"Vladimir Putin feels his military leaders misled him about Ukraine, declassified intelligence shows"

" \n Vladimir Putin feels his military leaders misled him about Ukraine, declassified intelligence shows \n \n\n \n Newly declassified U.S. intelligence indicates that Russian President Vladimir Putin feels he was misled by military leaders who did not tell him key details about the botched invasion of Ukraine because they feared angering him, top Biden administration officials said Wednesday. \n \n\n \n \u201cWe 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,\u201d White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters. \n \n\n \n This failure to tell Putin what was really happening has \u201cresulted in persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership,\u201d she said. \n \n\n \n Earlier in the day, a U.S. official told NBC News that Putin \u201cdidn\u2019t even know his military was using and losing\u00a0conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian President.\u201d \n \n\n \n Neither the White House nor the Pentagon would say how American intelligence agencies learned what Putin was, and was not, being told during highly sensitive and presumably secure meetings with his military advisers. \n \n\n \n But the decision to declassify and release the information now was the latest example of the Biden administration\u2019s use of a novel tactic that seems tailor made for the hybrid warfare age. It has acquired top-secret intelligence about Putin\u2019s plans and then told the whole world about it, breaking with the old model of keeping classified information locked away. \n \n\n \n Several times already, the White House has taken this previously unheard of step, declassifying information about Putin\u2019s secret invasion plans and releasing it to the public. And each time, it has been proven accurate. \n \n\n \n \u201cSo far, the White House intelligence on Ukraine has been spot on,\u201d said Scheherazade Rehman ,\u00a0 director of the European Union Research Center at George Washington University. \u201cNo one believed Biden when he said they were going to invade, even in the United States. But they did.\u201d \n \n\n \n \u201cIn this particular area, U.S. intelligence is on its game,\u201d she told CNBC recently. \n \n\n \n The revelation about tensions between Putin and his top brass came at a pivotal time for Ukraine. The Kremlin appears to have shifted strategies after failing to achieve its initial ambition: to topple Ukraine\u2019s government and install a puppet regime. \n \n\n \n Read: India\u2013Africa Relations: Changing Horizons \n \n\n \n Now, Russian defense officials claim that their primary goal in sending 190,000 troops into Ukraine last month was never to occupy it, but merely to \u201cprotect\u201d Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the country\u2019s far east. \n \n\n \n To that end, they say, they are repositioning troops who have spent the past month trying to surround Kyiv to points farther east and closer to Russian-controlled areas. \n \n\n \n The Biden administration has for weeks stressed the need to avoid escalating the conflict, currently between Urkaine and Russia, into a clash between the world\u2019s two largest nuclear armed powers: Russia and the United States. \n \n\n \n On that front, releasing intelligence like the details announced Wednesday, which strongly suggests the U.S. has a mole in Putin\u2019s inner circle, represents a calculated risk. \n \n\n \n \u201cIf Mr. Putin is being kept in the dark by his Ministry of Defense, when he does learn the truth, when he actually begins to realize how badly his military is doing in Ukraine, you don\u2019t know what kind of reaction that\u2019s going to cause in him,\u201d said Pentagon press secretary John Kirby. \u201cThere\u2019s a real potential here for escalation.\u201d \n \n\n \n Western officials will watch closely in the coming days to see whether more Russian troops move to eastern Ukraine, and whether Russia expands its military draft to conscript more soldiers. Putin is expected to make that decision by April 1. \n \n\n \n Still it\u2019s unclear whether more soldiers would give the Kremlin a strategic advantage over the passionate, mobilized Ukrainian resistance. \n \n\n \n \u201cNo amount of spin can mask what the world has witnessed over the past month,\u201d Kirby said at a briefing Tuesday. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the courage and the military prowess of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces and its people.\u201d \n "

"Vladimir Putin feels his military leaders misled him about Ukraine, declassified intelligence shows"

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