Russian military chiefs may be lying to Vladimir Putin about how badly the war in Ukraine is going, western intelligence officials claim.
Despite their loyalty to the despot, army generals are believed to be too scared to tell him the true extent of their challenges and failures on the battlefield.
In particular, misjudging the strength of Ukraine’s resistance is thought to have been a major error which Russia’s military chiefs are suspected to be hiding from their authoritarian leader.
One intelligence chief told the Mirror: ‘Even if they were capable of influencing him, would they be prepared to tell him the truth about the fairly disastrous progress of this campaign?
‘I think we are much less certain that he is getting an honest picture on the ground.’
Another said: ‘I think it’s also likely that within the Russian system various elements are going to be blaming each other for the lack of success, so that’s going to also complicate the challenge for the truth getting through.
‘People will be being quite defensive about their own failures, and, I think, looking to point the finger at others.’
The Kremlin announced yesterday that it plans to ‘withdraw troops from the Kyiv region’ in what is widely being seen as tacit recognition of Russia’s failure to seize the Ukrainian capital.
Russians were said to believe that Ukrainians would welcome them over the border and Kyiv would fall within days.
But five weeks into the war, some Russian units have suffered heavy losses and been forced to return to Belarus to reorganise, while counter-attacks have pushed Putin’s troops back in a number of places, according to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD).
The MoD says that Russia is struggling to sustain its operations across multiple areas of engagement.
Putin and his inner circle are said to be hiding in top secret bunkers in case the conflict escalates.
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Reports of retreats by Moscow forces were evidence of ‘just how badly President Putin has miscalculated’, the officials who spoke to the Mirror said.
‘There’s a lot of self-reflection in the intelligence services that they misjudged catastrophically the Ukrainian national mood,’ one expert told the paper.
Earlier this month, Ukraine claimed Putin had sacked eight top generals in anger over the progress of the invasion.
Experts have previously said that one reason for the failures could be that the Russian secret service is not fit for purpose – with agents brought in as legacy hires based on their parents or grandparents rather than capabilities.
Another theory is that the organisation did gather good intelligence – but was simply too afraid to tell Putin the truth, instead doctoring their reports to appease him.
‘The problem is that it is too risky for superiors to tell Putin what he doesn’t want to hear, so they tailor their information,’ said Andrei Soldatov, who has monitored the Russian secret service for two decades.
It remains to be seen whether or not Putin will follow through on the commitment to pull back troops, or use a pause to refresh troop columns which have been hit hard by Ukraine’s counter-attack.
There will inevitably be a great deal of scepticism about the claims following on from the Kremlin’s repeated assertions it did not intend to invade Ukraine in the first place.
Experts say it is still too early to know if Putin has decided to settle for less
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Peace talks are ongoing, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down any hopes of a breakthrough today.
He said Russia had not noticed ‘anything really promising’ but negotiators will provide an update later.
The Ukrainian government has this week set out the conditions it would agree to in order to bring about a ceasefire, including commitments on neutrality and demilitarisation, but said it would not cede territory to Russia.
Russia-Ukraine war: Everything you need to know
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the country has suffered widespread damages and loss of life amid a major bombing campaign.
Millions of people have fled the country, with thousands of British people opening up their homes to Ukrainian refugees.
However, there is some hope as a Russian spokesperson said they would ‘fundamentally cut back’ operations near the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv ‘to increase trust’ in talks between the two countries.
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