Putin purges Russian intelligence as military elite suffer devastating losses

Recent reports indicate that Putin is attempting to lay blame for his failure to deliver a swift defeat to Ukraine in part on the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, also known as the Fifth Service, for misleading the autocrat into thinking an invasion of Ukraine would be a walk in the park. Sergey Beseda, the head of the FSB’s Fifth Service, and his deputy, Anatoly Bolyukh, were placed under house arrest for providing bad intelligence to the Russian president, according to a report Friday by a respected independent reporter with sources inside the FSB.

“In fact, it was the Fifth Service that was responsible for providing Vladimir Putin with information about political developments in Ukraine in the leadup to the invasion,” Andrei Soldatov reported. “And after two weeks of war, it now appears that Putin has finally realized that he was misled: afraid of angering the Russian leader, the Fifth Service simply told him what he wanted to hear.”

The arrests of Beseda and Bolyukh were corroborated by Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist, according to the Times.

Reports of their arrests came just days after Ukrainian Defense Secretary Oleksiy Danilov claimed on Ukrainian television that eight Russian generals had been fired since the invasion began.

“Putin is likely carrying out an internal purge of general officers and intelligence personnel,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said in a press release Friday. “He may be doing so either to save face after failing to consider their assessments in his own pre-invasion decision-making or in retaliation for faulty intelligence he may believe they provided him.”

The U.S. intelligence community assessed with “low confidence” that between 2,000 and 4,000 Russian troops had died in the first two weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott David Berrie told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed a much higher figure on Friday, saying in a video statement that over 12,000 Russian service members had been killed on Ukrainian soil since Putin launched his invasion.

“The number of wounded invaders is many times bigger. We did not invite any of them here. And we repeat to each of the invaders, you can still save yourself at any moment. Just lay down your weapons and go home. Leave our land,” Zelensky said.

At least nine high-ranking Russian military officials, including three major generals, have reportedly been killed since the start of the invasion.

Maj. Gen. Andrey Sukhovitsky, the deputy commander of the 41st Combined Arms Army of Russia’s Central Military District, was reportedly killed by sniper fire during the first week of the invasion.

A second Russian general, Maj. Gen. Vitaly Gerasimov, was shot dead in Kharkiv less than a week later. Ukrainian intelligence officials claimed to have intercepted audio from a senior FSB officer discussing the general’s death.

UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENCE CLAIMS SECOND HIGH-RANKING RUSSIAN GENERAL KILLED

“The Russian occupiers continue to lose their officers in the war against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian military tweeted after claiming to have “eliminated” a third Russian major general, Maj. Gen. Andrei Kolesnikov of the 29th Combined Arms Army.

Chechen General Magomed Tushaev and at least five Russian colonels have also been killed in combat in Ukraine, according to Business Insider.

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Russian intelligence officers have also been killed in combat.

Russia confirmed Monday that an officer of the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency, died in Mariupol on Tuesday. Russia also confirmed Monday the deaths of two elite paratrooper intelligence officers.