Vladimir Putin may be fighting his brutal and costly war against Ukraine with a distorted picture of what his forces are achieving.
A Western official says there is evidence in the public domain of Putin beign given a distorted view. If battlefield setbacks are being softened or concealed, the Russian president’s calculations about how long he can sustain the invasion may rest on what are, quite simply, false assumptions.
But the assessment also raises a difficult question for Western governments, how do you influence a leader whose closest advisers may be shielding him from the reality on the ground?
The Western official was clear that he believes that Putin’s overriding concern is his own survival and that of his regime. The pressure most likely to influence him would involve people around him becoming willing to challenge him.
That offers a possible pressure point, though the official acknowledges it is “a hard thing to do, and it’s a hard thing to judge”.
Meanwhile, Putin’s ambitions remain, as ever, expansive. The official describes an objective little changed since 2022: control over Ukraine, effectively reducing it to a state resembling Belarus. That leaves an enormous gap between what the regime in Moscow wants and a settlement that preserves the sovereignty of Ukraine.
There is a more reassuring assessment on the risk of the war widening, however. Despite increasingly intense attacks and Russian rhetoric about European targets, the official says he sees no indication yet of the armed conflict spreading beyond Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s forces remain tied down, limiting their ability to take the war to NATO.
Perun, the Australian military procurement consultant, runs an anonymous YouTube channel to which he posted a video discussing this topic exactly.
In short, he concluded that falsifying information for personal gain is rampant with the Russian system. He also pointed to the frequency at which angered Russian officials threaten to ‘brief Putin themselves’, suggesting there is a general understanding that the man at the top is not receiving the picture of events on the front lines.
There’s a long tradition of falsifying reports in Russia, I recall from the 1983 shoot-down of KAL007 that local commanders had falsely reported to Moscow that a broken radar installation was fixed. They shot down the airliner because they were very twitchy and could not identify the contact.
He can’t attack NATO, and won’t attack NATO. Not with conventional forces anyway. Cyber threats, the grey zone, espionage and misinformation. Yes, definitely. But I feel we are well equipped to deal with those threats. If Putin had any real desire to attack a NATO nation, be it Estonia or a pop at the UK or Poland, surely now would be the time to do it. Not in 5 years time when NATO and EU countries have got their defence spending act together and lots of new equipment has entered service. And our industries are much better placed to sustain a conflict. Personally. I think cyber attacks to our critical infrastructure is the biggest threat. Not Bear bombers coming over the North sea or the odd Russian nuclear boat hanging around. I’m sure others will have a different view.
You hope he wont attack. By all accounts as he feels his life becoming more in danger he could end up using a tac nuke in Ukraine. Russian Military philosophy talks of escalation with Nukes as a normal action. They dont see it like the West does.
I’d be very surprised if even the Russians view using a tac nuke as normal considering the repercussions.
A tactical nuke?
In Ukraine?
What target do you think he would use it against?
Because in truth there are none that are worth the political, economic and military fallout….
Military? – There are no great concentrations of forces, no naval bases, storage facilties or even airfields that are worth it…the closest would be the airfields at Myrhorod or Starokostiantyniv…they’re over 100km from the Russian border, and some distance from other borders…but there are still civilian population nearby (which even Russia has to take some notice of)…any military impact would be negligible, IF the Ukrainians took any losses you can guarantee Western states would make them up…
Ports? – Both Mykolaiv and Odessa are prized by the Russian’s…and are siginificant population centres…political fallout around the world, let alone in Russia, would be enormous…
Civilian Population Centres? – Not worth thinking of….because if the Russian’s did it they would instantly lose Chinese support and the whole world would turn against them….pretty much guarantees Russian defeat.
Battlefield use? – The battlefield is a deep thinly held line. A tac nuke might effect a couple of sq km…but the Russian’s cannot concentrate a large armoured force to take advantage..and they neither have the formations, equipment, training or doctrine to be able to exploit, unlike the Cold War.
So where would they use a ‘Tactical’* nuke?
* In reality all nukes are strategic weapons…something that NATO and WarPac commanders realised decades ago….
He might, but if he actually wants Ukraine why would he contaminate it with Nuclear fallout?
He could hit an area he doesn’t want (whether long-term or for the time being) with a low-fallout weapon. Enough to destroy whatever stubborn obstacle it hits and scare Ukraine to death.
The rest of the world might well condemn Russia, but they’ve been condemning Russia for a long time and it hasn’t stopped them.
The USA is the only nation with comparable nuclear firepower (this is pure numbers terms), and with Trump at the helm they’re sowing discord and trashing the international order.
Who says anyone will actually do anything, should Putin use a nuke?
With Ukraine depleting the numbers of active Bears. I wonder if Russia will reach a crisis point, especially as none have been built since 1992.
He is already attacking NATO. The question is, if and when those grey-zone probes cross a line. Putin wants to cross the line, but only just, and with implausible deniability. He wants to create division within NATO where some states say there’s a casus belli but most say there isn’t. Putin will deny all wrongdoing while all know he’s guilty. Those who want to pile in will believe he’s guilty, and those who don’t will pretend to believe Putin’s protestations. This is his best chance to defeat NATO: not militarily but by busting it apart from within. If a country calls for Article 5 and the majority of NATO doesn’t respond, that’s the end of NATO.
I think we are more unified and clued up to Putins crazy ways than we think. But the grey zone incursions have to be carefully managed. Do we want to start WW3 over something relatively small change. But at the same time he needs to know he can only go so far without repercussions. And his pal Trump won’t be around forever. I’m also sure our intelligence services have hurt Russia in ways we will never find out about.
Jon
Implausible or plausible deniability? An important distinction … 🤔
Implausible has been his MO in the past. Take the Salisbury Novichok attacks. You don’t joke that your agents were just enjoying touring Salisbury Cathedral and recommending it a great tourist destination when people have died in a chemical attack, at least not if you want to be plausible. We knew what the Russians had done. It’s technically possible that two Russian security agents decided to go on holiday together in the UK, leaving their families behind in Russia, and just happened to be in Salisbury at the time of an attack using a Russian-source nerve agent in the same town. But it’s implausible. It was a deliberate taunt.
We’ve been lied to by Labour until Burnham admitted that social security is more important than national security
He said national security shouldn’t come at the expense of social security. Don’t twist words.
That’s my interpretation – dont gaslight
Its not gaslighted. I’m not asking you to agree with him. But at least repeat what was actually said.
What he said was clear – he would not cut welfare to fund the defence of our country.
That’s not what you said though.
That’s exactly what he said – I’m surprised you can’t see it
He didn’t say social security was more important than defence. He said extra defence funding shouldn’t come at the expense of social security. Its not one is more important than the other. Cutting welfare isn’t as straight forward as people think. We need more people in work. Not just make people poorer. Or do something drastic like axe the triple lock. Which also isn’t going to go down well. I’m glad I don’t have to make those kind of decisions
The actual words might be different but the intent is the same
You don’t have to agree with him, but people should share what was actually said. I genuinely believe defence spending will go up significantly over the coming years. Will the money come from cutting NHS, Education, Council or the wealthfare budgets. Probably not. I think the intention is to cut welfare, but by getting more people into work, not just slashing benefits and making people worse off. Is that the right or correct approach. I don’t know. Some tax is likely to go up, and borrowing maybe up a little. Its a very carful balancing act considering the amount of debt payments we are making. What’s clear, is that billions of extra cash is not easy to find.
On the contrary, billions of pounds are exceptionally easy to find:
£11 billion currently earmarked for net zero and clean energy projects
£6 billion, slated for government research and development over three years
£50 billion Sovereign Defence Fund, including significant private sector investment
Longer term:
Universal healthcare social insurance system
Reduction in public sector headcount, civil service now over 500,000 doing the jobs of 380,000 in 2019
The civil service headcount in 2019 was 445,480 according to the institute of government.
Civil service full time equivalent numbers:
2016 384,250
2019 416,000
2026 523,795
The salient point of savings from reducing civil service headcount to pre-covid levels obviously still stands
So you’ve changed your mind from 380,000 in 2019 to 416,000. Either way, It’s not going to make a massive dent in the nations finances. You want immigrants to be processed quickly, you need civil servants, criminals sent to prison, you need civil servants. The list goes on.
Even the current government acknowledges that billions can be found from efficiency savings:
‘…a commitment that we will cut the costs of running government by 15%…Whitehall departments will receive..instructions to make savings amounting to more than £2bn a year…’ 2025
The country needs civil servants. It does not need more civil servants than it had in 2019 or even 2016.
‘…we could be getting towards almost a sort of tipping point. Quite a number of people – there’s some tremendous people running government departments as Permanent Secretaries – who do want to change it.’ Jonathan Slater 2023
If you want immigrants processed quickly, repeal the Human Rights Act 1998. It was never required in the first place.
If you want Britain to grow, repeal most of the Blair government’s forest of regulations, so reducing government spending and permitting a pro growth tax regime.
It isn’t easy, but it is simple.
Jonathan Slater was sacked in 2020.
Yes. That’s why he was able to speak out about civil service reform, speaking out for many still serving, including the now head of the civil service:
‘Romeo is currently leading a review of Whitehall that will “examine the full range of activities undertaken by the civil service”, including its “size, shape, and structure”.
The review was commissioned by former PM Keir Starmer and is due to conclude next summer. However, No.10 says Burnham and Romeo have agreed that Rewiring the State will “form a major part” of the end goal for the civil service’s future operating model.’
Civil Service World Aug. 2026
Its worth remembering that those CS numbers are from a time when everyone knows that the country was not functioning properly….post the Cameron/Osborne cuts…
So by all means cut CS numbers….but don’t be surprised when potholes get worse….
The coalition government of 2010 was a welcome oasis of stable and effective government only marred by Clegg”s shortsightedness regarding nuclear power and defence spending.
If you want your potholes mending, then you definitely require reform of both central and local government. A swift and cost effective remedy has been readily available since 2023:
‘British construction firm JCB have launched their latest machine, which aims to tackle the nation’s pothole problem.
The Pothole Pro can fix a pothole is just eight minutes, with a cost of around £30. Traditional repair can take hours and can cost over double the JCB machine.
In recent years, repair costs for UK drivers caused by potholes have soared – with the state of the roads making the issue worse.
So far, the Pothole Pro has fixed over 23,000 miles worth of roads – and JCB is now taking orders from across the world for its machine.
The award-winning JCB Pothole Pro is a unique three in one solution specifically designed to sort out any pothole repair or large reinstatement operations, efficiently, economically, and permanently.
The machine comes with three attachments to cut, crop and clean, and there’s no need for additional specialist equipment or extra manpower. All that is needed is to add tar.
Councils across Britain, including Stoke-on-Trent and Coventry City have already highlighted the success of the Pothole Pro.’
RAC 2023
Not the Pothole Pro discourse please…..
There are other machines that do that role…..JCB is not the only manufacturer. And it has been assessed by multiple councils. Its not bad….but it isn’t going to fix the £15bn+ backlog of potholes magically….its just a piece of kit….
IF it was that good, and that efficient, councils would be racing to buy it….they’re not. But JCB seem to have managed to convince a section of population with social media that it magically addresses limited budgets…
Cameron and Osbornes policy of piling responsibilities, like SEN transport, Adult Social care increased statutory duties etc etc…which was carried on by the Labour Government….ALL whilst offering reduced budgets is the root cause of the issues we face locally….
A yellow painted piece of plant ain’t going to fix that….
You are entitled to your view. It is not shared by Notts Council: ‘The Pothole Pro can do up to 250 metres a day, it can do a pothole repair in eight minutes and costs £29.28 per square metre.’
Local government requires reform, acknowledged by the Department of Transport:
‘Under the new measures, local highway authorities that fail to demonstrate they are maintaining roads effectively could lose around a third of their £1.6 billion funding for the next year.
Pothole damage already costs the average driver around £500 in avoidable repairs at a time when every pound in people’s pockets matters, and the government is determined to ease that financial burden by ensuring councils fix roads properly.
The changes will ensure that record investment in local roads is used as intended, with a total of £525 million held back from councils across England unless they are transparent and prove they are performing.
Councils must publish reports proving they are spending all of their highways cash purely on road maintenance, showing long-term plans for looking after roads and better training for their highways teams.’
April 2026
He has repeatedly said welfare must come down hy getting people more support to get back into work, particularly the young. What he said this week was that we shouldn’t chop away indiscriminately at the welfare budget because that will cause more problems, including increasing poverty and slowing down growth, which would damage the economy and inhibit our ability to pay for more defence spending. That is entirely logical.
The best way to get people back into work is through supporting enterprise not blindly taxing business as Mr Laffer has indicated. Increasing NI on employees has to have been one of the dumbest policies by a Labour govt that doesn’t understand the private sector. The size of the state is far too big.
Mr Laffer, theory has been disproved a number of time including by the Kansas experiment
The Laffer curve has also been empirically proven any number of times. The latest examples:
Rachel Reeves raised the standard rate of CGT from 10% to 18% and the higher rate from 20% to 24% while also increasing the rate paid by entrepreneurs when they sell their business. The results are now clear. According to the latest update from HMRC, in 2025 the amount collected from the tax actually fell by 8%, or by £1.3billion.
Scotland raised its top income tax rate to 48% to make the rich pay more. HMRC data shows Scotland collected about £22m less.
‘That there’s a tax rate too high to maximise tax revenue seems like a reasonable enough statement. That there’s one that is too low to maximise revenue is an obvious one. The Laffer Curve is merely the insistence that both of those things are true. That there’s an optimal tax rate to maximise revenue collection. That is also all that it says.’
The Laffer curve is simply a statement of the blindingly obvious:
‘A record number of super-rich Norwegians are abandoning Norway for low-tax countries after the centre-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%. More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. This was more than the total number of super-rich people who left the country during the previous 13 years’
And so it should be used as a strategy rather than an infallible law. Why?
‘…the Laffer peak is going to be different in different societies, with different tax rules. Further, it’s going to be different for each different tax in each such different society. The rate for a transactions tax will be very low indeed – that 0.01% on financial market transactions was, even by the calculations of those who proposed it in the EU, above that revenue maximising rate. It’s long been said that stamp duty on share purchases is above the revenue maximising rate.’
‘The Laffer Curve really does exist’ Adam Smith Institute
Tax cuts matter but it is vital to measure where an economy sits on the curve before cutting taxes. Kansas was nowhere near the high tax rates where a cut might theoretically increase revenue.
‘Marginal Tax Rates and Income New Time Series Evidence’ CATO Institute
The left dont want to hear it – tax and spend is all they know – they don’t understand private business as most of them are career politicians or public sector workers
Spot on.
In the case of Norway ” However, figures from the Norwegian Ministry of Finance show wealth tax revenue rose from about 27 billion kroner in 2022 to an estimated 34 billion in 2025, and departing taxpayers represented a small fraction of total wealth-tax payers”
So exemplifying the Laffer curve. As a wealth tax increases, more and more of the wealthy move away. France had to reverse its wealth tax for precisely that reason.
Other parts of the economy also suffer, reducing the overall tax take across the economy.
‘…the model penalises domestic ownership and risks hollowing out Norway’s entrepreneurial base.
“The wealth tax system makes it harder for companies to compete with the rest of the world,” said Knut-Erik Karlsen, who made his fortune in fish oil supplements and recently moved to Switzerland.
Norway taxes capital gains, unlike Switzerland, and imposes higher levies on labour than the OECD average.
Around 40% of emigrants are business owners, according to Princeton researcher Christine Blandhol, who estimates, opens new tab the latest tax changes will cut Norway’s output by 1.3% over the long run. Others find the tax hampers firms’ performance, opens new tab.
A wealth levy is especially painful for startup founders, who pay on capital long before profits arrive.
Are Traasdahl left Norway in 2000 to market Europe’s mobile technology in the U.S., later founding and selling several tech firms including the app now known as iHeartRadio.
“There’s no chance I would have been able to build in Norway what I built in the United States,” he said.’
Reuters Nov 2025
👍
Take a look at the social psychology concept of Groupthink – both in terms of this issue but also the present day WhiteHouse. Wikipedia page is good on this
‘…the official says he sees no indication yet of the armed conflict spreading beyond Russia and Ukraine…’
Eh?
‘Traces of polonium-210 were last week found at the Pescatori restaurant in Mayfair, while two more people tested positive for contamination with the substance, bringing the total to 12.’ ‘…UK public inquiry, the assassins placed a minimum of 50 micrograms of polonium-210 into his teapot, and Litvinenko ultimately ingested roughly 26.5 micrograms’ ‘…the quantity of polonium-210 used to assassinate Alexander Litvinenko was vastly higher than a single lethal dose and was theoretically enough to kill thousands of people’ 2006
‘…the public inquiry into the Salisbury poisonings confirmed that the Novichok smuggled into the UK contained enough lethal doses to kill thousands of people.’ ‘Lead counsel at the (Dawn Sturgess murder) inquiry noted that the discarded vial held a highly concentrated, pure batch of Novichok containing thousands of lethal doses’ 2018
CBRN weapons (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) are categorized as military weapons and are strictly classified as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).
The ‘armed conflict spreading’ ship sailed many years ago. But the mostly very strange people who populate Westminster and Whitehall appear not to have noticed yet.
A very good example of Putin being lied to, but also Putin lying to himself and the Russian public has come to light this week….
Putin has been on TV announcing that Russia forces have captured Svatohirsk….this is in the Lyman area of Ukraine. The Russian offensive there was the northern ‘pincer’ of their main effort 2025/26 offensive to take Kramatorsk and Slovyansk….
The reality is….Svatohirsk is over 20 km behind the lines and is in total Ukrainian control. The cause of Putin’s statement appears to have been some Russian bloggers who published video, reportedly of Russian forces in Svatohirsk….unfortunately for them….the video turned out to be a video by Ukrainian’s dating back to 2022…Putin dutifully went on TV and stated that Svatohirsk had been totally ‘liberated’….the Ukrainian Corps Commander Biletskyi answered 2 days later with a video of him walking around Svatohirsk…in total peace.
Putin’s lie/delusion has then been reinforced by the Ukrainian counter-offensive in that region that has been, discretely, pushing back the Russian 20th CAA for over 2 months….the counter-offensive has now gone into over-drive, pushing the Russian’s back even further from Svatohirsk, leaving the 20th CAA reeling….and effectively cancelling out Russian gains in the area from the last 2 years…and its still ongoing….the Russian salient has been cut and is now being liquidated. Fighting is now reported on the Zerebets River….at Ivanivka and Terny….30km from Svatohirsk, and previously well behind Russian lines…
Effectively this marks the total failure of the Russian 2026 offensive as the Northern Pincer has been destroyed and is in disarray…and it might not be finished yet….
https://x.com/clement_molin/status/2097246426551955493