President Putin is being told Russia’s “special military operation” is going to plan, a top Kyiv intelligence official said – as anyone who told him the real situation on the front lines would “lose his cap or his head.”
In an exclusive interview, Andriy Yusov, spokesperson for the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, told Kyiv Post that “some details of the real situation may be reaching him with some delay, but not the information on the situation in general.”
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Referencing Russia’s ongoing and disastrous attempt to take the town of Avdiivka, Yusov said: “How can they tell him about daily losses of dozens of armored vehicles and hundreds of troops in one frontline section alone?”
The messenger risks being fired or worse, Yusov said.
“That's why he is told that everything's going according to plan.”
Taken at face value, Putin’s recent public statements about Avdiivka support Yusov’s comments.
Andriy Yusov also told Kyiv Post the fate of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) commander who was reported killed by a Ukrainian cruise missile strike on his headquarters last month remains unclear.
Over the weekend, Putin gave an upbeat assessment of Russian military performance over the last few days, claiming Moscow’s forces are “improving their positions” around the fiercely contested town.
Shift in Ukrainian Attitudes Toward War Endurance as Belief in Russia’s Resources Grows
What he didn’t mention was the evidence of huge losses of both men and machines as the Kremlin throws what the US has described as “wave attacks” of poorly-trained troops at the town, some of whom were sent into battle in obsolete 70-year-old vehicles.
Yusov said this was in keeping with the general trend of information that the Kremlin has been receiving, even before Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“After all, if he had heard adequate reports and been ready to hear them, neither 2014 nor the full-scale invasion would have happened,” he said.
“Because only an idiot would have believed that Kyiv would be taken in three days and only an idiot would have believed that the Russian invaders would be welcomed here with flowers and that the Ukrainians were looking forward to them as liberators.”
“But those people must have painted such rosy pictures and believed in what they wanted to see.”
Yusov also said the Kremlin’s extensive propaganda machine has been propping up false narratives about the war in Ukraine.
“To us, what [Kremlin propagandists] Skabeeva and Solovyov say sounds schizophrenic, but the Russian audience takes it as the real picture of the world and they live in it,” he said.
“This is also true for the people in the top positions in the aggressor state.”
The internet is littered with examples of what Russian propagandists tell the country’s population during prime-time viewing hours, many of them documented by Julia Davis, creator of the Russian Media Monitor.
Some more notable examples include calling for a biblical nuclear war…
Ripping off heads…
Waging war on gay parades…
Andriy Yusov also told Kyiv Post the fate of the Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) commander who was reported killed by a Ukrainian cruise missile strike on his headquarters last month remains unclear.
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