(NewsNation) — Several British media outlets are reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed some of the country’s top intelligence agents under house arrest, a possible retaliation for faulty intelligence leading up to the invasion of Ukraine.
The Sunday Times reported that Sergey Beseda, head of the foreign intelligence branch of the FSB, Russia’s version of the CIA, was arrested along with Anatoly Bolyukh, his deputy.
The Times said the arrests had been confirmed by both Andrei Soldatov, who is co-founder and editor of the investigative website Agentura, and by Vladimir Osechkin, an exiled Russian human rights activist.
According to The Independent, Soldatov said the final reports produced by the FSB in the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine and their assessment of how much resistance was expected were “terribly miscalculated.”
The author and editor added that the intelligence may have gathered good intelligence, but the problem lies in the difficulty faced by Russian superiors to “tell Putin what he doesn’t want to hear.”
The Independent also said FSB officers had carried out searches at more than 20 addresses in Moscow of colleagues suspected to be speaking with journalists.