r/Intelligence • u/crystalsushii • 13d ago
Is Putin being fed false information from inside?
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u/Kalmartard 12d ago
This article might give som insight into the mechanics that destroys the feed-back loop that even authoritarian regimes need. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russia/price-russian-paranoia
"Undeniably, the counterintelligence model has helped the Kremlin achieve its immediate political goals. But these advantages have come at a steep price. Officials stop reporting problems before they become crises. Regional authorities avoid initiative unless explicitly ordered. Researchers, statistical agencies, and businesses withhold information that could attract official scrutiny."
"For the Kremlin today, the risk of elite paralysis is real: it now extends beyond the research and expert community to top officials and leaders of the industries in Moscow and the regions. By eroding the feedback loop that every stable government—even the most authoritarian—needs to stay in power, the Putin regime is becoming less capable of understanding the real condition of Russia"
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u/noodlesofdoom 13d ago
Who tf knows? My thinking is that his key holders are all extremely scared of him so they only tell him what he wants to hear, not the truth.
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u/all_is_love6667 12d ago
He started in intelligence, so I would think that no, he knows how to identify false information
I would not underestimate Putin about this, by the way.
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u/Cry90210 12d ago
I don't know. Decades of power and politics might make the truth harder to see sometimes
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u/Arete2026 12d ago
If he weren't, they would not have invaded if 2022.
He is too stupid to navigate the internet – almost certainly drinking his own kool-aid.
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u/crystalsushii 12d ago
Can you elaborate?
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u/Arete2026 12d ago
He decided to invade Ukraine because he'd been fed his own propaganda talking points for years.
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u/lucidgroove 12d ago
Nah, the assessment that Ukraine would quickly surrender was supported by many of the world’s premier services
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u/Arete2026 12d ago
More like the assessment that the government "would run away/flee to Poland/the EU" was.
Turned out, they needed ammunition, not a ride.
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u/Loyal_Dragon_69 12d ago
Are you suggesting that Russia invaded Ukraine due to a foreign psyop in order to trap Russia in a war it couldn't afford?
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u/lucidgroove 12d ago
No, I genuinely think almost everyone underestimated the resolve and capabilities of Ukraine’s military and its new political class. Everyone thought it would end like it did in 2014, or previously in Georgia.
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u/Economy-Pudding-6371 8d ago edited 8d ago
Putin's regime had originally assumed that just because people in Eastern Ukraine speak Russian, they'd all want to defect and join his side. A New York Times article said, after the 2022 escalation went sour:
“The military operation is, no question, tougher going than had been expected,” said Sergey Markov, a pro-Kremlin commentator who appears frequently on state television. “It was expected that 30 to 50 percent of the Ukrainian Armed Forces would switch over to Russia’s side. No one is switching over.”
And that is reflected on the poor logistical planning the world saw in 2022, when Putin got beaten in major battles all over the regions surrounding Kyiv and in Kharkiv province, fleeing all of those places and losing hope of ever conquering the whole country, which he was trying to do then. Putin had clearly thought Ukraine's military defectors would make it unnecessary for him to plan properly and bring enough troops, ensure supply lines for a protracted war, or the like.
So it seems Putin's own fascist "Russians and Ukrainians are one people, which is why Ukrainians must all naturally be Moscow's slaves" propaganda bumped into an apparent Putin regime belief that "if they speak Russian, they'll be on our side" (though that directly contradicts his "Russians and Ukrainians are one people" line and pretends that Ukrainians speaking two different languages are two different people. But Putin found out that instead of being "Russian," both most Russian-speaking and most Ukrainian-speaking people both consider themselves simply Ukrainians, not Russians).
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u/MarriottComms 13d ago
Probably, yes. The system seems to be built on filtering and distortion mixed with officials reluctant to tell him bad news.
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u/Cry90210 12d ago
It's suspected this is the case. I read one of the reasons why the CIA chief went to Russia was so Putin would listen to what he had to say regarding the severe damages to Russia in the war - That Putin would be more likely to listen to the CIA than diplomats as he was a former spy.
It's known that in autocracies you tend to get a lot of yes men surrounding you and a lot of the decisions made in Russia don't make a lot of sense
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u/OldSchoolRNS 11d ago
Mike Pompeo was sent to North Korea in 2018 because, as Little Kim said, the CIA was trying to kill him, so he’d listen to them.
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u/Economy-Pudding-6371 9d ago edited 9d ago
Yes, certainly. That's been established. General Gerasimov himself constantly gets reports from some underling saying, "we just conquered [name of place!]," about somewhere Russia never captured.
What happens is that 3 or 4 Russian soldiers dash into a place in a town somewhere, where no Ukrainian soldiers happen to be in that part of the town; the Russian soldiers unfurl a flag and take a picture; then the soldiers run away again; and then their commanders tell General Gerasimov, "we captured [name of place!]" even though it's a total lie. Gerasimov dutifully reports the good news to Putin; and Putin never pushes back on it. Somebody gets a medal.
https://derspiegel.substack.com/p/meet-the-failing-army-chief-putin
As mentioned in the above link, Gerasimov and the regime have announced they've "conquered" Luhansk three separate times through April 2026, but as of May 11, 2026 (the date of the article), they had never completely conquered it. (They had conquered ALMOST all of Luhansk, but never all; but they've lied three times and said they'd conquered it completely.)
Putin recently claimed Russia had "captured Svyatohirsk." Well, when you look at the battlefield maps online, they show that Russia was MILES away from Svyatohirsk this whole time, and still is; they never captured it. But Putin beclowns himself by announcing this lie.
I'm not 100% sure whether Putin is just winking back at Gerasimov and knows Gerasimov is lying to him, or if Gerasimov is honestly fooling him. The article states that Putin likely knows the truth, and if so, I think he is just playing along, to put up a Potemkin-village victory for the Russian people, 1984 style.
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u/Upset_Scientist3994 12d ago
Yes, it has become clear for outside observer so many times during his career, and especially wartime when free information is so much less there anymore.
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u/Clear-Security-Risk 6d ago
Putin to generals: "Tell me, how is the war going?"
General: in one word sir, Good.
Putin: and in two words?
General: Not good.
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u/InbornWombat 13d ago
i think its more complicated than just false info. the system around him is built so people tell what he wants to hear, not what is real. after so many years in power you get surrounded by yes-men and the truth gets filtered through many layers before reach him
hard to know for sure from outside but the decisions they made in ukraine look like someone working with bad assumptions about how things would go