Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advisers are shielding him from how badly the invasion of Ukraine is going, top U.S. officials said Wednesday, as the conflict raged on despite peace talks and the number of Ukrainians who have fled their country topped 4 million.
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Putin’s advisers may be afraid to deliver bad news to a leader who has been willing to take increasingly extreme measures against people who dissent within the Russian system, U.S. intelligence officials said. One worrisome consequence, Pentagon officials said, was that negotiations underway between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly five-week-old invasion could be undermined by misinformed expectations and directives from the Russian side.
“We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military, which has resulted in persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership,” White House spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield told reporters. “We 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.”
Both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had generally positive things to say Wednesday about the most recent round of talks, which concluded a day earlier in Istanbul. But adding to the general sense that there are splits on the Russian side or, at a minimum, a lack of understanding about Putin’s desires, some top Russian officials gave contradictory statements.
Ukrainian officials said Russian bombing and shelling continued on Wednesday, although forces did appear to be withdrawing from around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, something the Russian side had signaled a day earlier. A spokesman for the Russian defense ministry said that its military was refocusing its operations on eastern Ukraine, away from the Ukrainian capital.
Live updates: Read the latest developments on Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Pentagon says U.S. intelligence may have overestimated Russia's capabilities
Gen. Tod D. Wolters, head of U.S. European Command, said March 29 that there "could be" an intelligence gap that led the United States to overestimate Russia's capability. (Video: C-SPAN, Photo: C-SPAN)
Top U.S. officials said that Putin’s alleged information problems are one of the weaknesses of the Russian system.
“One of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that we don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or have the ability to speak truth to power. And I think that is something that we’re seeing in Russia,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters during a visit to Algiers.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, spokesman John Kirby called it “discomforting” that Putin “may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing” thus far in Ukraine.
“One outcome of that could be a less-than-faithful effort at negotiating some sort of settlement here,” Kirby said. “If he’s not fully informed of how poorly he’s doing, then how are his negotiators going to come up with an agreement that is enduring?”
The exodus of Ukrainians — nearly 10 percent of the country’s prewar population fleeing in five weeks — underscored the regional crisis that Europe is now facing. The U.N. refugee agency estimates that an additional 6.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced inside Ukraine, meaning about a quarter of the nation of 44 million people has been uprooted. An estimated 2 million of those who have fled the country are children.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi arrived in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the Polish border, and said he would look for ways “to increase our support to people affected and displaced by this senseless war.”
Why Russia's military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine
The flood of Ukrainians into other countries has started to overwhelm their ability to absorb them, officials warned. More than half of the refugees have fled to Poland, while others have gone to other neighboring countries such as Romania and Moldova. About 350,000 people have gone to Russia, according to the latest U.N. refugee figures. The International Organization for Migration has said nearly 200,000 non-Ukrainians who were living in the country have also had to escape.
Ultimately, the refugees are likely to be spread across Europe, and some countries are bracing for the impact. Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, may take in up to 100,000 Ukrainians by the end of April, for example, a step that would balloon the country’s population by nearly 8 percent. Proportionally, that would be as if the United States were to take in 25 million refugees in the same time frame.
The European Union has enacted unprecedented measures to allow Ukrainians “temporary protection” anywhere in the 27-country bloc for up to three years.
'Your life is just ruined': Refugees reflect on what they left behind
Ukrainian refugees arrived weary but relieved at the Polish border on March 9. They then boarded buses that would take them to the next stop on their journey. (Video: Zoeann Murphy, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)
The apparent breakdown in communication inside the Kremlin adds to the challenges of Ukrainian and other European and American policymakers who are seeking to end the conflict. Leaders of both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiation teams offered a mixed picture of the talks on Wednesday, saying they had made progress during talks in Istanbul on Tuesday but that there were still disagreements on key issues.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the Russian team “definitely moved the negotiations forward,” Ihor Zhovkva, deputy chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told BBC Radio on Wednesday.
“This was the first time that, instead of giving its own ultimatums and red lines, the Russian side listened to Ukrainian positions,” Zhovkva said. He also said Ukraine is still seeking security guarantees in a legally binding treaty to end the war and stop future aggression.
“They took into consideration our proposals,” he said. “Hopefully, when they come back with their proposals, we will be moving forward to the conclusion of this international treaty.”
Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia's war in Ukraine.
Putin’s advisers may be afraid to deliver bad news to a leader who has been willing to take increasingly extreme measures against people who dissent within the Russian system, U.S. intelligence officials said. One worrisome consequence, Pentagon officials said, was that negotiations underway between Russia and Ukraine to end the nearly five-week-old invasion could be undermined by misinformed expectations and directives from the Russian side.
“We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military, which has resulted in persistent tension between Putin and his military leadership,” White House spokeswoman Kate Bedingfield told reporters. “We 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.”
Both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiators had generally positive things to say Wednesday about the most recent round of talks, which concluded a day earlier in Istanbul. But adding to the general sense that there are splits on the Russian side or, at a minimum, a lack of understanding about Putin’s desires, some top Russian officials gave contradictory statements.
Ukrainian officials said Russian bombing and shelling continued on Wednesday, although forces did appear to be withdrawing from around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, something the Russian side had signaled a day earlier. A spokesman for the Russian defense ministry said that its military was refocusing its operations on eastern Ukraine, away from the Ukrainian capital.
Live updates: Read the latest developments on Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Pentagon says U.S. intelligence may have overestimated Russia's capabilities
Gen. Tod D. Wolters, head of U.S. European Command, said March 29 that there "could be" an intelligence gap that led the United States to overestimate Russia's capability. (Video: C-SPAN, Photo: C-SPAN)
Top U.S. officials said that Putin’s alleged information problems are one of the weaknesses of the Russian system.
“One of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that we don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or have the ability to speak truth to power. And I think that is something that we’re seeing in Russia,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters during a visit to Algiers.
At the Pentagon on Wednesday, spokesman John Kirby called it “discomforting” that Putin “may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing” thus far in Ukraine.
“One outcome of that could be a less-than-faithful effort at negotiating some sort of settlement here,” Kirby said. “If he’s not fully informed of how poorly he’s doing, then how are his negotiators going to come up with an agreement that is enduring?”
The exodus of Ukrainians — nearly 10 percent of the country’s prewar population fleeing in five weeks — underscored the regional crisis that Europe is now facing. The U.N. refugee agency estimates that an additional 6.5 million Ukrainians have been displaced inside Ukraine, meaning about a quarter of the nation of 44 million people has been uprooted. An estimated 2 million of those who have fled the country are children.
U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi arrived in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the Polish border, and said he would look for ways “to increase our support to people affected and displaced by this senseless war.”
Why Russia's military is bogged down by logistics in Ukraine
The flood of Ukrainians into other countries has started to overwhelm their ability to absorb them, officials warned. More than half of the refugees have fled to Poland, while others have gone to other neighboring countries such as Romania and Moldova. About 350,000 people have gone to Russia, according to the latest U.N. refugee figures. The International Organization for Migration has said nearly 200,000 non-Ukrainians who were living in the country have also had to escape.
Ultimately, the refugees are likely to be spread across Europe, and some countries are bracing for the impact. Estonia, a country of 1.3 million people, may take in up to 100,000 Ukrainians by the end of April, for example, a step that would balloon the country’s population by nearly 8 percent. Proportionally, that would be as if the United States were to take in 25 million refugees in the same time frame.
The European Union has enacted unprecedented measures to allow Ukrainians “temporary protection” anywhere in the 27-country bloc for up to three years.
'Your life is just ruined': Refugees reflect on what they left behind
Ukrainian refugees arrived weary but relieved at the Polish border on March 9. They then boarded buses that would take them to the next stop on their journey. (Video: Zoeann Murphy, Jorge Ribas/The Washington Post, Photo: The Washington Post)
The apparent breakdown in communication inside the Kremlin adds to the challenges of Ukrainian and other European and American policymakers who are seeking to end the conflict. Leaders of both the Ukrainian and Russian negotiation teams offered a mixed picture of the talks on Wednesday, saying they had made progress during talks in Istanbul on Tuesday but that there were still disagreements on key issues.
From the Ukrainian perspective, the Russian team “definitely moved the negotiations forward,” Ihor Zhovkva, deputy chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelensky, told BBC Radio on Wednesday.
“This was the first time that, instead of giving its own ultimatums and red lines, the Russian side listened to Ukrainian positions,” Zhovkva said. He also said Ukraine is still seeking security guarantees in a legally binding treaty to end the war and stop future aggression.
“They took into consideration our proposals,” he said. “Hopefully, when they come back with their proposals, we will be moving forward to the conclusion of this international treaty.”