- Putin’s strategy is failing because he has “little effective internal challenge,” per a UK intel chief.
- GCHQ’s head Sir Jeremy Fleming pointed to Russian troops running out of equipment and ammo.
- The remarks come after Putin launched a major bombardment of Ukrainian cities and facilities.
President Vladimir Putin keeps making strategic errors in his war in Ukraine because nobody around him can call out his mistakes, according to the head of the UK’s GCHQ spy agency.
Putin’s decision-making is “flawed” because he has “little effective internal challenge,” according to text of a speech from Jeremy Fleming, previewed by Insider ahead of its delivery on Tuesday.
“It’s a high stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgement,” Fleming said in the text.
Fleming is due to give the speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London on Tuesday afternoon local time. While it focuses primarily on China, the speech also remarks on Russia’s aggression, saying that Ukraine is “turning the tide” in the war.
Analysts have long remarked on Putin’s shrinking inner circle and the impact this has had on his decision-making.
The Russian leader has surrounded himself primarily with people who share his mindset, making internal challenges to his thinking exceedingly rare.
Citing US intelligence, CNN reported in September that Putin went round the usual chain of command to personally give battlefield orders to his generals, a highly unusual arrangement that the US says has contributed to chaos on the ground.
Over the past six weeks, Ukraine has retaken hundreds of square miles of territory, including in areas that Russia claimed to have annexed and considers its own land.
Fleming said: “Having failed in two major military strategies already, Putin’s plan has hit the courageous reality of Ukrainian defense.”
“The costs to Russia — in people and equipment — are staggering,” he said, adding that Russian supplies and munitions are running out and that troops are “exhausted.”
Putin’s recruitment from prisons and his chaotic mass mobilization of reservists “speaks of a desperate situation,” Fleming said.
The announcement sent Russians fleeing to avoid the draft in numbers that exceeded Putin’s original invasion force, as the UK’s MOD noted.
“They’re seeing just how badly Putin has misjudged the situation,” Fleming said, adding that they are beginning to realize that the war will affect their own lives.
Fleming’s speech was due a day after Putin launched missiles and drone swarms towards Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities and regions, well beyond the front lines of Ukraine’s ground war.
Putin framed this as retaliation for an attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge over the weekend, state media reported.
On Saturday, Putin named a notoriously brutal commander, Sergei Surovikin, to lead Russia’s assault on Ukraine.
