It's extremely rare for a Russian military expert to criticize the performance of the country's armed forces.
But according to Mikhail Khodaryonok, a defense analyst, his country's war in Ukraine isn't going according to President Vladimir Putin's plan -- and likely is failing.
The BBC's Francis Scarr, who regularly monitors Russian state TV, posted a subtitled video clip on Twitter in which Khodaryonok offered his bleak assessment of the war effort in Ukraine.
"First of all, we shouldn't take information tranquilizers," he said, "because sometimes information is spread about some morale and psychological breakdown in the Ukrainian armed forces, which are allegedly on the verge of some kind of crisis of morale and so on. All of that, to put it mildly, is false."
Khodaryonok noted that the United States shipments of advanced military weapons to Ukraine is being effective in helping the country defend itself against the Russian onslaught, "despite the resistance of a single senator." Kentucky Republican Rand Paul last week blocked Senate consideration of a new U.S. aid package to Ukraine.
"A million armed Ukrainian soldiers needs to be viewed as a reality of the very near future," Khodaryonok said. "and we need to take that into account in our operational and strategic calculations, that the situation in this regard for us frankly will get worse."
Watch the defense analyst's entire take on the Russian war effort below or at this link.