Putin can no longer hide from disastrous personal crusade
VLADIMIR PUTIN’S advisers are
“afraid to tell him the truth” about Ukraine.that was the incredible allegation made by the boss of Britain’s spy agency, GCHQ, onthursday.
According to Sir Jeremy Fleming, the Russian premier has made a strategic miscalculation in invading his neighbour.
His remarks were choreographed with US officials. At the same moment, Kate Bedingfield, communications director in the White House, stated: “We believe Putin is unaware of how badly his military is doing and how the economy is being crippled by sanctions.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby weighed in, asserting the Russian leader “may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing”.
In a speech given in Australia, British spy chief Sir Jeremy portrayed Putin as an isolated leader, making poor decisions based on inaccurate information from his subordinates.
In Ukraine, he said, Russian soldiers were “short of weapons and refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft”.
He cited no evidence, which may indicate British confidence that their information is correct without endangering sources or secret technology.
So what are we to make of these confident assertions from the shadows?
One interpretation is that this might be “an off-ramp” being offered to the Kremlin, enabling Putin to claim that, had he understood the real picture, he would never have initiated his February 24 invasion.the spying business is mostly about understanding human psychology, as another Fleming involved in the intelligence world would testify.
Real-life wartime espionage boss Commander Ian Fleming, later creator of the fictional James Bond, asserted that understanding your enemy was the key attribute in defeating him.
In thewest we are now beginning to understand that Putin’s army has been long trading on a reputation of strength, inherited from the vast Soviet army of Coldwar days that could blot out the horizon with endless columns of tanks. The ruthless efficiency of Russia’s war machine in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria also played a part.
Yet these were “bushfire wars”, fought against unequal opponents.
It is clear that we in thewest have been
guilty of swallowing this belief in Russian invincibility and it is time we stopped hedging our bets and were able to state, without equivocation, that Ukraine is winning this war. In fact, we do the brave men and women of Ukraine a disservice, at this point, to say anything else.
It is not to be hubristic. Russia’s forces are still able to unleash ferocious bombardments on their enemies, many innocents are dying still as a result, and their tactics may yet change.
But Putin’s ability to wage war is being eroded with every passing day.
We often looked at his army through our own eyes, forgetting that a military career carries very low status in the Russian Federation. It pays poorly, thus the talent goes elsewhere, or works abroad. It has no pool of noncommissioned officers – the sergeants who mentor young soldiers, act as the army’s corporate memory and are trained to think and behave independently as necessary in the heat of battle.
The Federation’s army is top heavy with officers, who have to both lead and act as “uncle” to their men in the absence of NCOS. Initiative is stifled, which carries through to the top.that is why seven generals, so far, have been killed plus another nine named colonels, placing themselves too far forward, anxious to please the man in the Kremlin.
The robber state that is modern Russia also played its part in the humbling of the Kremlin’s legions.the shredded tyres that brought Moscow’s trucks to a halt were
the result of buying cheap, or not at all, while someone rifled the equipment budget. Fuel is short because it has been diverted to the oligarchs’ luxury cars and yachts. Conscripts have deployed in winter without basic necessities such as sleeping bags, tents or stoves, again because the money has gone elsewhere.
Army rations are very poor, if issued at all.we saw this when troops were reported begging for food in Belarus before the invasion began.this also helps explain why Ukrainian shops are being looted and farms stripped of livestock.
But conscripts are unhappy for another reason. None were told they were about to deploy from winter exercises in Belarus to a shooting war against a neighbour many regarded as friendly.
Reports have emerged of Russian troops asking Ukrainian villagers to call their parents to explain where they are.
Russia has been at war with Ukraine since 2014. It is these eight years of war that has given Ukraine the decisive edge over Russia today in training, tactics, resilience and logistics.
For instance, a massive cyber attack was feared that would paralyse President Zelensky’s command and control on the eve of an invasion. However, years of piecemeal assaults by the Kremlin have taught Ukraine’s own hackers and computer experts to become adept at anticipating and outwitting threats.
Today this invisible war in the ether is still being waged every second by an estimated 300,000 cyber warriors. Most
are not Ukrainian but are pitting their skills against Russia, motivated by a simple good-versus-evil mentality shared throughout the West.
The same applies to Ukraine’s aircrew. A US Air Force officer observed last week: “Ukrainian pilots choose the time and place to fight. In over eight years of fighting the Russians, they have learned when to put their assets at risk and how much risk to incur.”
Some of Putin’s miscalculation is not down to his country’s failings but to the skills of their opponents.
A British officer observed to me that, in 2014, Ukraine “was caught unawares by the Russian land grab of Crimea and the Donbas region, because the Ukrainians were an old-fashioned Coldwar force, just like the Russians”.
Since then, trained and equipped by Britain, America and Canada, “Ukraine has learned and moved on while the Russians stood still”.
Despite all this, Putin is not stupid. He did not rise in the KGB and the cut-throat political world of St Petersburg because he lived in a bubble, unaware of the realities of everyday life. He is bright enough to understand when he is being fed false information.
This is his war, his personal crusade.
He, and no one else, has dragged Russia, ill-prepared, into what may prove to be a long and bloody conflict.
What Sir Jeremy Fleming and the
White House were really saying was this: “We know your army better than you. In fact, we know all your secrets.
You can no longer hide from the consequences of your actions.
“This war is not only immoral. It is absurd, and you are losing it.you have run out of excuses and the sooner you end it, the better.”
‘His ability to wage war is being eroded’