I find this story says more about the West than it does about Russia:
A “Stalinist” mass purge of Russian secret intelligence is under way after more than 100 agents were removed from their jobs and the head of the department responsible for Ukraine was sent to prison.
In a sign of President Putin’s fury over the failures of the invasion, about 150 Federal Security Bureau (FSB) officers have been dismissed, including some who have been arrested.
All of those ousted were employees of the Fifth Service. This a division was created in 1998, when Putin was director of the FSB. It’s purpose was to carry out operations in former Soviet Union countries with the single aim of keeping them within Russia’s orbit.
Now, when Stalin purged the secret police, the party, or military, he purged based on perceived loyalty — as well as to get rid of people who were too popular or powerful, and whom he thus regarded as a threat. It’s generally conceded that Stalin’s military leadership purges were part of why the Red Army was, at first, defeated badly by the Wehrmacht.
Does this describe what Putin is doing?
It’s possible, of course, that these officers tried to tell Putin the truth about Ukrainian ability to resist, and Putin wouldn’t listen. But isn’t it also reasonable to think that, if Russia had expected significantly less resistance from Ukraine’s military than what they actually encountered, it is because that’s what the intelligence service told Putin and the military command? So couldn’t this be Putin getting rid of those secret agents who screwed up, and is, therefore, appropriate? And given that thousands of Russian soldiers have died, in large part due to faulty intelligence, and Russia’s position in the world has been damaged, is it not appropriate for the head of the responsible division to go to prison? (Though, he’s been officially accused of corruption, not incompetence.)
Who was fired because of incompetence in Iraq or Afghanistan? What intelligence agents or generals were let go because they made predictions which did not come true? Would the US be better off if those who kept saying that victory in Afghanistan was just around the corner had been fired or even court-martialed?
The West has such a culture of impunity for elite incompetence that elites think that whenever elites are fired or punished for anything it’s “Stalinist.”
Likewise, during the war, we’ve had reports of a number of Russian general dying in combat. Western commenters were aghast, but shouldn’t generals be close enough to the front lines to be in some danger? Isn’t that, actually, good leadership practice?
Russia has serious problems with how it is run; if Russia doesn’t fix its corruption and demographic issues, I think it will fall out of the “Great Power” category in time. But I also posit that Putin holding important people to account for their failures is a positive sign, not a negative one.