'Stop Lying': State Duma Defence Committee Chairman Sharply Criticizes The Kremlin

The split among the Russian elites is intensifying.

Russians know that the Ministry of Defence keeps silent about the events in Ukraine, and people have to learn about the destruction from the governors and military correspondents. The Chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee Colonel-General Andrey Kartapolov, a member of the United Russia political party, made this statement, according to Kommersant.

“We need to stop lying. We have talked about this many times. But some executives still do not want to get it. I read the reports of the Soviet Information Bureau dated 1941 when the Germans broke through to Moscow. They openly said that we were retreating,” Kartopolov said on the air of the Soloviev Live show.

He stated that all the border villages of the Belgorod region were almost destroyed. “We learn about it from anyone, from governors and military correspondents. But the Ministry of Defence does not change its reports. The people know. Our people are smart. People see that the authorities do not want to tell even a part of the truth. This can lead to a loss of credibility,” said the Duma Defence Policy Committee Chairman.

Kartapolov and Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Vasily Piskarev appealed to the Prosecutor General with a request to sort out the rear logistics.

“Two chairmen of our committees - on security and defence - wrote a letter to the Prosecutor General asking him to figure out where all this had gone in the rear because in the past the rear was financed in full. Attention, the question is: where?" Andrey Gurulev, a member of the State Duma Committee on Defence, said on the air of the Russia-1 TV Channel.

A number of Russian officials has recently criticized the Ministry of Defence. For example, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, criticized the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel General Alexander Lapin, for the loss of Lyman.