<div style="text-align: justify; "><span style="font-size: 1rem;">LONDON: Russian nationalists called angrily on Sunday for President Vladimir Putin to make immediate changes to ensure ultimate victory in the Ukraine war, a day after Moscow was forced to abandon its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The swift fall of Izium in Kharkiv province was Russia's worst military defeat since its troops were forced back from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in March.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As Russian forces abandoned town after town on Saturday, Putin was opening Europe's largest ferris wheel in a Moscow park, while fireworks lit up the sky over Red Square to celebrate the city's founding in 1147.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In an 11-minute-long voice message posted to the Telegram messaging app, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a Putin ally whose troops have been at the forefront of the campaign in Ukraine, dismissed the loss of Izium, a critical supply hub.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But he conceded the campaign was not going to plan.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"If today or tomorrow changes are not made in the conduct of the special military operation, I will be forced to go to the country's leadership to explain to them the situation on the ground," said Kadyrov.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Moscow's almost total silence on the defeat - or any explanation for what had taken place in northeastern Ukraine - provoked significant anger among some pro-war commentators and Russian nationalists on social media.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the defeats unfolded, the Russian defence ministry on Friday posted video footage of what it said were troops being sent to the Kharkiv region.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Sunday the defence ministry said Russian forces had struck Ukrainian positions in the region with airborne troops, missiles and artillery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Moscow is silent</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><br></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 1rem;">Neither Putin, who is Russia's supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, nor defence minister Sergei Shoigu had publicly commented on the defeat as of midday on Sunday.</span><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We take pride in Moscow, and love this city with its majestic antiquity and its modern and dynamic pace of life, the charm of its cosy parks, lanes and streets and abundance of business and cultural events," Putin told Muscovites, according to a Kremlin transcript of his congratulatory message.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Putin, who has described his shock on being told as a KGB spy in East Germany that "Moscow is silent" as the Berlin Wall crumbled, said those who had fallen in the Ukraine operation had given their lives for Russia.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"They're taking the piss," wrote one prominent, pro-war military blogger on Telegram, who posts under the name of Rybar.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Now is not the time to shut up and say nothing ... this seriously hurts the cause."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On Saturday the ministry announced a "regrouping" that would move troops away from Kharkiv to focus on the Donetsk region further in Ukraine's east - a statement that drew further anger from many Russian military bloggers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Some of the pro-Kremlin war correspondents and former and current servicemen who have amassed large followings on Telegram accused the ministry of minimising the defeat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Defeat?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Igor Girkin, a nationalist militant and former FSB officer who helped launch a 2014 war in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, compared the collapse of one of the conflict's principal front lines to the 1905 Battle of Mukden - a catastrophic defeat in the Russo-Japanese war which triggered Russia's 1905 Revolution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ukraine has hailed its rapid advance, which saw thousands of Russian soldiers flee, leaving behind ammunition stockpiles and equipment, as a turning point in the 6-month-old war.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Girkin, who has been unsparing in his criticisms of the country's top brass, dubbing defence minister Shoigu "the cardboard marshal", has said repeatedly that Russia will be defeated in Ukraine if it doesn't declare a nationwide mobilisation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nationalist anger at military failure is potentially a far greater problem for the Kremlin than pro-Western liberal criticism of Putin: opinion polls continue to show broad support for what Moscow calls the "special military operation".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the capital celebrated Moscow Day with street parties and concerts on Saturday, rumblings of disquiet even spread to Russia's ordinarily subservient parliament.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sergei Mironov, leader of the nominally opposition but Putin-loyal Just Russia party, said on Twitter that a firework display in honour of the holiday should be cancelled, in view of the military situation.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One message reposted on Telegram by the prominent war correspondent Semyon Pegov referred to the celebrations in Moscow as "blasphemous" and the refusal of Russian authorities to embark on full-scale war as "schizophrenic".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Either Russia will become itself through the birth of a new political elite ... or it will cease to exist," it read. Source: Times Of India</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>