The State Duma of Russia is considering the possibility of summoning the Minister of Defense of Russia Sergei Shoigu to a hearing in closed session, said the leader of the parliamentary faction of the “Just Russia” party Serhiy Mironov, quoted by the Russian publication “Kommersant” on Thursday. .

It is an unprecedented fact that the Duma (the lower house of the federal parliament) summoned the defense minister for a report, Reuters and Agerpres write. This week, military experts openly criticized Russian forces after they lost control of much of Kharkiv Oblast (northeast Ukraine) during a blitzkrieg counteroffensive by the Ukrainian army.

Mironov, an ardent supporter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and leader of the small pro-Kremlin Just Russia party, reportedly said the State Duma Council, which deals with the lower house, could discuss the issue on Monday.

On Wednesday, in a message on Twitter, Mironov said that his party offers to meet with Shoigu “so that deputies can talk with him behind closed doors and ask him all the questions that interest us and the citizens.”

Russia’s defeat in Kharkiv Oblast is Russia’s biggest setback since it withdrew from the outskirts of Kyiv in March, where it advanced in the first weeks of its February 24 invasion.

Moscow says what it calls a “special military operation” was necessary to prevent Ukraine from becoming a platform for Western aggression and to protect Russian speakers. Kyiv and its Western allies reject these arguments as baseless pretexts for a colonial-style war of aggression.

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