The Troubling State of Russian Politics and Ukraine Conflict.

Russian military blogger Igor Girkin, a former commander of Moscow-backed troops in Ukraine, has said that Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine have no legal standing due to the Kremlin calling its invasion a "special military operation." He warned that if the war ends in defeat, no soldier will be able to claim they were just following orders because they didn't have the right to follow them. Girkin has been a prominent critic of how Vladimir Putin and his generals are conducting the war in Ukraine, and has called for the country to be put on a full war footing.