According to a report from Bellingcat, Sergey Beseda, head of the Fifth Service (section of the FSB, dedicated entirely to monitoring the political, social and political climate within the former Republics of the Soviet Union, like Ukraine) managed to convinced Putin he had succeeded in raising a huge and highly effective domestic insurgency within Ukraine. He took that money and deliberately lied to Putin for the sole purpose of lining his own pockets. Putin took everything Beseda told him as the truth.
The deception seems to have begun quite soon after the seizure of Crimea. Beseda and his cronies told Putin what he wanted to hear, believing Putin would never act on any of it. Beseda’s partners in crime were greedier and less disciplined than their boss, however, and as time went on, it seems the fictions became ever grander and more fanciful.
The insurgents had multiple hidden stockpiles of weapons, emergency food, ammunition - all paid for from the Fifth Service’s budget. Putin refunded them the outlay and they went and spent the money on flashy lifestyles. in fact, a lot of Russia’s kackhanded logistics at the start of the invasion can probably be explained by the fact that they genuinely believed the logistical supplies were already in place.
At Hostomel, on day one of the invasion, VDV soldiers were running around the runway buildings going “What’s going on? Where’s or welcome? Where are the partisans? How are we supposed to secure this on our own?”
Interesting.
And that fits with Russian funding support for other insurgencies. Dombass, Georgia, Moldava. I’ve never doubted that Russia was funding those.