Vladimir Putin went "literally insane" after his invading troops weren't greeted "with flowers" by Ukrainian citizens, it has been claimed.
Exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky said the war-mongering president was baffled when residents of Kharkiv didn't welcome their occupiers with open arms.
The country's second city has been subjected to devastating heavy shelling, with Kremlin forces being held off but in close enough range for lethal strikes.
It comes amid reports Putin is frantically re-thinking his attack strategy in a bid to avoid a humiliating defeat as Moscow forces continue to stutter.
Some experts have also claimed the leader and former Soviet KGB intelligence officer is being misinformed by advisers who are simply telling him what he wants to hear out of fear of imprisonment.
Khodorkovsky says Ukraine can see off the invasion if the West supports it.
Defending troops, who've managed to hold off the Russians for nearly two months, have been helped by the regular supply of modernised weaponry from various NATO nations, including the UK.
Khodorkovsky told CNN on Sunday the situation for Putin is "very complicated".
"At first, what he wanted was to change the power in Kyiv, put in his puppet, and was expecting that this would be met with flowers thrown in the streets by Ukrainian people.
"When this did not happen, he went crazy.
"The fact that the people in Kharkiv did not meet him with flowers, it not only just angered him, I really think it drove him literally insane. That's when he started bombing Kharkiv and Kyiv."
Khodorkovsky was previously named Russia's richest man in 2003 but was sentenced to nine years in prison two years later for fraud and tax evasion.
He was pardoned by Putin and released in 2013, but is adamant his imprisonment was politically motivated.
He now lives in London.
Khodorkovsky went on to say there are "three ways out" of the war for Putin.
He can continue pressuring Ukraine and losing troops, use weapons of mass destruction or "start actual negotiations".
It comes as sources claim Russian forces are running out of key military equipment and weapons as their parts are made in Ukrainian factories.
Putin's war effort is said to be ironically reliant on the manufacturing power of the nation he's invaded, with his warships, tanks, missiles and fighter jets needing components from the opposition.
However, a war journalist warns the 'misfiring' Ukraine invasion is actually mirroring Russia's successful occupation of Grozny in the 1990s.
The New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall said Putin might begin to draw hope from his country's historical turnaround during the Chechen War in 1995.
