“Air Sellers”: “Important Stories” told how the FSB provided Putin with fictitious facts about the war in Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin, when deciding to invade Ukraine, relied on the information of incompetent law enforcement officers. About who and how informed the head of state about the situation in the neighboring country, tell . "Important stories"

Basically, the newspaper notes, the president receives data on what is happening in Russia and the world from the “big fifth service” of the FSB: these security forces, working under the leadership of General Sergei Beseda, specialize in collecting information within Russia and in the countries of the former Soviet Union.

However, sources note, the department employs “air sellers”, whose competence has a lot of questions.

“They thought up, misinterpreted, and sometimes fantasized, and the management believed in it with pleasure. For example, they wrote that the regions of Ukraine live separately from the authorities in Kyiv, and one has only to push, as the regions will run towards Russia,”

- told "Important stories" one of the former employees of the special services.

His colleague, who also spoke with the publication, agrees that the level of professionalism in the fifth service leaves much to be desired: “People who did not know how to work were poured in there. Not everyone went yet, because there is a swamp.

According to sources, over the past eight years, the security forces have not been able to analyze what is happening in Ukraine: their main informants were fugitive officials from Kyiv who went abroad after 2014. Moreover, they tried to use the FSB in their own interests.

“They fed their fantasies to Beseda in order, firstly, to justify their existence and master the budgets that they allegedly spent on “agents”. Secondly, their main goal was to return to Ukraine, they already painted positions for themselves, and all their information was adjusted to this goal, ”said the ex-FSB officer.

According to the interlocutors of the publication (this point of view was also expressed by several Western politicians), Putin has been in information isolation for a long time, he lives in "his own world." The head of state does not want to hear an alternative point of view, and the heads of special services are afraid to report truthful information. The situation worsened after the start of the pandemic: due to the coronavirus, the head of state minimized contacts with others.

Vladimir Putin announced the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. As noted by Important Stories, the Russian military was tasked with taking Mariupol in three days, and Kyiv in five. Today is already the 82nd day of the war: the Ukrainian military managed to push the Russian army almost to the very border in the Kharkiv region; Kyiv, Chernigov and other cities remain uncaptured. According to The New York Times, while trying to force the Seversky Donets River in the Lugansk region, the Russians suffered the biggest losses of the entire war.