It was a bad week to be Vladimir Putin

Recent losses in Ukraine spark dissent (!) at home

Ukrainian soldier stands atop captured Russian mobile howitzer last weekend

They’re coming at Putin from the left, what there is of it, anyway, and the right and above and below for that matter.  Even before the huge losses Russia suffered over the weekend – experts now say Russia lost 3,400 square miles of Ukraine it had held since close to the beginning of the war – seven Russian lawmakers in Putin’s hometown of St. Petersburg demanded that Putin be charged with high treason in a letter they sent to the State Duma, the lower chamber in Russia’s government.  The letter claimed that Putin’s war in Ukraine had compromised Russia’s security, caused NATO’s expansion into Finland and Sweden, damaged the country’s economy, and strengthened Ukraine by causing an infusion of military aid into the country from western nations.

The letter, sent to five political factions in the Duma and to the Russian Security Council, didn’t get very far.  The seven lawmakers were quickly summoned to the St. Petersburg police station and charged with discrediting the Russian military, a law Putin passed in March after he ordered the invasion of Ukraine.

Sure, it’s not much, but it’s a chink in the heretofore impenetrable armor of the Russian President.  Yesterday, Chechnyan leader Ramzan Kadyrov criticized the Russian military after Ukrainian forces swept the Russian army from a huge swath of territory in Ukraine’s northeast. "They have made mistakes and I think they will draw the necessary conclusions," Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel, the Russian equivalent of Twitter.  "If today or tomorrow no changes in strategy are made, I will be forced to speak with the leadership of the Defense Ministry and the leadership of the country to explain the real situation on the ground to them," Kadyrov added.  That’s about as close to real criticism as it gets in Russia, especially from a man described as a “key ally” of the Russian president.