Vladimir Putin has “massively misjudged” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his troops are refusing to carry out orders, according to Jeremy Fleming, one of the U.K’s. top intelligence officials.
During a Wednesday speech in Australia, Fleming also revealed that Russian troops have accidentally shot down one of their own planes.
“We’ve seen Russian soldiers, short of weapons and morale, refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft,” Fleming explained.
“We know Putin’s campaign is beset by problems — low morale, logistical failures and high Russian casualty numbers,” Fleming added. “Their command and control is in chaos.”
“It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people. He underestimated the strength of the coalition his actions would galvanize. He underplayed the economic consequences of the sanctions regime, and he overestimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory,” Fleming said.
The New York Times adds:
Mr. Fleming also referred to the intelligence that American officials released on Wednesday, saying that Mr. Putin’s top military officials had misinformed him about his military’s struggles. “Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth,” Mr. Fleming said.
“It all adds up to the strategic miscalculation that our leaders warned Putin it would be,” he added. “It’s become his personal war.”
Mr. Fleming said that Mr. Putin was waging a “dangerous disinformation war,” but that he had miscalculated how effective the communications campaign of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, would be.
