a select few.

You may remember the quote we shared from VCHK OGBU earlier.

Specifically, the part about this latest shutdown coinciding with the launch of the investigation into those closest to Shyu, including the arrested Salikov shows us this was a very deliberate move by the Kremlin.

It put Shyu’s allies in the dark, allowing the FSB and whomever else Putin wanted to deploy to crack down on those he believes are plotting against him.

Of course, the Kremlin claims otherwise.

As everyday Russians were forced to resort to using walkie-talkies to communicate, the Kremlin was trottting out its old lines about how the outages were introduced to ensure security and that they would remain in place as long as additional measures are necessary.

If you’re looking for anything other than vagueness in those responses, then you’re out of luck.

The Kremlin made sure not to say much of anything before about outages that the Guardian reports extended as far as the state doomer itself.

In the meantime, sales of walkie-talkies have risen by 27% in Russia with pager usage increasing by 73%.

Putin is sending Russia back to the pre- internet age, or more specifically, he’s sending the parts of Russia that he doesn’t trust, which seems to be almost all of it, back to a time when it was much harder to communicate behind his back.

To be fair to the Kremlin, it was being truthful about this latest outage being for security purposes.

What it didn’t say is that it has nothing to do with Russia’s security and everything to do with placating paranoid Putin as he fears what could be coming from Shyu.

Combat veteran news explains more.

There are rumors that in some of these specific sections in Moscow where the blackouts happened are actually the homes of key military and security facilities.

He says that just feeds into the idea that Putin’s move was really about reducing the ability of conspirators to communicate while ensuring that his own anti- coupoo forces could move without restrictions.

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