Vladimir Putin is “terribly scared” as he marks the first anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine, says a Russian general.
The dictator has badly misread the West’s resolve to stand up to him and did not realise his army’s incompetence, according to the former chief of the Moscow division of the FSB.
“Putin perfectly understands the mood of people who have lost everything because of him,” said retired General Yevgeny Savostyanov.
“Putin is now terribly scared. He understands that he is in trouble."
Putin's problems were self-inflicted by going to war in Ukraine, he said: "He lived happily [yet] with his own hands, he took and ruined everything. Amazing story.”
Follow The Mirror's blog on the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine here
Putin is now “in such a psychological state that he is clinging to any opportunity to win”.
Thanks to Putin the Russian people "will live very poorly no matter what - it's already inevitable".
“Russia is slipping down into the role of the leader of the third world, where we are needed only as long as we can give money,” he said.
“The time will come, and [in Russia] we will see empty shelves, goods shortages, people impoverishment, and technological backwardness in all areas.
“One of Putin's mistakes is that at the beginning of last summer, he did not catch the moment that the West stopped being afraid of him and would no longer retreat.
“The first mistake is to lead a campaign against the West. The second is to believe that in Ukraine, they were waiting for us with flowers and hugs.
“The third is that he, it turns out, did not know how his own army works.
“The army was built all these years in the expectation that there would be no need to fight in the West.
“The calculation was that Europe is in a hopeless energy situation. It can spin as it wants, but it will not do without Russia, so it will again be forced to devour what will be put on the table.”
Putin calculated the West would swallow his hoped-for “quick victory” in Ukraine, but he got that wrong just as he did not understand his army’s incompetence in a “tragedy of mistakes”.
“When we see that Russia puts private military companies to the front, in addition to being staffed with an armed criminal element, it denies the very idea of its own statehood,” he said.
Russia now faces a bleak future, he said.
If Putin somehow succeeds in Ukraine he would enact a repressive crackdown.
His angry inner circle “which has lost everything accumulated over 20 years” would need to be eliminated.
“If the [war] fails, the question will arise - either hard tightening the screws to keep order in the country - or chaos."
Despite Putin’s desperation, he rated the chances of Putin using his nuclear arsenal as slight.
