The observer noted that a sign of preparations for a "purge" was the suspension of the state program for the production of weapons in the Russian Federation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing the foundation for a large-scale "purge" in the Russian Defense Ministry in 2023. The apogee of this "purge" will not just be the removal of Minister Sergei Shoigu but the accusation of him for the failure of the invasion of Ukraine and the trial.

As the military-political observer of the Information Resistance group Alexander Kovalenko noted, the purge of generals in 2022 will seem like a warm-up.

“A sign of this preparation was the suspension of the state program for producing weapons, for which 20 trillion rubles were allocated over 10 years. This large-scale program resulted in a complete fiasco of the Russian army in Ukraine. It's funny, but according to this programme, by 2020, the share of modern weapons in the Russian troops should have grown to 70%. And Sergei Shoigu on January 20, 2022, in his report, reported that the share of modern weapons in the Russian troops is 71.2%," the expert wrote.

Kovalenko recalled that the Russian army invaded Ukraine on old equipment, with paper maps, by the end of spring, it began to change to T-62 tanks, which had not been produced since 1975, and now the Russians have already switched to armaments of the Second World War era, in particular, D-1 howitzers.

"The current suspension of the state program is just one of the stages of not just dripping under Shoigu, but in general under the entire generals who were fed from the cuts on this program. And although Putin had a share in these cuts and not a small one, no one can blame the "king" But it will be Shoigu who will be the sheep for the message unless, of course, he gets ahead of his "accusers," the observer added.

• Putin suspended the state arms production program, which received 20 trillion rubles from the federal budget over the past 10 years.

• According to Politico, Russia is already facing a shortage of foreign-made high-tech chips it has relied on for years to manufacture weapons and is desperately trying to make up for it.

• Experts reported that due to problems with artillery, Russia began sending old D-1 howitzers, produced from 1943 to 1949, to the war in Ukraine. The newest of them is 73 years old.