Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misled by advisers who are too scared to tell him how badly the war in Ukraine is going, the White House has said.
White House spokesperson Kate Bedingfield said the US had information that Mr Putin “felt misled by the Russian military” and this had resulted in “persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership”.
“Putin’s war has been a strategic blunder that has left Russia weaker over the long term and increasingly isolated on the world stage,” she said.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the assessments “discomforting” because an uninformed Putin could result in a “less than faithful” effort at ending the conflict through peace negotiations.
“The other thing is, you don’t know how a leader like that is going to react to getting bad news,” he said.
Meanwhile British intelligence says Russian troops in Ukraine are demoralised, short of equipment and refusing to carry out orders.
Britain’s GCHQ spy chief Sir Jeremy Fleming revealed new intelligence showing that ill-prepared Russian soldiers are refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.
He also claimed Putin’s own advisors are lying to him about Russia’s startling losses, speaking to the despot’s isolation and authoritarian approach.
Sir Jeremy said Putin’s “misjudgments,” had forced him to adopt plan B – “barbarity against civilians and cities.”
He also warned China not to be “too closely aligned” with a country that wilfully breaks all the rules and “norms for a new global governance”.
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