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General Chirkin admits that Russia underestimated the Ukrainians and learned a "bitter lesson" because of intelligence errors. He criticizes false faith in popular support and confirms the failures of the original plan...
"We learned a bitter lesson in Ukraine. We thought that 70% of the population was on our side, but it turned out that the Ukrainian people were against us. This is a failure of our intelligence services."
These statements were made by General Vladimir Chirkin, a career soldier of the Russian Army who served as commander of the Central Military District in 2010 and then as commander of the Russian Ground Forces.
In a video circulating on social media these days, the general, convicted of corruption in August 2015 but rehabilitated four months later, also declares that "all wars have a goal, and in this war the goal, set by Putin, was the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine, which would be achieved through tactical, operational and strategic planning". He added that "I do not want to criticize anyone, but it is my opinion that Russia has once again, as has happened in previous years and centuries, underestimated the enemy and overestimated the potential of its own troops".
General Chirkin continued what was essentially a rebuke, also stating that "if you all remember, at the beginning of the war, they said it would last 3 days", while now they are trapped, and that "I will make a statement that the intelligence community will not like, but the argument for which was made by the leadership: to say that 70% of Ukrainians were on our side and 30% against was false information, the opposite was true. And what did this lead to? We can see. That in the first week, literally, we suffered a very harsh and cruel situation".
The general refers to the fact that Russian forces had entered Ukraine with the certainty that the country would capitulate within days, precisely because, according to what Russian intelligence had erroneously reported, the population was expecting to be "liberated" by the Russians. However, this turned out to be wrong even for the most Russian-speaking provinces, such as the eastern ones, where the population, after seeing itself bombed, supported the cause of resistance to the occupation.
General Chirkin's statements are not based on imagination or his dislike of the Kremlin: the now retired officer speaks with caution and criticizes the intelligence community, not the state leadership. His rhetoric is that of a man who wanted the military special operation to be more organized, not that of a dissident.
From the perspective of the history of this war, Chirkin confirms what we learned in the early weeks of the war, when we analyzed the nature of Ukrainian resistance and highlighted Russian errors in the invasion plan. For example, we noted how intelligence had also failed to identify air defense missile batteries and bases where Ukrainian fighter-bombers were deployed, while the issue of popular support was made clear by the very images from the front, where the Russian advance was met with a barrage of anti-tank missiles instead of flowers.
Indirect confirmation of the intelligence community's failure came when the Russian presidency dismissed several senior FSB intelligence officials. Providing the Kremlin with intelligence on Ukraine had long been the responsibility of the FSB's Fifth Service, but after the conflict's failure, the Russian presidency relieved the service of this responsibility, entrusting it to the GRU, the military intelligence service.
It was never clear when this forced surrender took place, but it is believed to have occurred in March 2022 when several FSB officials were arrested, including the service's commander, General Sergei Beseda. /Il Giornale/
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