"Talked with himself": Putin personally gave orders to the front - WSJ
According to information received from current and former officials of the US and Europe, as well as the former high -ranking official of the Russian intelligence, Vladimir Putin personally called the Russian command at the forefront at the end of September. The publication states that when poorly equipped with the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation were surrounded in the estuary of the Armed Forces, the Russian president ordered them not to retreat and to hold firmly.
As a result, on October 1, the Russian troops had a hurry to retreat, leaving equipment and warehouses with ammunition. It is noted that Putin has never served in the army, but his distrust of his own command pushes him to personally give orders to the Armed Forces. The authors of the article claim that Vladimir Putin's surroundings provide him with information from which Russia will be able to succeed in the war with Ukraine.
US officials involved in negotiations with Russia say that the position of some Kremlin representatives is even tougher than in the head of the Russian Federation. "They have a deep belief that they should not upset the president," Kateryna Vinokurov, a former member of the Russian Rights Council, said. The former Russian intelligence officer claims that Putin draws information from written briefings that exaggerate Russia's success and decreased problems.
Often, the data referred to in the reports are tested for several days, which makes them outdated. The Secretary of the Russian Security Council Mykola Patrushev did not respond to the WSJ request for comment on filtration of information provided by Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the President of Russia "has several channels for information.
" According to persons close to the government, Vladimir Putin, based on data from his sources, still intends to control Ukraine. To do this, the Russian president is ready to mobilize the economy and citizens of his country for many years. "He may have forgotten that, as the KGB operative, he lied to his boss," said the former head of the analytical department of Estonian external intelligence, Indrek Kannik.
The Wall Street Journal journalists claim that Vladimir Putin became more confident in his correctness after Russian military experts advised him not to annex the Crimean peninsula, fearing the harmful consequences for Russia. However, the Russian president still decided to bring troops into the territory of Crimea, which led to a sharp take -off of his personal rating to 80%. The Kremlin made it as a significant victory after the loss of tsarist Russia in the Crimean War of the XIX century.
The annexation of the Crimean Peninsula has turned away part of the population of Ukraine from the Russian Federation. The article states that Ukraine has started modernizing its weapons and expansion of the Armed Forces, but Vladimir Putin did not take into account this change. WSJ says that Putin was later closing himself and narrowing his circle of trusted persons. According to journalists, the President of the Russian Federation often gave his associates a lecture on his vision of Russia.
"They have the feeling that he was talking to himself," said a Russian political consultant after communicating with Kremlin representatives. After the beginning of the Crownavirus pandemic, Vladimir Putin moved to a remote residence near Lake Valdai, where he spent a lot of time with Magnate Yuri Kovalchuk. According to WSJ sources, they discussed ideas for the restoration of "Greater Russia".
Volodymyr Putin's beliefs on Ukraine were also supported by communication with Viktor Medvedchuk, who convinced the President of the Russian Federation that Ukrainians consider themselves Russians. People close to the Russian government claim that according to Medvedchuk, the Russian Federation Army with flowers will be met in Ukraine. Recall that according to the British edition of The Times, military aggression against Ukraine rejected the Russian Federation 30 years ago.