[Reporter] During Vladimir Putin's
strange televised national security meeting last week,
he forced his advisers to one by one, say that they agreed
with his military decisions.
[Speaking Russian]
[Reporter] He publicly humiliated Sergei Naryshkin,
head of foreign intelligence, for stumbling over his lines and suggesting
perhaps the worst could be avoided through more negotiations with Ukraine.
[McFaul] He should be one of the most trusted advisers in a meeting with Putin.
[Reporter] Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.
When he even got the verb tense wrong, Putin berated him.
And that is an illustration that none of those people in the room
have any sway with Putin.
I used to work with all those people in that room when I was ambassador.
I know every single one of them.
There's no such thing as an adviser to the president in Russia today.
[Reporter] Journalist Zoya Sheftalovich
grew up in the Soviet Union and now covers NATO and Russia for Politico.
[Sheftalovich] It's a classic mistake that is made by all tyrants, and that mistake
is surrounding yourself only with people who say yes, only with sycophants.
And so what he has is this complete echo chamber, a bunker mentality where he is
not hearing from people who are going to be giving him a reality check.
[Reporter] Even if no one is speaking out to Putin.
Russians can see evidence of a stalled invasion and military chaos on the ground,
not a smooth takeover of Ukraine that was clearly expected.
Russian born American journalist Masha Gessen says Putin underestimated
the Ukrainian people who overthrew a Russia-backed president eight years ago.
[Gessen] These are people for whom dying for
their freedom is not an abstract idea.
It is a part of the lived experience of the last eight years.
These are people
who stood in freezing Independence Square
in the center of Kyiv through the dead of winter
to win their freedom in 2013-2014,
who did not back down when the government opened fire on.
Putin doesn't understand that kind of civil society, he doesn't understand
the kind of social cohesion.
He doesn't understand that potential for self-organization.
And that commitment to to resistance
[Reporter] Today, Ukrainians blocked
the Russian army from approaching a nuclear plant.
It's just clear to me that Ukrainians will never submit to this occupation.
[McFaul] They'll never quit.
There'll be some kind of fighting, either with guns or passive civic resistance
for the entirety that Putin's soldiers
remain inside Ukraine.
[Reporter] Konstantin Eggert, a Russian journalist living in Lithuania,
also thinks Putin has made a fatal miscalculation.
[Eggert] He can't just say, Oh, I'm sorry that I disturbed you or your lunch.
I'm retreating.
He has to play both, he has to deliver,
especially to the Russians and, by the way, to his constituency,
the Russian generals, the Russian security services
and, of course, the Russian public.
Some kind of result has to prove that he's done something.
And this war
with Ukraine will not be a victorious one.
It will be a quagmire.
It will be a disaster.
And I think that's quite a few military people
understand it.
[Reporter] UK intelligence services claim they are seeing strong dissension
among senior Russian military officers about Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
[Sheftalovich] I f you're a high level person in the military.
If you've seen how successful operations run, if you run
successful operations in the past, there's no doubt
you're looking at a completely mishandled and bungled invasion of Ukraine.
We want to do that for sure.
But we should withdraw the sovereignty of this country.
[Reporter] The internet is now flooded with unverified Ukrainian army videos
of captured young Russian soldiers who say they had no idea
what they were getting into.
We've chosen to blur their faces so they cannot be identified.
They look like they're babies.
They look like they have no idea what's happening.
They don't look like hardened soldiers.
[McFaul] They've been told
that there are fascists ruling Ukraine, and they're coming to liberate them,
and they're stunned
when they're not greeted as liberators.
[UN official] Russia has shattered peace on the European continent.
What we have warned against --
[Reporter] On Monday, facing worldwide condemnation.
Mr Putin lashed out at the West, calling it an empire of lies.
A recurring topic in recent days:
Questions whether Vladimir Putin is in his right mind.
Many who have watched him for years are not so sure.
Journalist Anne Applebaum has written many books about Russia.
He seems to have hardened his views.
He seems to be much less rational.
He seems almost fanatically determined to eliminate
Ukraine from the map in a way that does sound almost genocidal.
I mean, the kind of language that he's using is about not recognizing
the existence of Ukrainians wanting to eliminate them, wanting to remove them.
He has become obsessed with the West.
Thinks we're out to get him.
He thinks we're out to destroy his regime.
And at the same time, has he's developed these scary ideas.
And as I watch his speeches lately,
they seem increasingly disconnected from reality.
And when he throws in a nuclear threat, that really means, you know, in my view,
he's becoming increasingly unhinged.
[McFaul] It was chilling to watch the moment when Putin made that nuclear threat
and General Gerasimov and his defence minister, Minister Shoygu, were there.
The expressions on their faces communicated a lot of intelligence to me.
They did not seem thrilled with this new order
to get their nuclear forces ready.
And if you're looking
at this war, you're wondering how does this end?
[Sheftalovich] Western media often tends to portray Putin as this evil genius who is maneuvering
and manipulating and planning things out in 20 moves ahead in chess.
Putin doesn't operate like that.
If you look at the way Russia has been operating on the world stage
over the past 24 years of Putin's Russia.
He just throws things up the wall and sees what sticks.
I don't think it's a great tactician to isolate your country,
as he did in 2014, when he first invaded Ukraine and wiped out,
you know, billions of dollars in wealth and cut off his country.
And now today, is it brilliant and savvy to kill women and children in Ukraine
and make your country look like a pariah state?
I just don't see the grand strategy at play here.
I think we've we've grossly overestimated him.
[Reporter] As Russia steps
up its attack on civilian populations,
Mr Putin will have to come up with an explanation for why he is killing
so many of the people he claimed he was coming to save.
Terence McKenna CBC News Toronto.