- The Kremlin pushed back on US reports that Putin is being fed bad information about Russia's war with Ukraine.
- "Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon have real information about what is happening in the Kremlin," Putin's spokesman said, according to Russian state media.
- The spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, added: "They don't understand the style of our work."
The Kremlin on Thursday pushed back on US reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being fed bad information by his top advisors about his military's failures in Ukraine because they are "too afraid to tell him the truth," saying that American officials "don't understand" how Russia works.
Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that "it turns out that neither the State Department nor the Pentagon have real information about what is happening in the Kremlin," according to state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
"They simply do not understand what is happening in the Kremlin, they don't understand President Putin, they don't understand the decision-making mechanism, and they don't understand the style of our work," Peskov said.
Peskov added, "It is not just regrettable, it elicits concern, because this complete lack of understanding leads to erroneous decisions, tragic decisions that could have very bad consequences," according The Associated Press.
A US official, citing declassified intelligence, told reporters on Wednesday that it is believed that Putin is being deceived by his senior advisors about Russia's five-week invasion of Ukraine because they are "too afraid to tell him the truth."
"We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth," the official said.
"Putin didn't even know his military was using and losing conscripts in Ukraine, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information to the Russian president," the official said.
Putin launched Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 with Russian troops surrounding and shelling several towns across the Eastern European country.
Yet despite Ukraine's armed forces being greatly outnumbered and outgunned by Russian troops, the Ukrainians have put up fierce resistance, resulting in a mounting Russian death toll and a largely stalled invasion.
Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.