A Russian spy chief is said to have been placed under house arrest in a sign that President Putin is seeking to blame the security services for the stalled invasion of Ukraine thetimes.co.uk/article/kremli…
Sergey Beseda, head of the FSB’s foreign intelligence branch, was arrested with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy, according to a leading expert on the Russian security services, who said that sources from within FSB had confirmed the detention of both men
Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist, also confirmed the arrests. He added that FSB officers had carried out searches at more than 20 addresses around Moscow of colleagues suspected of being in contact with journalists 
“The formal basis for conducting these searches is the accusation of the embezzlement of funds earmarked for subversive activities in Ukraine,” Osechkin said. “The real reason is unreliable, incomplete and partially false information about the political situation in Ukraine”
The spy chief’s defenestration attests to Putin’s growing fury towards the intelligence services, which he believes provided false information over the situation in Ukraine, Soldatov said. “Putin has finally understood that he was misled,” Soldatov told The Times
This week Soldatov said the final reports produced by the FSB on Ukraine in the run-up to the invasion were “simply not right, which is part of the reason as to why things have gone so badly for Russia” thetimes.co.uk/article/this-w…
Their assessments of popular support among Ukrainians for a Russian invasion and the extent to which the country would resist were “terribly miscalculated”, he said thetimes.co.uk/article/kyiv-i…
However, he added: “The problem is that it is too risky for superiors to tell Putin what he doesn’t want to hear, so they tailor their information. We can’t rule out the fact that the intelligence they gathered on the ground was in fact very good"
Read the full story: thetimes.co.uk/article/kremli…
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