“Only a handful of people are allowed to see [Putin] in person and they have to be at a distance. And only very few have phone access with him. But that access is only one way, as in Putin contacts them, not the other way around. There is a general attitude that even if someone could reach him, it wouldn’t really make a difference, that his mind is set.”-Farida Rustamova, an independent Russian journalist.
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Each week, Putin holds a video call with his security council, a group of mainly hard-liners and technocrats that has become his wartime cabinet...
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Outside of those meetings, which are almost always held behind closed doors, insiders say that you wait until he contacts you.
Sincerely, aside from Howard Hughes, I cannot bring to mind a single public person who has been this isolated from other people, and no leader of a nation. This is pathological.
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But experts have said the Kremlin ranks largely appear to be holding...
“I think [Putin’s] unhappy with the performance. But it doesn’t mean that people inside are ready for a coup d’etat or anything like that. That’s just wishful thinking.”-Andrei Soldatov an author who has written extensively on the Russian security services.
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All this pushes back against the idea that Putin has been misled about the scale of the war – rather he has chosen not to listen any more. ...
Yes, it does.
“It’s impossible to hide everything...So I would not say that Putin is misinformed now. But it’s possible he receives his information late.”--Tatyana Stanovaya, the founder of political analysis firm, R.Politik.
Yes, it is. I conclude that this is American intel's first major blunder of the war.
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“Given the opacity of the regime, the intrigue about palace coups becomes a dynamic in itself that can become completely divorced from what’s happening on the ground. And it’s not just a storm in a teacup that’s being imagined by western observers. It’s highly plausible that these are precisely the conversations, rumours and whispers that are taking place in Moscow.”-Ben Noble, an associate professor in Russian politics at University College London.
Noble Ben, "storms" or calm waters, Western intel should not "imagine." "Highly plausible" intel based on no new intel but on past intel, is not new intel. It's speculation, "highly plausible."
