Russian President Vladimir Putin is "misinformed" about the status of his country’s military amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by advisers who are afraid to speak the truth to him, an unidentified U.S. official said on Wednesday.

"We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions, because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth," the official added.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Algiers this week that Putin’s advisors are not providing him with reliable information, according to The New York Times.

"With regard to President Putin, look, what I can tell you is this, and I said this before, one of the Achilles' heel of autocracies is that you don’t have people in those systems who speak truth to power or who have the ability to speak truth to power," Blinken said. "And I think that is something that we’re seeing in Russia."

Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said in a press conference on Wednesday: "We would concur with the conclusion that Mr. Putin has not been fully informed by his Ministry of Defense, at every turn over the last month," Kirby said.

"If Mr. Putin is misinformed or uninformed about what’s going on inside Ukraine, it’s his military, it’s his war, he chose it," he added. "And so the fact that he may not have all the context — that he may not fully understand the degree to which his forces are failing in Ukraine, that’s a little discomforting, to be honest with you."

NBC notes that last month, Putin repeatedly interrupted the head of the Russian spy service, Sergei Naryshkin, during an on-camera meeting in which Putin told Naryshkin to "speak plainly," at one point.

Putin also previously denied that Russia would use conscripted soldiers for the invasion of Ukraine, saying in a televised message earlier this month: "I emphasize that conscript soldiers are not participating in hostilities and will not participate in them. And there will be no additional call-up of reservists."

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