Putting aside, for a moment, the fact that the people behind this assessment were the same ones that aided and abetted the Russia Hoax perpetrated against President Trump and who declared Hunter Biden’s laptop to be a Russian provocation is any part of this story plausible were it told by people capable of telling the truth?

Is it plausible that the entire Russian government was terrified to tell the emperor about his new wardrobe? I suppose, but if so, it speaks to an incredible level of self-delusion. I’m willing to credit that he was fed horsecrap on the operational abilities of the Russian Army because armies tend to lie about their readiness unless there is a system to enforce the rules, and there is not an ethic of lying on reports in the officer corps. I’m much less inclined to believe that he hasn’t been intensely monitoring Western sanctions as he whines about them so much. I also find it difficult to believe that Putin, the very “reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter” kind of guy described in the story, could give a public order that conscripts would not be used in combat and someone down the chain-of-command would have the cojones to say, “Igor, I don’t care that you are a conscript and I don’t care what Putin says, I’m telling you to get on the f***ing truck.” That makes no sense to me.

Even if we accept that the Russian military lied through its teeth about its capabilities to its political masters or even the upper ranks, we still have to wrestle with the idea that Putin doesn’t have any idea about what is happening on the ground in Ukraine, especially about casualties. //

Making the story less credible is that his evaluation of the situation was leaked now. Why now? Why not two weeks ago when the same information was available?

All in all, this intel leak seems to have another purpose. It is almost like they are giving Putin a pass for everything because his staff lied to him. Consider it to be an off-ramp to facilitate negotiations. It gives him the ability to purge the senior ranks of the military and bureaucracy by blaming them for both the crap intelligence and the disastrous plan. Then he’s only left with responsibility for the idea.