Russian President Vladimir Putin does not fully understand the situation in Ukraine, but his advisers are afraid to tell him the truth about what happened on the ground, Britain’s intelligence chief said on Thursday.
“It seems more and more that Putin has misjudged the situation. He clearly does not understand the resistance of the Ukrainian people,” Jeremy Fleming, director of the U.K. GCHQ intelligence agency, said in a statement in Australia.
Referring to the Ukraine conflict as Putin’s “personal war,” Fleming said the Russian leader also undermined the economic consequences of Russia’s sanctions and military might.
“We have seen Russian soldiers – lacking in weapons and morals – refuse to carry out orders, destroy their equipment and accidentally shoot down their plane,” he said.
“And while we believe that Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth, what happened and the extent of this unfair judgment must be made clear to the government.”
A Russian government spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Fleming did not provide details of how the GCHQ or British intelligence officials knew how Putin’s inner circle felt by relating details of the attack to the Russian leader. Fleming’s comments come after a recent U.S. intelligence agency revealed on Wednesday that the Russian president felt he had been misled by Russian military leaders, who kept important details about his attack for fear of offending him.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters that failing to tell Putin what was really going on “had caused further tensions between Putin and his military leadership.”
Despite all this, Fleming said on Thursday that Putin was still trying to follow his land acquisition plan in Ukraine.
“But [the program] fails. And his Plan B has been more brutal than citizens and cities, ”he said.
Russian officials have said this week they will reduce their military activity in the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv – a declaration that has met with skepticism in Western countries.
“They seem to be forced to make important changes. But they continued to attack in both places, ”said Fleming. “Mixed messages or deliberate false information – we’ll have to see how it happens.”