Putin ‘doesn’t believe he can afford to lose’ in Ukraine: CIA chief
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that he cannot afford to lose in Ukraine and is “doubling down” on the war, but shows no signs of planning to use tactical nuclear weapons, CIA director Bill Burns said Saturday.
Despite the failure of Russian forces to capture Kyiv and their struggle to advance along the war’s main frontlines in the southeastern Donbas region, the Russian leader has not changed his view that his troops can defeat Ukraine’s, Burns said.
Putin’s belief in the Russian military’s ability to wear down Ukrainian resistance probably has not been shaken despite key battlefield defeats, the US spy chief told a Financial Times conference.
“I think he’s in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose,” Burns said.
He said Putin has been “stewing” for years over Ukraine — once part of the Soviet Union — in a “very combustible combination of grievance and ambition and insecurity.”
Putin has not been deterred by the resistance in the war “because he staked so much on the choices that he made to launch this invasion,” Burns said.
“I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress,” Burns said.
Since then Putin has made thinly veiled threats hinting at willingness to deploy Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons if the West directly intervenes in the Ukraine conflict.
“We don’t see, as an intelligence community, practical evidence at this point of Russian planning for the deployment or even potential use of tactical nuclear weapons,” Burns said.
“Given the kind of saber-rattling that … we’ve heard from the Russian leadership, we can’t take lightly those possibilities,” he said.
“So we stay very sharply focused as an intelligence service … on those possibilities at a moment when the stakes are very high for Russia,” he said.
Burns did not offer any assessment of the current battlefield situation or predict how the war would end.
