On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, triggering an unprecedented public release of secret intelligence by the United States and Britain. Since the invasion, Western spy agencies have declassified assessments about Russian troop movements, Kremlin misinformation, and battlefield conditions. The goal is to deter Russian actions, expose Putin’s isolation, and maintain Western unity.
This strategy marks a sharp departure from traditional intelligence secrecy. Since late February, U.S. and British intelligence agencies have taken the unusual step of publicly releasing classified assessments.
The U.S. declassified intelligence claiming Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by advisers about his military’s poor performance. On March 31, Jeremy Fleming, head of Britain’s electronic intelligence agency GCHQ, said in a public speech that demoralized Russian troops are refusing orders and sabotaging their own equipment. Fleming called the “pace and scale” of intelligence releases “really is unprecedented.” Mark Galeotti, a Russian expert at University College London, said the public campaign “reflects the fact that we now live in a different age, politically and internationally.
And this is a different kind of war.”
Multiple aims behind the strategy
Officials say the intelligence releases serve several purposes. They let Putin know he is being watched. They aim to make him question what his advisers tell him.
They also embolden the Russian military to report the truth. And they convey to the Russian public that they have been lied to about the war.
The U.S. and Britain have also released intelligence to deter Russian actions. Recent warnings about possible Russian use of chemical weapons in Ukraine are one example. The strategy is closely coordinated between Washington and London.
Biden administration officials say they decided to aggressively share intelligence and coordinate messaging with key allies, including Britain, as U.S. concerns about Russian troop movements grew in autumn 2021.
Early warnings and allied skepticism
In early November 2021, President Joe Biden dispatched CIA director William Burns to Moscow. Burns warned top Kremlin officials that the U.S. was fully aware of Russian troop movements. The White House typically keeps the director’s travels quiet.
But this time, the administration advertised the visit widely. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow announced the meeting shortly after it ended.
Soon after, U.S. officials accelerated intelligence sharing. They shared sensitive intelligence with the Five Eyes alliance, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and with Ukraine. Director of national intelligence Avril Haines traveled to Brussels to brief NATO members on intelligence suggesting Russia seemed intent on invasion, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some allies and analysts were skeptical. Memories of past intelligence failures, like the false claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction used to justify the 2003 Iraq invasion, lingered.
Late last year, France and Germany led a group of European countries that saw similar military intelligence but were less convinced an invasion was imminent. At NATO, Germany initially blocked a system for helping Ukraine acquire certain military equipment. France and Germany also blocked NATO from launching an early crisis planning system, before relenting in December.
French intelligence shakeup
This week, French media reported that the head of France’s military intelligence agency, Eric Vidaud, has been removed from his post. His agency failed to anticipate the Russian invasion. Vidaud’s departure comes amid soul-searching about why France was taken by surprise.
The failure was particularly embarrassing for President Emmanuel Macron, who speaks regularly with Putin. Some see Vidaud as a scapegoat and note his removal comes just ahead of the French presidential election this month.
In January, as Russia massed troops near Ukraine’s border, Britain’s Foreign Office issued a statement alleging Putin wanted to install a pro-Moscow regime in Ukraine. The U.K. said it was making the intelligence public due to “exceptional circumstances.”
Impact on Russia and Western unity
Russia’s invasion on February 24 silenced most doubters and drew a unified NATO response. The release of U.S. and British intelligence is partly designed to shore up Western unity, officials and analysts say. Both Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson doubt Putin is serious about negotiating an end to the war.
They want to keep up military and moral support for Ukraine. The impact inside Russia is hard to measure.
The U.S. official said the White House hopes divulging that Putin is misinformed could prod him to reconsider his options. But it could also further isolate him or make him double down on restoring Russian prestige lost since the Soviet Union’s fall. The official said Biden is partly shaped by a belief that “Putin is going to do what Putin is going to do,” regardless of international efforts.
Galeotti said Western intelligence agencies likely don’t know how much impact their efforts will have on Putin. “But there’s no harm in giving it a try,” he said.
“Because when it comes down to it, in this kind of intensely personalistic system (of government). If one line, or one particular notion, happens to get through and lodge itself in Putin’s brain. Then that’s a really powerful result.” The war in Ukraine has forced intelligence agencies out of the shadows.
Their public role is a gamble. It aims to shape events on the ground and inside the Kremlin. Whether it succeeds remains uncertain.
But the strategy reflects a new reality: in this conflict, secrets are weapons, and the fight for truth is as important as the fight on the battlefield.
