New U.S. intelligence reveals that U.S. President Vladimir Putin may have been “misinformed” by his advisors on Ukraine ahead of his unprovoked invasion.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken confirmed the report.
“With regard to President Putin, look, what I can tell you is this, and I said this before, one of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that you don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or who have the ability to speak truth to power. And I think that is something that we’re seeing in Russia,” he said.
However, despite claims of “minsofrmation,” his advisors are reportedly too afraid to set their president straight.
On Thursday, the Russian assault on the Ukrainian port of Mariupol has continued despite Moscow’s assurances of a ceasefire to allow for the safe evacuation of civilians.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told reporters that “Putin is being misinformed 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.”
In public speeches, Putin has blamed NATO for provoking Russia. He also expressed his vexation over the breakup of the Soviet Union.
“It is now that radicals and nationalists, including and primarily those in Ukraine, are taking credit for having gained independence. As we can see, this is absolutely wrong,” said Putin in a televised speech. “The disintegration of our united country was brought about by the historic, strategic mistakes on the part of the Bolshevik leaders and the C.P.S.U. leadership, mistakes committed at different times in state-building and in economic and ethnic policies. The collapse of the historical Russia known as the U.S.S.R. is on their conscience.”
