pcr asks a very good question that might be applied to the empire as well since many items get past their 'sensitive' eyes;

Does Russia Have an Intelligence Service?

Paul Craig Roberts

I think not.  There is a bureaucracy, an office, and someone with a title, but there is no intelligence. 

Putin did not know that a US trained and equipped Georgian Army was about to invade South Ossetia and went to the Olympics in China.  

Putin didn’t know that the US was about to overthrow the Ukrainian Government and went to the Sochi Olympics.

Putin didn’t know that the West was deceiving him with the Minsk Agreement. This cost him 8 years and left him behind the eight ball and locked into a military conflict now 3 years old, a conflict that has expanded into US/NATO missile attacks into Russia.  And still Russia stands down.  Has Putin not been informed of the attacks?  Lavrov told Carlson that Russia was not at war with the West.

Putin didn’t know that the US was about to overthrow Syria. In his interview with Tucker Carlson Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov spoke as if the renewal of the conflict in Syria allowed plenty of time to find a diplomatic solution. He had no idea that Syria would be overthrown by about the time the interview ended.

Russia had no realization, despite Biden explicitly telling them, that the Nord Stream Pipeline was going to be blown up by the US.

How is it possible that the Russian government never has a clue about imminent events that have adverse consequences for Russia?

Have the fearsome days of the NKVD and KGB convinced Russian liberals like Putin and Lavrov that intelligence services are dangerous and unnecessary in a democracy?........more.......