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On March 29, Russia's top military commanders, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, held a press conference in Moscow. Shoigu provided an assessment of Russia's performance in the war against Ukraine. Both Shoigu and Gerasimov have reportedly been absent from public view for several weeks, prompting rumors that they had fallen out with President Vladimir Putin.On March 30, the White House, citing intelligence, said that Putin has been misinformed about the war in Ukraine, and that "his senior advisers are afraid to tell him the truth." "According to declassified U.S. intelligence, the misinformation has created mistrust and stoked tensions between Mr. Putin and his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu," The New York Times reported.Whatever the case, the information Shoigu provided at the March 29 press briefing was neither accurate nor factual."On the whole, the main goals of the first stage of the operation are completed," Shoigu claimed.The claim is misleading. Shoigu painted an exaggerated and partly false picture of Russia's successes in the war in Ukraine while not mentioning its own losses.Independent observers and Western governments alike are skeptical of the claims about the Russian army's achievements. Ukraine, in fact, not only has held off the Russian offensive but has also counterattacked and reclaimed parts of the country that Russian forces took during the first weeks of the invasion."The Russians have not achieved any of the strategic objectives that they set out to — or certainly not without loss," a U.S. Defense Department spokesperson told reporters on March 30, adding that Ukraine is defending parts of the country "very smartly, very nimbly, very creatively. We have seen indications that the Ukrainians are going a bit more on the offensive now
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