White House says Putin misled by advisers on Ukraine war
According to ALJAZEERA, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been misled by his advisers about the Russian military’s performance in Ukraine and the effect of Western sanctions on Russia’s economy, the White House said.
“We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military, which has resulted in persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership,” Kate Bedingfield, White House communications director, told reporters during a news briefing on Wednesday.
“We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth,” she said.
A US official, speaking on condition of anonymity earlier on Wednesday, said Washington’s assessment was based on newly declassified intelligence information.
The Biden administration has been publicising US intelligence findings since before Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine was launched on February 24, using the information to rally European allies and counter Russian misinformation.
The US was putting forward this information now to show “this has been a strategic error for Russia”, Bedingfield said.
US officials told Congress earlier this month that Russian forces had been dealt substantial setbacks in Ukraine. The Kremlin denied those reports, with Putin himself saying in early March that everything was “going to plan”.
The weeks-long Russian offensive has forced more than four million people to flee Ukraine, according to the United Nations, while continuing negotiations to put an end to the bloodshed have not yet achieved results.
Now, the US intelligence community has concluded that “Putin didn’t even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine,” the American official said, “showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president.”
One senior European diplomat said the US assessment was in line with European thinking.
“Putin thought things were going better than they were. That’s the problem with surrounding yourself with ‘yes men’ or only sitting with them at the end of a very long table,” the diplomat said.
Russian conscripts were told they were taking part in military exercises, but had to sign a document before the invasion that extended their duties, two European diplomats said.
“They were misled, badly trained and then arrived to find old Ukrainian women who looked like their grandmothers yelling at them to go home,” one of the diplomats added.
