Reports from London about Russian President Vladimir Putin purging the Fifth Service of the FSB [formerly KGB] for feeding Ukraine, possibly the CIA, intel about the Ukraine War, landed 68-year-old FSB Firth Service chief Sergey Beseda in Lefortovo prison, notoriously used by Stalin to torture dissidents and spies. Whether Putin sees a wide betrayal by his FSB agents working on Ukraine is anyone’s guess. Officials in London think Putin’s lashing out because he’s not happy with progress in the Ukraine War, now dismantling the Fifth Service for his long history of involvement with Ukraine. Beseda was apparently accused by Putin of feeding the Kremlin false information about the Ukraine war, failing to mention serious setbacks in terms of casualties and lost military hardware. Beseda was fired for “reporting false information to the Kremlin about the real situation in Ukraine before the invasion.”
Russia analyst Alexi Muraviev said that Putin faces a “potential coup” from within the military intelligence service,” speculating, without real knowledge of what’s going on in Putin’s FSB and military. No one likes to stir the pot more than British tabloids like the Sun, where un-sourced or anonymously sourced stories flow like the Thames River. “I think that there have been tensions between Russia and the intelligence community and Russia’s president Vladimir Putin,” Muraview told the Sky News. Whatever happened with Beseda, there’s probably little link to the FSB’s Fifth Service, regarding supplying factual information to Putin. British and U.S. tabloids have repeated that Putin’s “big blunder” starting the Feb. 24 Ukraine War, expecting a 48-hour victory. Nothing sounds more preposterous than the U.S. and British officials saying Putin’s invasion failed because it didn’t topple Kiev.
British and U.S. officials are on the same page when it comes to disinformation about the war. Talking about Putin’s failures are supposed demoralize the Russian military, bringing about a coup knowing that Russia is losing the war. But if you look at the real bomb damage assessment [BDA], Ukraine is in ruins, getting worse by the day. So Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymer Zelensky and the White House can boast victory every day while Ukraine has been reduced to a rock pile. “Because clearly, there’s been a clear error of judgment that was made an it was probably driven by Putin himself about the situation in Ukraine,” Muraview said, making things up as he goes. Putin never thought he would topple the Kiev government in a few days. That’s the White House and Downing Street talking points to find a silver lining in clearly a disastrous situation in Ukraine.
Whatever problems Putin or his agents found with Beseda, they have nothing to do with what’s happened or hasn’t happened in Ukraine. Reported in U.K. tabloids, Ukraine insists that Russia has lost some 20,000 troops and tons of military hardware. U.N.’s High Commission on Human Rights estimated that Ukraine has lost under 2,000 civilians, not matching Mairupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko saying today that up to 20,000 residents have been killed. Wildly reported unverified death counts indicate that Ukraine grossly exaggerates its own or Russian losses. Whatever happened to Beseda, MI6 has lost its edge providing factual intel. Remember former MI6 agent Christopher Steele? He concocted the fake dossier for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tying former President Donald Trump to the Kremlin. All the fakery goes hand in had with the U.K. tabloids.
Sending Fifth Service FSB Spy Chief to infamous Lefortovo prison sends a strong message to anyone seeking to challenge Putin’s authority. “I can say that although a significant number of them have not been arrested they will no longer work for the FSB,” said Christo Grozev, executive director of Bellingcat, the group that revealed the identities of the Salisbury Novichok Russian agents that nearly poisoned Sergei and Yulia Skripal. “Putin could have very easily just fired him [Beseda] or sent him off to some regional job in Siberia,” said Adrei Soldatov, a FSB expert. British and U.S. reports about Putin’s failures are the real rubbish, when they only speculate what the mission in Ukraine intended to accomplish. If you look at the widespread destruction occurring daily all over Ukraine, it’s hard to see Ukraine winning the war, especially through U.S. and U.K. rose-colored glasses.
U.S. and British tabloids mirror the official party line about the Ukraine War, touting the great success of Ukraine to resist the Russian onslaught. But if you look at the widespread bomb damage assessment, clearly Ukraine has been bombed into the stone age all so Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymr Zelensky can show he’s holding his own against Putin. But is he really? Zelensky refuses to take the Istanbul ceasefire talks seriously, instead allowing the White House to prosecute its war to topple Putin’s government. No U.S. or British citizens knows what’s really happening in Ukraine because the government keeps feeding the public the same rubbish. Who cares if Ukraine citizens didn’t greet Russian troops as liberators? What’s become obvious is that Ukraine fights a proxy war for the White House to topple Putin, something that could easily backfire.