Putin's senior advisors are feeding him bad information about the Ukrainian invasion because they're 'too afraid to tell him the truth,' a US official says

A US official told reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely being fed bad information by his top advisors because they are too afraid to tell him the truth about Russian failures in the war.

The official said that Putin is being misled by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions.

The official said that Putin didn't even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president.

CNN reported that an official said the US has information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military.

Western officials told reporters on Tuesday that Russian elites will likely blame each other for Russia's disastrous progress in its war with Ukraine.

A Western official speaking on the condition of anonymity said that it was likely that the Russian system would blame each other for the lack of success in Ukraine.

The official said that people are going to be defensive about their own failures and look to point the finger at others.

The official told reporters that the West is less certain that Putin is getting an honest picture of the ground in Ukraine.

That is one of the reasons why Western media, Ukrainian media, is important in continuing to make sure the reality of this conflict is known and understood.

On February 24th, Putin launched Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with Russian troops surrounding and shelling several towns across the Eastern European country.

Despite being outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops, the Ukrainians have put up fierce resistance, resulting in a mounting Russian death toll.

Putin's opponents and critics have a history of dying in violent ways, which could explain why his advisors are hesitant to give the Russian leader accurate intel.

The Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, a top rival of Putin and Russia's former deputy prime minister under Yeltsin, was assassinated on a bridge near the Kremlin in 2015. He was a vocal critic of Putin over Russia's actions in Ukraine and the annexation of the peninsula.

He exposed the involvement of Russian troops in the war in eastern Ukraine. The Russian military had a presence in the Donbas region of Ukraine, despite denials by Putin.

In August 2020, Navalny was poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok. The Russian opposition leader is currently imprisoned in Russia on politically motivated charges.

Nine more years were added to the sentence of Navalny, who has called for mass protests against Putin. The State Department ripped into Russia over the ruling, decrying it as a disturbing decision and another example of the Russian government's widening crackdown on dissent and freedom of expression.

Thousands of protesters have been arrested in Russia for protesting against the war in Ukraine.

The law that Putin signed in March could land Russians in jail for up to 15 years for spreading false information about the war in Ukraine.