“There are horrible losses of our guys, fuck. And you know, I am familiar with military history a bit, and I compare this to the fucking Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. It’s fucking one and the same,” said Vlasov, referring to a war in which the Soviets are estimated to have lost 126,875 troops.

He goes on to take aim at Shoigu, whom he describes as an “incompetent fucking layman.”

“He’s a layman in his work. This is not his fucking thing. He’s just a fucking showman,” the man identified as Vlasov says.

Kovtun responds in kind, saying, “Shoigu is fucking shit. [There are] no contracted forces. Of course not! Why would there fucking be? They paid them 30,000 rubles [$490], where are they going to get contractees?”