Russian TV Hosts Urge Return to 'Freedom,' Throw Top Brass Under the Bus

Even some of the most loyal Kremlin propagandists on Russian state TV are appearing to criticize the country's leadership amid growing signs of dissent in Russia in the wake of military reverses in Ukraine.

In a recent statement published on Twitter, head of state-controlled Russia Today (RT) Margarita Simonyan—one of the main faces of the Kremlin's propaganda and disinformation efforts at home and abroad—distanced herself from those in power in Russia and said there are some in the country's leadership with whom she disagrees as they "take decisions that could harm my country and my people."

"I am also [part of] society, I'm not the power. Just because I show up on TV, that doesn't make me someone in power. Or the fact that I run a media company," Simonyan said in the tweet published on October 2.

"Yes, I am the chief editor of media outlets, a journalist. I am just a part of society, a tiny part, and my feelings are the same as those of the public. I will never enter politics. I just love and serve my people. Not the officials. Some are good, some are bad, some are dumb," she added.

"I don't serve some generals that I've known or not known, that take decisions that could harm my country and my people. I won't justify those decisions that they make. Because I continue to serve my people and the Motherland. And I have zero other interest in this within my work capacity. I want to reserve the right to speak my mind, in the interest of the society and the people that I serve."

This kind of criticism, though it fails to name those who Simonyan is attacking, is hugely significant for a figure that the U.S. State Department has described as a "Kremlin mouthpiece" who has "dedicated her life to spreading disinformation and propaganda in service to the Kremlin."

Dissent has grown in Russia since President Vladimir Putin called for a partial mobilization on September 21 after the humiliating defeat suffered by Russian troops at the hands of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Kharkiv region. It is estimated that as many as 300,000 Russians have fled the country following the order.

Russia has suffered more reverses on the battlefield in the past week despite Putin's decision to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian regions.

Another face of Kremlin propaganda has also recently expressed criticism of the Russian leadership.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Solovyov—host of his own show "Evening with Vladimir Solovyov" on state-owned channel Russia-1—talked about the "special military operation" in the neighboring country with aggressive, triumphant and bold tones. That tone has recently been more subdued.

"I'd really like us to attack Kyiv and take it tomorrow, but I'm aware that the partial mobilisation will take time... For a certain period of time, things won't be easy for us. We shouldn't be expecting good news," Solovyov said in a recent show which can be seen in a clip published on Twitter by journalist Francis Scarr.

In another comment made on his Telegram channel, Solovyov wrote that the time had come that "those in power will have to explain themselves to the public" amid "worrying news from the frontlines."

"We all saw the powers that be close in on themselves, waving off the public's questions. We felt in our skin that the moment will come when those in power will have to explain themselves to the public. We knew it was inevitable. We knew that the truth will be unpleasant, and the longer we put it off, the more hurtful it will become," Solovyov wrote.

Yevgeny Popov, another primetime host and pro-Putin member of Russia's parliament, has also recently been more critical of the campaign in Ukraine.

"The war will end sooner or later. Better sooner," Popov wrote on Twitter, failing to comply with Moscow's directions to call the full-scale invasion of Ukraine a "special military operation."

"It's no coincidence that Putin has expressed willingness to negotiate. But we all must think about how we will carry on living. Without Western technologies and equipment, without euros and dollars, with an iron curtain, which is about to fall on the Western border. FOR A LONG TIME," Popov wrote, in possibly the most scalding criticism of Russian leadership coming from a known Putin ally.

Popov also talked about how to help the Russian economy hurt by Western sanctions.

"To help [small businesses] stimulus is required and it won't be too costly. We just need to get out of their way. We don't have just one regulatory "guillotine", we have an army of them. We need full and all-encompassing deregulation," he wrote.

"And one more thing. To continue our development in the new normal, after the fighting stops, we will have to 'loosen the screws' of the wartime. Bring back true freedom to gather, freedom of speech, freedom to unionize. And the key thing: to reform the judicial system, to bury forever the "phone privileges" [a reference to judges taking their orders from the Kremlin or influential people], and swap the stick for the carrot. Then we will be victorious."