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I’m guessing that this is not only not true, but actually blame-setting propaganda. It’s way to tight and clean of a narrative packaging both the assessment failures and the counterintelligence failures into a nice little package of high-level betrayal that neatly avoids any of the catastrophe reflecting a systemic problem beyond a single purgeable conspiracy with a well-defined top being disloyal to leadership.

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In Russian authoritarianism the great leader is essentially infallible. It is suspicious that in this narrative the great leader had a plan and thought it was being executed, but treacherous disloyalty ruined everything. Not only is there no incompetence or general morale problem, the one big failing to look out for is disloyalty from those who should have supported the state by supporting the great leader.

The Ukrainians said what they were going to do if invaded and stuck to that while the Russians couldn't even keep their convoys fueled and fed. The real cause of the failure here is not disloyalty but incompetence. Incompetence is almost impossible for authoritarians to deal with rationally.

That’s why you need to put all the blame on people high up enough to seemingly have significant responsibility.

It’s a losing battle because ultimately responsibility creeps up to the person at the very top.

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