Even Putin’s minions are turning against him

Sergei Melikov, head of the Dagestan Republic within the Russian Federation, is hardly a dissident. As Colonel General Melikov, he was deputy head of the National Guard, the main militarised internal security force, and he has been a loyal agent of Moscow’s all his life. Nonetheless, he has become a no-doubt-temporary phenomenon on social media for his abusive diatribe against over-enthusiastic military recruiters.

Draft officers had been driving round Derbent, Dagestan’s second city, loudspeakers blaring calls for every adult male to go straight to their local military commissariat. ‘Utter nonsense’ was about the most polite thing Melikov had to say about this ridiculous (and illegal) gambit. He even implied that draconian new laws against spreading ‘fake news’ about the military could be used against the officials in question.

This incident demonstrates how bureaucratic inertia and a culture of meeting quotas as quickly and easily as possible has turned partial mobilisation into a crisis.