Westerners now describe the Russian president as “an authoritarian and isolated leader, who makes bad decisions, in particular because he no longer receives accurate information or honest opinions from his subordinates”writing The Guardian.
Declassified US intelligence information was leaked Wednesday by Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, reports The Hill. “We have reports that Putin feels cheated by his military, leading to ongoing tensions between the president and military leaders”she said.
“We believe that Putin is misinformed by those around him about the poor performance of the Russian military and the level of paralysis of the economy in the face of Western sanctions, with his closest advisers too afraid to tell him the truth”she added.
Judgment errors
The Pentagon has confirmed, through its spokesman John Kirby, that Vladimir Putin is not “completely informed” by his staff of the situation on the ground, and that this could constitute an obstacle to negotiations to end the conflict.
British intelligence seems to have the same information, its boss Jeremy Fleming having affirmed during a trip to Australia that it seemed “increasingly obvious that Putin [avait] extremely misjudged the situation in Ukraine”according to Sky News.
The British channel details the errors of judgment of the master of the Kremlin: “misjudgment of the Ukrainian resistance, underestimation of the scale of the Western response and its economic consequences, and overestimation of the ability of its army to secure a quick victory”.
Mr. Fleming, without providing evidence, also claims that the depressed Russian soldiers “refuse to obey orders, sabotage their own equipment and have even accidentally shot down one of their own planes”.
culture of fear
the Washington Post observes that the flaws in the flow of information to the Kremlin were obvious even before the start of the invasion. “In the days leading up to Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, US intelligence pointed out that Putin was being misled by his close advisers about the feasibility of a multi-pronged attack”writes the American daily.
In an analysis published in mid-March, The Atlantic already described “The Dictator’s Trap” into which Vladimir Putin seemed to have fallen. “When tyrants come to power, crushing opposition and imprisoning dissidents makes sense, from their point of view: it creates a culture of fear that is very useful for entrenching their power and keeping it”.
But this culture of fear “has a price: despots are rarely told that their stupid ideas are indeed stupid, or that their ill-planned wars can have catastrophic consequences. Offering an honest review is a deadly game that most advisors prefer to avoid”.
This is not the first time that Westerners, and in particular the Americans, have disclosed classified information in an attempt to destabilize Moscow. But by revealing the communication flaws at the top of the Kremlin, the White House “hopes to push Putin to reconsider his options in Ukraine”according to CBS News.