Russian forces in chaos as soldiers ditch uniforms, refuse orders & ‘shoot down own aircraft’

MUTINOUS Russian forces are sabotaging their weapons and refusing to carry out orders amid surging Red Army deaths, a UK spy chief has revealed today.

Vladimir Putin “massively misjudged” how hard conquering Ukraine would be but is bent on his “personal war” — even as his poorly fed and armed soldiers are giving up.

It came as telling footage showed despairing conscripts complaining of being “thrown into the s**t” with 1940s rifles that do not work.

Planes have been accidentally downed by friendly fire and Russia’s “command and control is in chaos,” GCHQ boss Sir Jeremy Fleming has said.

Met with fierce resistance, Russian troops have been bogged down and pushed back. The strategically important town of Trostyanets in the north-east has been retaken, the occupying soldiers fleeing, leaving their uniforms behind.

But Putin’s fearful generals are hiding the scale of the battlefield losses from him as what was meant to be a lightning war grinds on.  

The eavesdroppers at GCHQ have picked up chatter of mutiny and discord in the ranks by intercepting phone calls, messages and emails.

Sir Jeremy told an audience in Canberra, Australia: “We know Putin’s campaign is beset by problems — low morale, logistical failures and high Russian casualty numbers. We’ve seen Putin lie to his own people in an attempt to hide military incompetence.

“We’ve seen Russian soldiers — short of weapons and morale — refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft.”

Speaking at the Australian National University, he added: “Even though we believe Putin’s advisers are afraid to tell him the truth, what’s going on and the extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime.

“It all adds up to the strategic miscalculation that Western leaders warned Putin it would be. It’s become his personal war, with the cost being paid by innocent people in Ukraine and increasingly, by ordinary Russians too.”

He warned that Russia has been using mercenaries and foreign fighters as “cannon fodder” to “limit Russian military losses”. So far, Russia has lost around 15,000 troops and 2,000 military vehicles.

Sir Jeremy’s withering take has been shared by US officials who also claim Putin’s advisers “are too afraid to tell him the truth”.

In a hint at the paranoia and suspicion in the Kremlin, the US claims that Putin feels “misled by the Russian military” and has lost faith in his senior officials.

A document claims the tyrant “didn’t even know his military was using and losing conscripts, showing a clear breakdown in the flow of accurate information”.

It adds: “We have information that Putin felt misled by the Russian military.” The paper said there was “persistent tension” between Putin and his Ministry of Defence which stemmed from his “mistrust” in the department’s leadership.

In a sign of the despair plaguing Putin’s forces, a video emerged of young Russian conscripts complaining that they have been forced to fight and see comrades killed.

Huddled in what appears to be a military lorry, they said they were being sent into battle “with rifles against Grad” missiles.

One says: “They f*****d us. What are we doing here?” Another cries out: “Our rifles are from the 1940s. They don’t f*****g fire.” They urge viewers to “spread the word” that they do not back the war.

They f*****d us. What are we doing here?

A mutinous Russian soldier

Last week soldiers in a tank drove over and killed their brigade commander, Colonel Yuri Medvedev.

Meanwhile, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “Russia is about to discover that it is really quite alone with an exhausted military, a demoralised military.

“The winner in the high north of a weak Russia is China, and that is inevitable. I suspect China has taken the view in Russia that you never interrupt your rival when they’re making a mistake.

“I think it is no coincidence that the Chinese support for Russia has been lukewarm at best.”

Boris Johnson said yesterday that Western allies must stick with sanctions amid talk that some EU countries were wobbling.

In the Commons, he vowed to “double down” on the military kit sent to Kyiv. He said: “We will go on with that, but what we will also do is make sure that there is no backsliding on sanctions by any of our friends and partners.”

He said the economic pressure on Putin must be increased and added it was “inconceivable” that sanctions would be taken off “simply because there is a ceasefire”.

He later said the West should not lift sanctions on Putin’s regime until “every single one of his troops is out of Ukraine”. In an appearance in front of MPs on the Liaison Committee, he also said Britain will be “going up a gear” in supplying military kit.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office yesterday announced new laws aimed at banning the maintenance of aircraft or ships belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarchs or their businesses. The powers were used immediately to sanction Eugene Shvidler and Oleg Tinkov.

• STARS including Ed Sheeran and Paloma Faith raised more than £13.4million with a televised gig in Birmingham on behalf of The Disaster Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.