In a rare public appearance, the head of Britain’s GCHQ — their equivalent of America’s National Security Agency — said this morning that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is marked by demoralized Russian troops who are making fundamental mistakes.
Put simply, Sir Jeremy Fleming, director of GCHQ, said, “it increasingly looks like Putin has massively misjudged the situation. It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people. He underestimated the strength of the coalition his actions would galvanize. He under-played the economic consequences of the sanctions regime. He over-estimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory.”
Fleming later added that “We’ve seen Russian soldiers — short of weapons and morale — refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.”