OPINION:
Russia’s barbaric war against Ukraine has been a colossal intelligence failure, which comes with more than a hint of irony since President Vladimir Putin famously served in the KGB as a young man and later directed its principal successor, the FSB. Presumably, an ex-spy should have seen the poor quality of the information he was getting.
Instead, the Kremlin thoroughly failed to assess its adversary, especially the Ukrainian military’s will to fight and the exceptional leadership skills of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, faced with an existential crisis for his nation, mobilized his citizens and inspired the West with his brave and eloquent defense of liberty and democracy.
And now it seems that the ghost of Josef Stalin, notorious for his paranoid purges of Russia’s military and intelligence services, is haunting Mr. Putin’s Kremlin.
Mr. Putin has reportedly ordered the arrests of senior military and intelligence officials, including Col. Gen. Sergei Beseda, who was the director of the FSB’s arm responsible for collecting intelligence in Russia’s “Near Abroad,” including Ukraine. Mr. Beseda, according to reports, now sits in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison for getting the situation so badly wrong.
Mr. Putin’s purges seek scapegoats for his own failed policies and are a means to remove from power those who might be a threat to his corrupt regime. Acutely aware of the KGB’s failed 1991 coup against then-Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr. Putin has been ruthless with his enemies to ensure suitably submissive behavior from his military and intelligence services.
The U.S. intelligence community now must be closely tracking how Mr. Putin’s failed war in Ukraine has strained his relationships with his inner circle, with two key implications and a number of associated high-priority intelligence targets.
First, as Russians like to say, “Svaya rubashka blizhe k telu” — “One’s own shirt is closest to one’s skin.” Out of sheer self-preservation, members of Mr. Putin’s inner circle might decide to move against their president before he targets them. U.S. intelligence analysts must be probing the Russian government’s stability, including the possibility — however unlikely it seems at the moment — that Mr. Putin could be toppled.
Second, if Russia’s “special military operation” against its neighbor continues to flounder, then the intelligence community must carefully assess the Kremlin’s new risk calculus. A desperate Mr. Putin may be prepared to widen the scope and intensity of the war, potentially even with weapons of mass destruction against Kyiv.
As Mr. Putin’s war machine continues to rain down hell on Ukrainian civilians, it will be “critical,” as House Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Rep. Michael Turner recently emphasized, to counter with more military assistance for Ukraine. In light of Russian U.S. Ambassador Anatoly Antonov’s recent comments to Sputnik News Agency that “actions of the West in Ukraine could lead to ‘military confrontation’ between the U.S. and Russia,” the intelligence community needs to know Russia’s military plans and whether Moscow is ready to target supply routes inside NATO countries in a desperate bid to starve Ukraine of weaponry and defensive resources.
The FBI’s exquisite disruption operation announced last week against a Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) global “botnet” cyberattack demonstrates the importance of good intelligence on the cyber front. Early in the Biden administration, Russian intelligence assets spread malware into the “Orion” security software, gaining a backdoor entry into SolarWinds’ 30,000 customers’ information technology systems. The Kremlin also allows cyber hacking groups like DarkSide and REvil, both of which have targeted critical U.S. infrastructure including the Colonial Pipeline, to operate from inside Russian-controlled territory.
The upcoming midterm elections are another wild card in the fight. U.S. intelligence agencies must be on high alert to provide social networking and media sites with advance warning of Mr. Putin’s attack plans, as well as how to foil them. U.S. intelligence must make public what it learns, exposing Russia’s efforts to soil our democratic process with the same alacrity as U.S. officials declassified intelligence on Russia’s military build-up before the Feb. 24 invasion of its neighbor.
All the while, the intelligence community must do what it does best, namely see the world through the eyes of our twisted, ex-KGB adversary in the Kremlin. With his intelligence services and military misfiring, Mr. Putin might not be getting sound reporting and honest analysis from his subordinates to fashion a coherent battle plan, even if he had the inclination to do so. But just as during the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. intelligence professionals will be on the hook to ensure Mr. Putin’s miscalculations do not blunder the world into a wider military conflict, which is in nobody’s interest.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. Follow him on Twitter @DanielHoffmanDC.
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