US intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by advisers about his military's poor performance in Ukraine, according to the White House. The advisers are scared to tell him the truth, the intel says.
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The findings, recently declassified, indicate that Putin is aware of the situation on information coming to him and there now is persistent tension between him and senior Russian military officials.
The US believes Putin is being misled not only about his military's performance but also "how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because, again, his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth," White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said Wednesday.
Earlier, President Joe Biden said in an exchange with reporters that he could not comment on the intelligence.
The administration is hopeful that divulging the finding could help prod Putin to reconsider his options in Ukraine, according to a US official. The official was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The war has ground to a bloody stalemate in much of the country, with heavy casualties and Russian troop morale sinking as Ukrainian forces and volunteers put up an unexpectedly stout defense.
But the publicity could also risk further isolating Putin, who US officials have said seems at least in part driven by a desire to win back Russian prestige lost by the fall of the Soviet Union.
"What it does is underscore that this has been a strategic blunder for Russia," Bedingfield said of the intelligence finding. "But I'm not going to characterize how ... Vladimir Putin might be thinking about this."
Meanwhile, Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a 55-minute call that an additional $500 million in direct aid for Ukraine was on its way. It's the latest burst in American assistance as the Russian invasion grinds on.
Asked about the latest intelligence, Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested that a dynamic within the Kremlin exists where advisers are unwilling to speak to Putin with candor.
"One of the Achilles' heels of autocracies is that you don't have people in those systems that speak truth to power or have the ability to speak truth to power, and I think that's what we're seeing in Russia," Blinken told reporters during a stop in Algeria on Wednesday.
The unidentified official did not detail underlying evidence for how US intelligence made its determination.
The intelligence community has concluded that Putin was unaware that his military had been using and losing conscripts in Ukraine. They also have determined he is not fully aware of the extent to which the Russian economy is being damaged by economic sanctions imposed by the US and allies.
The findings demonstrate a "clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information" to Putin, and show that Putin's senior advisers are "afraid to tell him the truth," the official said.
The new intelligence came after the White House on Tuesday expressed skepticism about Russia's public announcement that it would dial back operations near Kyiv in an effort to increase trust in ongoing talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials in Turkey.
Russian forces pounded areas around Ukraine's capital and another city overnight, regional leaders said Wednesday.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that over the past 24 hours it had seen some Russian troops in the areas around Kyiv moving north toward or into Belarus.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in interviews with CNN and Fox Business that the US does not view this as a withdrawal but as an attempt by Russia to resupply, refit and then reposition the troops.
Putin has long been seen outside Russia as insular and surrounded by officials who don't always tell him the truth. US officials have said publicly they believe that limited flow of information – possibly exacerbated by Putin's heightened isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic -– may have given the Russian president unrealistic views of how quickly he could overrun Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the UN said Wednesday that the number of people who have fled Ukraine since Russian troops invaded has surpassed 4 million.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said Wednesday that more than 4 million people have left Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion on Feb. 24 and sparked Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. That number exceeds the worst-case predictions made at the start of the war.
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Half of the refugees from Ukraine are children, according to UNHCR and the UN children's agency UNICEF.
"I think it's a tragic milestone," Alex Mundt, the UNHCR senior emergency coordinator in Poland, said. "It means that in less than a month or in just about a month, 4 million people have been uprooted from their homes, from their families, their communities, in what is the fastest exodus of refugees moving in recent history."
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi entered Ukraine on Wednesday and said he would be in the western city of Lviv and discuss ways to increase support "to people affected and displaced by this senseless war."
The International Organization for Migration, which tracks not just refugees but all people on the move from their homes, reported earlier this month that more than 12 million people are estimated to be stranded in areas of Ukraine under attack or cannot leave because of security risks, the destruction of bridges and roads and a lack of information about safe destinations and lodging.
All told, more than 22 million people are either blocked from moving or have been forced to flee, IOM figures show.
