Putin beginning to have excuses made for him: Military expert

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This is why Russian generals have been killed: Ret. Lt. Gen. Hodges

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges exposes the 'very centralized decision-making' in the Russian military on 'Your World.'

Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges peeled back the curtain on Russian President Vladimir Putin and his military Thursday on "Your World."

RET. LT. GEN. HODGES: For the last four or five years I've listened to experts talk about, … "Putin is this genius, he's so smart. He can play ‘Go’ and chess simultaneously while standing on his head. He's a former KGB agent." Give me a break that he has no idea how corrupt his own ministry is, how corrupt his own government is, and that he doesn't know what's going on. So I think this is the beginning of people trying to make excuses for him, whether they're inside Russia, or maybe they were people who were a little bit too complimentary of him outside of Russia. 

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This has been a lesson in strategic leadership. I'm sure he's not hearing everything … In this very top-down centralized command structure, I'm sure there are people who are reluctant to tell him bad news or to offer different opinions. And this is also - you made a reference to all the Russian generals who have been killed - the reason they're so exposed is because of the tradition inside Russian military for very centralized decision-making. … [A]s we would have captains and colonels and senior sergeants making decisions at the front where there was a problem, they have to have a general come forward, and then these guys are talking on cell phones, which is amazing to me, and that's why they're getting killed. 

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