 Putin gives Sergei Shoigu deadline of one month to improve situation on front lines. A Kremlin insider source claimed that Putin reportedly gave Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu a deadline of one month until early October 2023 to improve the situation on the front lines, stop Ukrainian counter-offensives and have Russian forces regain the initiative to launch an offensive operation against a larger city, said US Institute for the Study of War. The insiders claim, if true, may indicate that the Russian military command may be ordering relentless counter-attacks in hopes of forcing the Ukrainian counter-offensive to culminate even at a high cost to Russian military capabilities. The ISW has previously observed instances in which the Russian Ministry of Defence, fearing the imminent loss of Putin's favour, intensified its efforts to purge commanders who offered honest but negative views and advice and pursued unachievable military objectives at the expense of Russian forces. The Russian Ministry of Defence, for example, launched an unsuccessful and costly offensive on Volodar in February 2023 to undermine the domestic Russian informational effects of the Wagner Group's progress in Bakhmut and maintain favour with Putin. Russian insider sources and mill bloggers, who have advocated for Teplinsky, claimed that Shoigu has been focusing on setting conditions to convince Putin to remove Teplinsky from command, which would likely be achievable if Shoigu is able to achieve Putin's objectives during the counter-offensive. One pro-Teplinsky channel even claimed that chief of the Russian General Staff, Army General Valery Gerassimov, had already removed Teplinsky from overseeing the defensive operation in southern Ukraine. The Ukrainian counter-offensive is in an extremely dynamic phase and the ISW is not prepared to offer any confident forecasts of events despite recent positive indicators.