Showing that U.S. intel agencies still have credibility problems, 66-year-old CIA Director William Burns said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is angry about progress in the Ukraine war. Does that sound like credible intel about Putin as he prosecutes the Ukraine War, knowing that 70-year-old President Joe Biden acts like a wartime president prosecuting his war in Ukraine. Biden announced he would ask Congress for $8 billion to a prosecute the Ukraine War against the Russian Federation. Putin’s anger over the crippling Western sanctions is entirely understandable, not something you’d hear from no less the CIA Director. What’s Putin’s really perturbed about is the fact the Biden has contracted with Ukraine to fight a proxy war against the Russian Federation. What does Burns think Putin would think about the U.S. funding a proxy war against him?
Director of National Security Avril Haines, 52, told the House Intel Committee that Putin might get desperate and start escalating attacks on Ukrainian cities and towns. “We assess Putin feels aggrieved the West does not give him proper deference and perceives this as a war he cannot afford to lose. But what he might be willing to accept as victory may change over time, given the significant costs he is incurring,” Haines said, essentially giving the committee gibberish. So Putin’s aggrieve because he’s not respected by the West. Well if that’s the best Haines can muster, good luck as the U.S. helps Ukraine prosecute its war against Putin. What war fought by any leader doesn’t think it’s a war he can afford to lose. Putin’s calculus, like any leader, is to accomplish key objectives, in this case degrading Ukraine’s military. Saying the war hasn’t gone well for Russia is pure wartime propaganda.
No war goes according to plan on some tight schedule. Ukrainian officials estimated Russian combat deaths at 11,000, attesting to the utter rubbish spewed by the Ukraine governments. U.S. estimates Russian deaths in the neighborhood of about 2,000, proving you can’t trust anything reported by Ukraine. Ukrainian officials rejected Putin’s latest peace proposals, with Ukraine’s 44-year-old President Volodymyr Zelensky saying Ukraine would fight to the death. Would Ukraine negotiate for “humanitarian corridors” to allow citizens to get out if things were going so well for the Ukraine military? Whatever propaganda is reported in Western broadcast and print outlets, it can be taken with a grain of salt. Since Biden and Congress offered Zelensky $10 billion in taxpayer dollars, he’s showed no interest in negotiating a ceasefire with the Russian Federation, certainly not on Putin’s terms.
Burns must do more than state the obvious to the House Intel Committee. “I think Putin is angry and frustrated right now. He’s likely to double down and try to grind down the Ukraine military with no regard for civilian casualties,” Burns said, admitting over 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine. Burns didn’t say that Zelensky and his 40-year-old Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba are “frustrated and angry,” the most feckless, obvious, insulting analysis by a CIA director. Burns needed to give his factual assessment of how the war was going, knowing that Putin has laid siege to Ukraine’s largest cities and towns. “But the challenge that he faces—and this the biggest question that’s hung over our analysis of his planning for months now . . . He has no sustainable political endgame in the face of what’s is going to continue to be fierce resistance from Ukrainians,” Burns said, also stating the obvious.
Burns’s talks about an “end-game” for Putin, like that’s what he’s after. Putin has said clearly that he doesn’t intend to replace Zelensky and set up a proxy Kremlin government, similar to what existed before the Feb. 22, 2014 CIA-backed coup, led by Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko, that chased Kremlin-backed Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych out of Kiev. Putin stated clearly his end-game to demilitarized Ukraine of U.S. and NATO weapons supplied for years over his objections. Biden didn’t take seriously Putin’s repeated requests to work on new security arrangements in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. So when Biden says the Ukraine War was “unprovoked and unjustified,” he doesn’t talk about his lack of response to Putin’s security request for three months. Watching the U.S. and NATO arm Ukraine to the teeth was a big reason for going to war.
No U.S. or EU government or press admits that the West provoked Putin’s sense of national security for years. Burns offers the House Intel Committee only platitudes, nothing meaningful about the prospects of Ukraine defeating the Russian Federation. Zelensky likes to compare Ukraine to “700,” the small band of Spartans that took on and beat the might Persian Army. While it’s tempting to fantasize, Biden and Zelensky should look at the human toll of war on ordinary citizens. Putin has offered the U.S. and Ukraine an exit-strategy, stopping the war immediately if Ukraine accepts some basic conditions. Zelensky has told Putin where to go with his ceasefire proposals. It’s very hard to figure out what’s the off-ramp,” said House Intel Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). If Ukraine accepted or negotiated Putin’s conditions to end the conflict that would be the fastest off-ramp possible
