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United Kingdom’s intelligence services believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin misjudged the situation in Ukraine, adding that Russian soldiers are losing morale on the battlefield.
Speaking during a trip to Canberra on Thursday at the Australian National University, Sir Jeremy Fleming, Director of GCHQ, the UK’s Intelligence, Cyber and Security Agency said, “It increasingly looks like Putin has massively misjudged the situation. It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people.”
He added that intelligence sources had revealed that Russian soldiers were sabotaging their own equipment.
“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,” he said.
Fleming added that Russia could be using mercenaries and foreign fighters to support its forces in Ukraine — including the Wagner group.
“The group works as a shadow branch of the Russian military, providing implausible deniability for riskier operations,” Fleming said.
Flemings comments come right after Russian officials agreed to scale back their military activity in and around the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv, on Tuesday. Despite this, Russian forces targeted the outskirts of Kyiv on Wednesday.
Inputs from CNN