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ASPEN, Colo. — Britain’s intelligence chief says Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine is likely to “run out of steam” in the coming weeks amid material and manpower shortages as Moscow’s invasion moves into its sixth month.
“They will have to pause somehow,” Richard Moore, the head of MI6, said in remarks at a security forum in Aspen – rare public remarks from Britain’s acting intelligence chief. Russian forces likely lost about 15,000 troops, he said, calling the number a “conservative estimate.” That’s roughly the number of casualties the Russian military has suffered over the course of 10 years during the war in Afghanistan, Moore noted.
A pause by Russian forces would “give the Ukrainians an opportunity to strike back,” Moore said Thursday. He said the morale of Ukrainian forces remained high and the military was receiving powerful weapons from the West. Moore called for the flow of arms to continue so that Ukraine could either prevail in the war or be in a stronger position to negotiate with Russia.
He also praised the level of Western solidarity following the Russian invasion. “NATO has proven to be extremely united in the face of this,” Moore said, noting that Sweden abandoned 200 years of military non-alignment to claim membership in the alliance, along with Finland.
Moore described the Russian invasion as an “epic failure” that failed to take into account the stiff resistance the invading forces would face. “They obviously have completely misunderstood Ukrainian nationalism. They completely underestimated the level of resistance the Russian military would face.
Russian officials also did not accurately convey to President Vladimir Putin the challenges of the invasion and the costs to Russia, Moore said. In Putin’s government, “it’s not worth speaking truth to power.”
In the run-up to the invasion and in the months that followed, there was widespread speculation that Putin was ill, possibly with cancer, and he was portrayed as more eccentric and irrational. However, Moore dismissed rumors that the Russian president was ill, saying “there is no evidence that Putin is suffering from serious ill health.”
His comments echoed CIA Director William J. Burns, who joked earlier this week that “as far as we can tell, he’s completely healthy.”
The United States is also considering sending more advanced weapons to Ukraine amid fears in Kyiv that Russian forces could be further strengthened if the war drags on into the winter. “After winter, when the Russians will have more time to dig in, it will certainly be more difficult,” Ukrainian President Andriy Yermak’s chief of staff said on Tuesday.
Those weapons could include military aircraft, Gen. Charles C. Brown Jr., the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday.
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