Russian state TV launches stinging attack on Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine invasion

Russian state TV guests have criticised the invasion of Ukraine and now risk the wrath of Vladimir Putin by publicly condemning the war him on a huge primetime show.

Anti-war protestors have been gathering in their thousands across Russian cities following the invasion of their neighbouring country, with many seeing Ukrainians as their brothers.

Authorities in Russia have threatened those who criticise the war efforts face being put in jail for up to 15 years and will be treated as traitors.

However, with state media having backed the Ukrainian invasion, most Russians appear to seemingly be in support - and it is Putin’s power and influence over journalists and the press that has allowed him to rule without any significant opposition.

Now, though, on a programme hosted by Vladimir Soloviyev, a staunch supporter of Putin’s regime, guests openly criticised the attack on Ukraine with one saying it was like “Afghanistan but even worse.”

The use of Afghanistan as an example is significant in Russia as it is seen as a military humiliation - with the country having spent 10 years in the country before withdrawing in 1989.

Soloviyev has been pedalling state propaganda even agreeing that the shelling of a maternity hospital in Mariupol this week was “fake news” - claiming the building was now being used by Ukraine troops.

He was left fuming, though, by comments on his Thursday night show where they questioned what the Russians were doing in Ukraine, report Mirror Online.

Karen Shakhbnazarov, a filmmaker and political commentator, took a dig at the decision to invade Ukraine on the Russia 1 channel.

“The war in Ukraine paints a frightening picture, it has a very oppressive influence on our society. Ukraine, whichever way you see it, is somewhere with which Russia has thousands of human links,” he said, reported the Daily Beast.

“The suffering of one group of innocents does not compensate for the suffering of other innocent people... I don’t see the probability of denazification of such an enormous country. We would need to bring in 1.5 million soldiers to control all of it.”

He added: “The most important thing in this scenario is to stop our military action.”

Shakhbnazarov did toe the country’s line that the war was caused by the United States but he said that a “humanitarian disaster” would also see Russia’s allies like China and India distancing themselves.

The host, who is one the Russians to have been sanctioned by the EU and has had an Italian villa seized, was left annoyed by the analysis but other guests were also critical.

Semyon Bagdasarov, a Russian Middle East expert, agreed with Shakhbnazarov and said that Russians need to prepare for “total isolation”.

He drew the parallels with Afghanistan saying: “Let Ukrainians do this denazification on their own. We can’t do it for them... As for their neutrality, yes, we should squeeze it out of them, and that’s it.

“We don’t need to stay there longer than necessary... Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse? There are more people and they’re more advanced in their handling of weapons. We don’t need that. Enough already... As for the sanctions, the world has never seen such massive sanctions.”

Other media shows have also given an insight into the war casualties in Ukraine with Russian soldiers dying, which is also going against the official line that the battle is going according to plan.

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