Russian General Dismissed Amid Coup Rumors as Ukraine War Bites Back

The Russian army, facing the hypothesis of a coup

Ukraine's war has entered an unforeseen phase: political exhaustion within Russia. What began as a blitzkrieg has become a power-struggle threatening the regime itself. A forum user claims the Russian military top brass is considering a coup against Vladimir Pilingui, based on an analysis dominating the debate. The trigger is not just military failure, but casualty management: 5,000 to 6,000 Russian soldiers dead in weeks, a figure said to have exhausted commanders' patience.

The core thesis is that Pilingui made a glaring error by prolonging the conflict. "He looks bad whether he enters bloodily for two days or occupies for a month," the initial post summarizes. Going cool —moderate, surgical, without cruelty— is costing him the support of those providing the dead. Chechens, indispensable partners, expressed anger at seeing their men die while Moscow paces the offensive. The Russian army's top general has been dismissed, and the elite command meant to decapitate Ukrainian leadership turned out to be a leaky sieve.

The coup scenario is not unanimous. Some argue Pilingui is a cunning fox who knows how to eliminate rivals, and oligarchs have no incentive to move: when waters calm, they recover losses. Others recall Hitler endured longer without army rebellion, and no coup succeeds while advancing. The counter-argument is that Russia is not winning: it advances with casualties, eroding internal legitimacy.

Why is a coup within the Russian army being discussed?

The coup hypothesis stems from accumulated signals. First is casualty management: sending recruits under maneuver excuses, lack of rotation, and political prioritization of image over lives have created unrest transcending the military. The Chechen president's letter to Pilingui asking to stop the bleeding is the most visible symptom.

The second signal is the purge. Dismissing the highest-ranking general is not due to tactical setbacks, but the need to find scapegoats. When a leader executes generals, the army wonders who is next. The shadow of a military coup hovering over Pilingui for a long time, the invasion was partly an attempt to conjure it: a short, victorious conflict reinforcing authority. The plan backfired.

The third is comparison with other regimes. Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991 in an operation read as fleeing forward to avoid internal conspiracies. The parallel is imperfect, but the pattern repeats: leaders needing war to stay in power, accelerating their own exhaustion when unable to win quickly.

Economic exhaustion and the NATO shadow

Economically, the debate splits. Some argue Western sanctions are Paco —meaning worthless paper— and Russia endures unscathed. This relies on sanction details: only seven Russian banks, one-quarter of the sector, are subject to SWIFT sanctions, when the EU promised to hit 70% of the banking system. Sberbank's exclusion is explained by savings deposits in European subsidiaries, triggering guarantee fund claims.

The other current reads this as weakness: if sanctions are cut, it is because the West cannot afford collateral damage. The gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany remains open, and Ukrainian nuclear plants controlled by Russian forces continue producing electricity. For some, this does not fit a total war. For others, it proves the economy is the true battlefield.

NATO's role is the other major axis. Some see the conflict as a proxy war between the West and China over controlling Russia, while others argue the Atlantic alliance will not allow China to border Poland. Direct NATO intervention would imply nuclear weapons, making any escalation a zero-sum game. The only exit some see is an internal coup replacing Pilingui with a negotiator.

What would happen in Russia without Pilingui?

The post-Pilingui scenario is the most speculative and repeated. The reference is Yeltsin: a period of uncontrollability, oligarchs roaming freely, and a weakened state. If there is a coup, Chechnya becomes independent in zero comma, and other Russian republics might trinc. Fragmentation is not an absurd hypothesis in a country with dozens of territories with their own identity.

The counter-objection is that the Russian army is not a homogeneous institution. It is infiltrated by NATO, according to one of the most repeated theories, explaining leaks and alleged incompetence. If true, the coup would not be a spontaneous rebellion, but an outside-induced operation. The logical consequence is that high command acts not out of patriotism, but geopolitical calculation.

The third path is the straw czar: a puppet occupying the Kremlin while real power shifts to security services or oligarchs. Pilingui and his 70 years are not for losing, and that is perhaps the most unpredictable variable. A leader with nothing to lose is the worst enemy of any conspiracy.

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The disconcerting fact is not the number of casualties or the dismissed general's name. It is that, in a war fought with missiles and cyberattacks, the decisive factor remains the patience of a handful of men with epaulettes. The question is no longer whether Pilingui can win, but how long he can lose before someone in his own army decides they have lost enough.