Vladimir Putin has been meddling in everyday battlefield decisions which has lead to Russia 's failures in the Ukraine war, sources say.
The tyrant has been making tactical decisions usually reserved for officers in charge of as few as 700 troops - rather than a national armed force of over 150,000 soldiers.
Putin and his war-tactician crony General Valery Gerasimov are micromanaging battle decisions - which are unfitting for men of their position, a military source said.
The source said: “We think Putin and Gerasimov are involved in tactical decision-making at a level we would normally expect to be taken by a colonel or a brigadier."
The source compared the situation to Amazon businessman Jeff Bezos, who "doesn't deliver your parcels" but "makes strategy decisions".
Last week rumours swirled that the chief of staff had been axed for failing to capture Ukraine as quickly as Putin wanted.
But the general is still "up and running" and helping Putin's meddling, the source told The Times.
They said Putin and Gerasimov are making orders usually made by a "colonel or brigadier" - who generally command two battalions at a time.
Each battalion would contain roughly 900 servicemen or women, they add.
But these battalions - dubbed BTGs - are being blasted back by Ukrainian forces, and the military source predicts Russian forces may have dwindled to as little as 700 soldiers, a second military source revealed.
Putin's meddling may be the root of failures in the Donbas region, which the Kremlin expected to capture quickly due to pro-Russian support in the area.
Confidence in Moscow has turned to despair after Russian troops failed to capture cities in the Russian speaking West.
Western sources have pondered why Ukraine - which is outgunned and outmanned - continues to beat Russia on the battlefield.
The head of the British Army, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, told Parliament yesterday it was because Ukraine is involved in an "existential fight for its nation".
This will guarantee the survival of the Kyiv government, he said.
Former FSB agent Igor Girkin - who orchestrated the annexation of Crimea - wrote on social media that Russia's attempts to capture Donbas had failed.
He wrote: "In more than two weeks of fierce hostilities, only tactical successes have been reached.
But trouncing Moscow may have dire consequences for the rest of the world, with some experts saying Putin might press the button and unleash a nuclear war if his "special operation" fails.
Sir Antony Beevor says the Russian President believes NATO's 'advance' on his own country's borders is the equivalent to the Nazis moving through Europe 80 years ago.
And the push for Finland and Sweden to join the alliance in recent days amid the despot's catastrophic invasion of Ukraine will have done little to ease his misplaced suspicions.
Sir Antony, who has published several books on the Second World War, said Putin genuinely thinks the Red Army fought off Adolf Hitler's Wehrmacht "single-handed" while the western allies wanted to "stab the Soviet Union in the back".
Moscow's current invasion, which it calls a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine and protect it from fascists, has jolted European security.
