It’s all gloriously unclear. The fog of war on the battlefield is one thing, but this is the fug of failure spreading out across all of Russia’s military leadership and triggering a life or death game of musical chairs. What’s not to like?
This would seem to suggest that, in addition to blowing up the bridge, the explosion — however it was done — is being felt within the walls of the Kremlin. Shoigu has long been a close confidant of Vladimir Putin, and has held multiple roles in Putin’s regime. Despite being three years younger than Putin, reports have indicated that Shoigu was reportedly to be “retired” this fall. The bridge bombing appears to have accelerated the time table, and to have made this whole thing less “here’s your gold watch, have fun on the yacht” and more “come over here and take a good look at this window.”
While reports continue to paint this as an acceleration of already planned personnel changes, and the whole thing may prove to itself be propaganda (These are Russian sources talking about Russian politics, the odds that someone is wrong or lying seems close to 100%). However, assuming this is true, it seems to represent a new level of chaos for a military whose recent mobilization blunders have only served to underscore the failures of the last seven months.