A retired high-ranking commander of Russia’s armed forces has openly castigated the Kremlin’s intelligence institutions for what he described as their profoundly inadequate performance during the early phase of the war in Ukraine. He asserted that these agencies delivered faulty assessments that convinced Moscow to embark on a full-scale military campaign for which it was woefully unprepared. The individual behind these unusually forthright remarks is Colonel General Vladimir Chirkin, who commanded Russia’s Ground Forces between 2012 and 2013—a position that placed him among the upper echelon of the country’s military leadership. His unflinching criticism stands out as particularly rare, even among retired senior officers, given the pervasive expectation of loyalty that still characterizes much of Russia’s military and political culture.
In an interview broadcast on November 27 by the Russian media outlet RBC, Chirkin reflected on the widespread optimism that had permeated official Russian circles at the outset of the invasion. He recalled that, as the first troops advanced in February 2022, numerous voices within Russia proclaimed with great confidence that the conflict would end in a matter of days—three, at most—under the assumption that Ukrainian resistance would swiftly collapse. Speaking with an air of regret, Chirkin observed that this confidence had proven tragically misplaced. He bluntly stated that, were he to evaluate the entire Russian intelligence community based on its performance in guiding the invasion, he would award it a failing grade. His candid remarks quickly gained attention in Ukrainian media, amplified by political journalist Denis Kazanskyi, who underscored their exceptional bluntness from a former top Russian commander.
During the same interview, Chirkin elaborated on what he saw as a chronic pattern within Moscow’s strategic assessments: a recurring tendency to misjudge the balance of power. He argued that Russian planners have a historically rooted habit of underestimating their adversaries while at the same time overestimating their own military capacities—an intellectual and operational shortcoming that has repeatedly surfaced throughout Russian history. Although he insisted that his intention was not to attack any individual personally, Chirkin conceded that, in his view, Russia had once again entered a major conflict inadequately prepared, echoing similar failures from both past decades and even previous centuries.
A central miscalculation, he explained, was the Kremlin’s belief that a large majority of Ukraine’s population—roughly seventy percent—would favor a pro-Russian government or at least welcome Russian intervention. In practice, he said, the opposite proved true: only around thirty percent appeared sympathetic to Moscow, with the overwhelming majority decidedly opposed. This stark reality, he reflected, constituted a painful but essential lesson in the dangers of relying on distorted intelligence. Within the first few weeks of the war, the Russian military and political establishment had been confronted with the consequences of such false assumptions through what he described as a “cruel lesson.”
Chirkin further suggested that Russian troops in the opening months suffered from what he termed the “Tbilisi syndrome,” a phrase describing the paralysis of field officers who hesitate to make tactical decisions without explicit approval from their superiors. This bottleneck, rooted in excessive centralization and fear of personal responsibility, likely hampered Russia’s operational effectiveness. His observations therefore not only emphasized intelligence failures but also pointed to deeper institutional flaws that have long plagued the Russian command structure.
For context, Colonel General Chirkin once held ceremonial prominence: he organized the 2013 Victory Day parade before being dismissed later that year on corruption allegations. He was eventually convicted in 2015 of accepting a bribe of 450,000 rubles and sentenced to five years in a labor camp. The sentence, however, was commuted within months, and his rank was later reinstated—a sequence of events that added complexity to his public reputation and perhaps afforded him a measure of independence to speak freely after leaving active service.
Interestingly, his evaluation of the early war dynamics mirrors the analyses put forth by numerous Western and Ukrainian experts, who concluded that Russia had substantially overestimated its capacity to capture the Kyiv region. Disorganized troop movements, severe logistical shortfalls, and the inability to secure control of Ukraine’s skies quickly eroded the invasion’s momentum. By late March 2022, the Kremlin had withdrawn forces from the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital, marking a tacit admission of strategic misjudgment.
The frankness of Chirkin’s observations appeared to surprise even the interviewer, RBC journalist Yuri Tamantsev, who confessed his astonishment at the general’s openness so early in their conversation. This level of forthrightness is remarkable in today’s Russia, where strict laws punish the dissemination of information deemed “false” about the war in Ukraine—a charge that can carry prison sentences of up to fifteen years. Human rights organizations have repeatedly documented how these regulations have been employed not to curb misinformation, but to silence dissenters, activists, and ordinary citizens critical of the invasion.
Nevertheless, despite his unusually transparent critique, Chirkin refrained from outright rejecting or challenging Moscow’s official justification for launching the war. Instead, his comments remained focused on the inadequacies of execution, the mismanagement of intelligence, and lessons to be drawn about military preparedness. The latter portion of his interview shifted toward more technical reflections on the evolution of Russian combat methods and strategic doctrine in recent years, as well as on what conditions, in his estimation, might ultimately enable Russian forces to realize what the Kremlin continues to describe as its “vision of victory.”
Through his statements, Chirkin painted a picture of a military establishment mired in outdated assumptions, overconfidence, and structural inefficiencies. His voice, though that of a disgraced and later rehabilitated officer, adds weight to the growing body of internal acknowledgment that Russia’s early failures in Ukraine were not simply the product of battlefield mishaps, but of systemic misjudgment at the highest levels of intelligence and command.
Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/russian-general-vladimir-chirkin-intelligence-failing-grade-invasion-ukraine-2025-12
