{"id":5087,"date":"2022-07-20T23:16:58","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T04:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/whia.us\/5087\/"},"modified":"2022-07-21T07:23:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T12:23:29","slug":"%d9%85%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%b1-cia-%d8%a8%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a3%d8%ae%d8%b7%d8%a3-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%aa%d9%87-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d9%8a-%d8%ba%d8%b2%d8%a7-%d8%b9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whia.us\/en\/5087\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin thinks he’ll break America’s will in Ukraine, but he’s wrong, says the CIA director"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ken Dilanian- NBC News<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin believes the Russian military\u2019s scaled-down attrition strategy in Ukraine will grind down Ukrainian forces and break the will of the U.S.-led alliance \u2014 but he is wrong, CIA Director William Burns said Wednesday at the Aspen Security Forum.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin\u2019s view of Americans is that we always suffer from attention deficit disorder, and we\u2019ll get distracted by something else,\u201d Burns said during a live-streamed interview with Andrea Mitchell of NBC News. \u201cMy own strong view is that Putin was wrong in his assumptions about breaking the alliance and breaking Ukrainian will before the war began, and I think he is just as wrong now.\u201d<\/p>\n

After a disastrous start to the war based on a series of flawed assumptions, Russia has settled into its traditional method of war in Ukraine\u2019s eastern region, Burns said \u2014 directing massive artillery and air strikes against cities, without regard to civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

Russia has had some success, he said, advancing six to 10 miles across a narrow strip of land in the Donbas region. But the gains have come at great cost. The U.S. estimates that as many as 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed and three times as many wounded, he said. He said Ukrainian casualties are believed to be nearly as high.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn one of my recent conversations with one of my Ukrainian counterparts, he pointed out that the dumb Russians were all dead,\u201d Burns said. \u201cAnd I think what he meant by that [is]\u2026the Russians have adapted\u2026Putin has shrunk his objectives.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said Ukrainians should be able to continue resisting, \u201cso long as we continue to support them with the weaponry and the munitions that they have used so effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Putin was wrong in thinking he could fracture the NATO alliance, Burns said \u2014 instead, NATO is welcoming Finland and Sweden and has strengthened its troop deployments closer to Russian borders.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe thought he could establish his dominance over Ukraine very quickly,\u201d Burns said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard not to see this as a strategic failure at this point for Putin and Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burns said the CIA is aware of no evidence that Putin is debilitated mentally or physically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of rumors about President Putin\u2019s health and as far as we can tell, he\u2019s entirely too healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons for China<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Burns offered a fairly detailed assessment of what the CIA believes China has learned from Russia\u2019s Ukraine adventure.<\/p>\n

He said he wouldn\u2019t underestimate Chinese President Xi Jinping\u2019s determination to assert China\u2019s control over Taiwan, and he said he believes \u201che\u2019s determined to ensure that his military has the capability to undertake such an action should he decide to move in that direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Russia\u2019s experience in Ukraine probably will not influence the timing of China\u2019s ambitions regarding Taiwan, but may change how it decides to approach them.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI think the Chinese leadership is trying to study the lessons of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and what it tells them\u2026If there\u2019s one lesson I think they may be drawing from Putin\u2019s experience in Ukraine it’s you don\u2019t achieve quick, decisive victories with underwhelming force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gen. David Petraeus: Russian \u2018preemptive strike\u2019 not likely \u2018before Finland is formally within NATO\u2019
\nThe idea that 190,000 Russian troops were going to effectively occupy and control 47 million defiant Ukrainians never made any sense, Burns said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I suspect the lesson that the Chinese leadership and military are drawing is that you\u2019ve got to amass overwhelming force. If you\u2019re going to contemplate that in the future. You\u2019ve got to control the information space. You\u2019ve got to do everything you can to shore up your economy against the potential for sanctions even though the Chinese economy is far stronger and more entangled with economies around the world and Russia\u2019s ever was.<\/p>\n

“And you\u2019ve got to do everything you can to try to drive wedges across the Indo Pacific between the United States and its allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Iran, Burns said the U.S. does not believe Iran has resumed any effort to build a nuclear weapon, but he said Iran\u2019s work on advance centrifuges means its breakout time\u2014the time it would need to build a bomb \u2014 has become very short.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trend lines are quite troubling,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia\u2019s experience in Ukraine probably will not influence the timing of China\u2019s ambitions regarding Taiwan, but may change how it decides to approach them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5082,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[142,199,128],"tags":[618,248,156,212,619,619],"series":[1027],"coauthors":[238],"class_list":{"0":"post-5087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-most-important-topics-en","8":"category-top-stories","9":"category-updates-en","10":"tag-cia-en","11":"tag-putin","12":"tag-russian-federation-en","13":"tag-ukraine","14":"tag----en","16":"series-whia-synergy"},"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/whia.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/\u0629\u0629\u0629-e1658376948727.jpg","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/whia.us\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"stitcher":{"key":"stitcher","url":"","label":"Stitcher","class":"stitcher","icon":"stitcher.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/whia.us\/en\/feed\/podcast\/whia-synergy","embedCode":"

Putin thinks he’ll break America’s will in Ukraine, but he’s wrong, says the CIA director<\/a><\/blockquote>