At the very beginning the Russian invasion of Ukraine had a lot of conceptual errors proving the fierce ongoing struggle in Putin’s circles for the influence and intentions to weaken the confronting political groups. Sergei Naryshkin, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service, claiming to be the main negotiator with the West, misinformed Putin about Ukraine’s nuclear program and its potential to build nuclear weapons. After getting this information the Russians took control over the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Probably, Naryshkin hoped to use the Ukraine nuclear weapon illusion to realize the invasion scenario similar to the American one in Iraq in 2003. However, it is highly likely that by misinforming the Russian leadership Naryshkin created all these conditions on purpose to discredit Shoigu. According to reports, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service misinformed the country’s leadership about low probability of European tough economic sanctions. Naryshkin assured the leadership that the Kremlin agents of influence in the EU were powerful enough to block the sanctions.
The Ministry of Defense benefits the most from the war with Ukraine. Despite the responsibility for failing time schedule of operation to fulfill the task of total seize of Ukraine, the situation around Russia critically weakened Putin’s position and maximized Shoigu’s political importance. As part of the latter’s presidential ambitions and the priority of defense issues, as for now Shoigu is the second public in Russia after Putin.
However, the obvious failure of the Russian operation in Ukraine, huge losses of Russian troops, as well as war crimes and local population genocide committed by the invasion forces worsen relations between Shoigu and Putin. Shoigu believes that his presidential ambitions may not come true.
There is a high probability that Putin will fire Shoigu as the figure who misinformed him, as the responsible for the failure of the operation and the deterioration of Russia’s international image. Patrushev’s group can fuel Putin here. This group also contributed into fueling tensions by assuring the political leadership of the pro-Russian sentiments of the southern, eastern and northern regions of Ukraine. Since 2014, the Kremlin has been so stuck on Ukraine fascism propaganda that it has taken this narrative as reality. It distorted the perception of the situation in Ukraine and the mood of its population. Putin’s deep confidence in his own view of historical processes and his belief in ideological myths made his entourage unable to provide objective data on the prospects for a military operation in Ukraine.
In the coming days it is expected that influence groups close to Putin will start blaming each other for the operation failure and planning mistakes. However, as the crisis escalates, losses grow and the operation in Ukraine looks like a failure, most of the security forces, except for the defense minister, will start refusing from initiatives and relying totally on Vladimir Putin’s decisions.
Being in an inadequate psychological state the leader of Russia will continue making irrational and emotional decisions. However, in fear of being prosecuted by the international tribunal for the crimes against humanity, part of Putin’s entourage will keep denying their participation in the preparation and conduct of the war. They will make Putin as the main responsible for the war crimes. It is unlikely that protests of the Russian oligarchs, who suffered the most from the sanctions, will influence the Kremlin a lot. However, it will cut Moscow’s financial ability to sponsor operations in Europe and Putin’s projects.
