Above: A charred Russian tank and captured tanks are seen, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in the Sumy region, Ukraine, March 7.
Something about this report feels oh so familiar from history …
The Daily Mail (London) reports utin ‘has placed the head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch under house arrest because he is furious at security services for failing to warn him’ that Ukraine could fiercely resist invasion:
Vladimir Putin has placed the head of the FSB’s foreign service and his deputy under house arrest after blaming them for intelligence failings that saw his army handed a series of embarrassing defeats in Ukraine, it has been claimed.
Andrey Soldatov, a respected author on the Russian secret services, said sources inside the FSB told him that Sergey Beseda, 68, head of the agency’s foreign service, has been placed under arrest on Putin’s orders.
Also arrested is Anatoly Bolyukh, Beseda’s deputy, according to Soldatov, who said Putin is ‘truly unhappy’ with the agency – which he ran before becoming president.
Putin is said to blame the agency for intelligence which assured him ahead of the invasion that Russian forces would face only token resistance from the Ukrainian army and that Ukrainians themselves were eager to be rid of their leaders.
Among the reasons for the repressions are the embezzlement of funds allocated for subversive and undercover work in Ukraine, as well as deliberately false information about the political situation in Ukraine.
The FSB security service allegedly handed him intelligence suggesting that Ukraine was weak, riddled with neo-Nazi groups, and would give up easily if attacked.
In fact, the Russian armed forces have faced fierce resistance from Ukrainian soldiers that has battled them to a standstill, inflicted heavy losses, and forced Putin’s commanders to resort to brutal siege warfare that has so far yielded few results.
Meanwhile Ukrainian civilians have rallied behind their government and the inspirational leadership of Volodymyr Zelensky, staging protests in areas that Russians have occupied, while sabotaging their tanks and capturing vehicles.
It comes after multiple reports said Putin was ‘fuming’ at the FSB for assuring him that his soldiers would meet little resistance when invading Ukraine, turning on his intelligence service and blaming them for the blunder.
Earlier today, Putin was said to have sacked his top generals and is ‘raging’ at the FSB after failed intelligence and poor strategy saw his troops handed a series of embarrassing defeats in the opening days of the war in Ukraine.
Earlier: Russia has fired ‘about EIGHT’ generals for failing to ‘complete the task’ of taking Ukraine in days, Kyiv official claims – as Putin rages over FSB failures: “Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine’s security council, said ‘around eight’ Russian commanders have been fired since the start of the conflict as Moscow scrambles to change strategy after its attempted ‘shock and awe’ blitz fell flat.”
Ah, this is why this report feels oh so familiar (I didn’t realize these guys were still making these Hitler Rants Parodies):
Soldatov previously told The Times that most FSB agents are brought into the service as legacy hires based on their parents or grandparents being agents and are removed from mainstream schools to be educated in-house.
This is unlike western security services, which tend to recruit from elite universities or colleges to ensure they get ‘the cream of the crop’.
Alternatively, he said, the organisation did gather good intelligence – but was simply too afraid to tell Putin the truth, instead doctoring their reports to appease him.
That poor decision making has led to Russia suffering much higher casualties than it expected in its attack, which has now been going on for over two weeks.
It seems Moscow had anticipated little resistance when it sent in light forces backed by airstrikes to seize key targets during the opening days, but was met with punishing counter-attacks.
Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but Ukraine believes Russia has lost up to 12,000 men in a fortnight.
European intelligence puts it lower – between 6,000 and 9,000 – and US lower still, at up to 3,000.
Whichever proves accurate, it is almost certainly more than Putin anticipated when he launched the attack in the hope that fighting would be over in just a few days.
https://twitter.com/LostWeapons/status/1503274290409402368?cxt=HHwWgMCj_ZOA2twpAAAA
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Francis Fukuyama weites at American Purpose, “Preparing for Defeat”, https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/preparing-for-defeat/
I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:
Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks.
The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses.
There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point.
The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors.
The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they’ve kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine.
The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground.
Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?
The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings.
The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan.
Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist.
Turkish drones will become bestsellers.
A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.