The decision to invade was taken after consulting only a tiny circle. The Russian leader has since become even more isolated
On this occasion, the phone call made Lavrov one of the very few people who had any knowledge of the plan ahead of time. The Kremlin’s senior leadership all found out about the invasion only when they saw Putin declare a “special military operation” on television that morning.
“He has three advisers,” Lavrov replied, according to the oligarch. “Ivan the Terrible. Peter the Great. And Catherine the Great.”Under Putin’s invasion plan, Russia’s troops were to seize Kyiv within a matter of days in a brilliant, comparatively bloodless blitzkrieg. At his state-of-the-union address on Tuesday, Putin insisted the war was “about the very existence of our country” and said the west had forced him to invade Ukraine. “They’re the ones who started the war. We are using force to stop it,” he said.Article content
The Financial Times spoke to six longtime Putin confidants as well as people involved in Russia’s war effort, and current and former senior officials in the west and Ukraine for this account of how Putin blundered his way into the invasion — then doubled down rather than admit his mistake. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.Article content
In the years after the 2014 invasion, Putin’s inner circle began to shrink further as he became increasingly consumed with what he saw as growing western threats to Russia’s security, the people say. His isolation deepened when the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020: for fear they could infect a germaphobic Putin, even top officials were forced to spend weeks at a time quarantining for a personal audience.
During the height of the pandemic, Putin was largely cut off from comparatively liberal, western-minded confidants who had previously had his ear. Instead he spent the first few months in his residence at Valdai, a bucolic town on a lake in northern Russia, essentially on lockdown with the younger Kovalchuk, who inspired Putin to think of his historic mission to assert Russia’s greatness, much as Peter the Great had.
But as Putin began drawing up plans for a possible invasion, Medvedchuk insisted that Ukrainians would greet Russia’s forces with open arms.Article content However, his assessment was backed up by the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, which assured Putin victory was certain — and paid large sums in bribes to officials in Ukraine in the hope that this would guarantee success.
The invasion began to unravel almost immediately after Putin set it into motion. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, had drawn up a plan to seize the Hostomel airfield outside Kyiv, giving Russian elite paratrooper squadrons a platform from which to attack Zelenskyy’s government headquarters.
“It may not have been double digits, but it’s more than one or two” Russian aircraft shot down by friendly fire, says the former senior US official. “There was a lot of fratricide.” Initially, Beseda was placed under house arrest, according to the officials. His time in the doghouse, however, did not last long. Weeks later, US officials arrived for a meeting on bilateral issues with their Russian counterparts wondering, after news of Beseda’s detention leaked to the Russian media, whether he would turn up and how the Russians might explain where he was.Article content
“He’s of sound mind. He’s reasonable. He’s not crazy. But nobody can be an expert on everything. They need to be honest with him and they are not,” another longtime Putin confidant says. “The management system is a huge problem. It creates big gaps in his knowledge and the quality of the information he gets is poor.”Article content
Putin’s newfound scepticism, however, is limited by his unwillingness to admit the invasion was a mistake in the first place, the people say. Some of the liberal officials who oppose the war have attempted to convince him to end it by pointing out the economic damage the sanctions are likely to wreak on Russia’s economy.Article content
The remarks underscored how existential the fight has become for Putin as the threat he sees from a hostile west consumes him. Putin spent comparatively little time discussing Ukraine itself, instead focusing his ire on the U.S., which he accused of trying to “destroy” Russia and use “national traitors” to break it up.
“He has no reason to press the button. What is the point of bombing Ukraine? You detonate a tactical nuke on Zaporizhzhia,” says a former Russian official, referring to the Ukrainian-held capital of a province Putin has claimed for Russia. “Everything is totally irradiated, you can’t go in there, and it’s supposedly Russia anyway, so what was the point?”
Putin’s calculation, people close to the Kremlin say, is that Russia is more committed to the war than the west is to Ukraine, and resilient enough to see out the economic pain. Senior Republicans have openly questioned how long the US can go on supporting Ukraine to the same extent and the party retains a realistic chance of capturing the White House in 2024.Article content
المملكة العربية السعودية أحدث الأخبار, المملكة العربية السعودية عناوين
Similar News:يمكنك أيضًا قراءة قصص إخبارية مشابهة لهذه التي قمنا بجمعها من مصادر إخبارية أخرى.
Opinion: To end the war in Ukraine, Putin needs a political winAfter a year of fighting, many are asking how this conflict will end. It will end when, for both sides or for one, there is an incentive to stop fighting
اقرأ أكثر »
RUSSIAN ROULETTE: Putin's threats not cracking Ukraine resolveRussian President Vladimir Putin was spewing bravado and armed to the eyeballs with confidence.
اقرأ أكثر »
RUSSIAN ROULETTE: Putin's threats not cracking Ukraine resolveRussian President Vladimir Putin was spewing bravado and armed to the eyeballs with confidence.
اقرأ أكثر »
RUSSIAN ROULETTE: Putin's threats not cracking Ukraine resolveRussian President Vladimir Putin was spewing bravado and armed to the eyeballs with confidence.
اقرأ أكثر »
Opinion: The Russian forces are no match for the power of Ukraine’s cultural legacyWe are Ukraine’s soldiers of music, defending Ukraine’s cultural legacy through our performances in the capital cities of the world, while Putin’s cultural propaganda machine sputters
اقرأ أكثر »