Even Russia's Kremlin-backed media is going off message and beginning to question Putin's war on

[Uncle Joe]

Ukraine

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On Vladimir Soloviyev’s primetime television talk show An Evening with Vladimir Solovyov on Russia-1, his guests began openly criticizing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Soloviyev, a strong proponent of Putin and an outspoken critic of Ukraine’s independence, interrupted his guests to quickly shut down any rumblings of dissent on his show.

The first criticism came from Karen Shakhnazarov, a filmmaker and a usually reliable state pundit who had previously signed a letter in support of Putin’s annexation of Crimea. But on Solovyov's show, Shakhnazarov said, “I have a hard time imagining taking cities such as Kyiv. I can’t imagine how that would look,” and noted that Putin’s invasion risked isolating Russia.

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Soloviyev's program isn’t the only one to show cracks in Russia's media propaganda machine. On the Russian Ministry of Defense’s television channel, Zvezda, a serving army officer in Putin’s “special military operation” (Russian journalists are banned from calling it an invasion or a war) said Russian soldiers were dying in Ukraine.

"Our guys over there, from Donetsk and Luhansk, and our special operation forces are dying," he said, dramatically adding, “our youth are dying.”

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https://fortune.com/2022/03/11/russia-kremlin-backed-media-off-message-question-putin-war-ukraine-invasion/