Russia | WSJ: Putin’s understanding of the war is tenuous as he is fed outdated reports

Moscow

Russian president Vladimir Putin receives smoothed and outdated reports about the war, which downplay the military’s failures, writes the US-based The Wall Steet Journal.

The news from the American newspaper has been reported in Russia, among other things Ria Novosti and Medusa.

A US newspaper published an extensive article on Putin on the eve of the articlefor which it has spent months interviewing current and former Russian officials and people close to the Kremlin, including a former Russian intelligence officer.

According to the newspaper’s sources, Putin receives a written report of the “special operation” every morning, which is carefully edited to emphasize successes and downplay failures.

Updates on the situation on the front reach Putin’s desk through many different parties, which takes a few days and often makes the information out of date.

War reports according to the newspaper, the delivery to Putin proceeds as follows: the front-line commanders of the Russian army report on the events at the front to the security service FSB, which allegedly edits the reports for the experts of the Russian Security Council.

They, in turn, forward the edited reports to the Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev. Only after this does the information reach Putin.

The impression that Putin does not have a clear understanding of the course of the war has formed for participants in at least two meetings with the president, writes The Wall Street Journal.

The second meeting in July was attended by representatives of the military industry. On another occasion in September, the president met with journalists working in the war zone and other writers, or “soldiers”, who report on the war on different channels.

The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied the newspaper’s claims that Putin would receive distorted information about the war.

“The president has several sources of information, as before. Any claims about receiving falsified information do not correspond to reality,” Peskov commented to the newspaper.

“Isolated and distrustful, Putin trusts only a handful of hard-line advisers,” reads the headline of The Wall Street Journal story.

Interviewed sources testify that in 22 years the president has created the current system in which he is flattered by obscuring or embellishing discouraging information.

According to them, Putin has been unable and unwilling to believe that Ukraine would be able to successfully resist.

President surrounded by a regime that feeds his conviction of Russia’s success despite ever-increasing human and financial sacrifices.

Worked at the Russian President’s Human Rights Council Jelena Vinokurova said in the story that the people around Putin are trying to protect themselves in this way.

“They deeply believe that they should not shock or upset the president.”

In the early stages of the war, a sociologist who had been conducting opinion polls for a long time had contacted the presidential office to inform about an opinion poll conducted shortly after the attack, which showed weaker than expected public support for the war.

The chancellery replied to him that “Vladimir Vladimirovich does not need to be taken out of his place now.”

In autumn was reportedthat Putin himself has started giving orders to the commanders on the front.

At the end of September, among other things, it has been alleged that Putin personally called the location of the Russian troops in the Ukrainian city of Liman and gave them the order not to withdraw.

At the beginning of October, it became clear that the Ukrainian forces took over Liman and the Russian soldiers retreated with losses.