Putin's advisors 'too afraid to tell him the truth'

The head of British intelligence agency GCHQ says it appears Russian President Vladimir Putin "has massively misjudged the situation" in Ukraine, but that his backup plan is more attacks on civilian areas.

"We’re now seeing Putin trying to follow through on his plan. But it is failing. And his Plan B has been more barbarity against civilians and cities," GCHQ Director Jeremy Fleming said Thursday.

Fleming also said in a speech in Australia that "it increasingly looks like Putin has massively misjudged the situation" — both the impact of punishing sanctions and the ability of his military.

"We’ve seen Russian soldiers — short of weapons and morale — refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft," Fleming said, according to a copy of the speech posted online by GCHQ.

The U.S. has assessed that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing indiscriminate attacks and attacks on civilian areas.

President Joe Biden met Wednesday with the parents of Trevor Reed, a former Marine who the White House said is being wrongfully detained in Russia on assault charges.

In a statement, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden “reiterated his commitment” to continue pushing for the release of Reed and other Americans who she said are being wrongfully held in the country. 

“We are grateful for their partnership and feedback. We will continue to work to ensure we are communicating and sharing information in a way useful to these families,” Psaki said.

Joey and Paula Reed, of Granbury, Texas, who said their son is innocent of the 2019 charges, publicly pushed the administration to help bring their son home.

They met with the president Wednesday after they traveled to Washington this week and initially lobbied him from afar, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported. They stood on the route of Biden’s motorcade hoping it would stop — it didn’t — and they stood near the White House holding a sign bearing their son’s name.

The couple eventually met with Biden and other officials in the Oval Office for more than a half-hour, the station reported. 

“He was very gracious,” Paula Reed told the station. “He gave us more time than we thought he would give us, but we said we would keep the conversation private.”

Another former Marine, Paul Whalen, was also sentenced to 16 years in a Russian prison in 2020 after he was convicted of spying. His family has said he is innocent and that he was in the country for a wedding.

The Biden administration is weighing a plan to release about 1 million barrels of oil a day from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for about six months, totaling as many as 180 million barrels, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

An announcement could come as soon as Thursday. President Joe Biden is expected to deliver remarks about the administration's "actions to reduce the impact of Putin's price hike on energy prices and lower gas prices at the pump for American families."

Oil prices surged by 3 percent Wednesday, to $113 per barrel, as investors worried about new Western sanctions against Moscow and as Russian forces continued to bomb the outskirts of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv.

Russia promised Tuesday to scale down operations around Kyiv in what the West dismissed as a ploy to regroup by invaders suffering heavy losses.

"After being fooled once, many traders that sold contracts in response to the peace talks are unlikely to make the same mistake the next time a Russia-Ukraine meeting is followed by optimistic comments," said Jim Ritterbusch, the president of Ritterbusch and Associates, an oil trading and advisory firm in Galena, Illinois.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Georgia and Morocco, suggesting they hadn’t done enough to persuade those countries to support Ukraine and punish Russia for the invasion.

“With all due respect, if there won’t be weapons, won’t be sanctions, won’t be restrictions for Russian business, then please look for other work,” Zelenskyy said in his nighttime video address to the nation Wednesday. “I am waiting for concrete results in the coming days from the work of our representatives in Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Africa.”

Zelenskyy also said he was expecting results from Ukraine’s military attaches in embassies abroad.

He said “the diplomatic front is one of the key fronts” in Ukraine’s battle to win the war against Russia.

The deputy mayor of the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol said Wednesday that about 150,000 residents remain there and are "living underground" in shelters amid continued Russian attacks.

"The only way to survive is to live underground," Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said in an interview with MSNBC.

Orlov said people are staying in bomb shelters and suffering from lack of food and water.

He said that the city "is in full, total, absolute blockade" by Russian forces and that humanitarian help is not being allowed to enter. 

Among the places attacked in Mariupol is a maternity hospital and a theater where people were taking shelter. The attacks have prompted accusations that Russian forces are committing war crimes. Satellite images published Tuesday appeared to show widespread devastation of residential areas.

Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said Ukraine and Russia will resume talks Friday, as fighting continued Wednesday more than a month after Russia invaded.

Arakhamia said in an interview on national television that Russia's first offer amounted to what he called a "capitulation agreement."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that a negotiation process is underway but that "but these are still words, so far no specifics."

Zelenskyy said Russian troops are accumulating for new attacks on the Donbas area, which is in eastern Ukraine. He pledged that "we will fight for every inch of our land, for every one of our people."

LONDON — Britain’s government has announced new legal powers prohibiting U.K. maintenance on planes and ships belonging to Russian oligarchs. The Foreign Office said Wednesday the new sanctions have been used immediately against billionaire oil tycoon Eugene Shvidler and Oleg Tinkov, founder of Tinkoff bank.

Shvidler, who’s already sanctioned over his business links to Roman Abramovich, has had two private jets seized.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said the new law adds to Britain’s powers to “deprive oligarchs’ access to their luxury toys.”

British authorities on Tuesday seized a Russian-owned superyacht valued at $38 million. They did not identify the owner of the vessel, only saying the billionaire was connected to President Vladimir Putin.

The government also said that finance, trade and shipping sanctions imposed on Crimea have been expanded to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.