Putin ‘may escalate assault despite Ukraine setbacks’

A girl holds a doll as civilians fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine board a train, in Odessa, Ukraine, yesterday.

Leaders of US spy agencies yesterday said Russian President Vladimir Putin may intensify the assault on Ukraine despite military setbacks and economic hardships resulting from international sanctions, setting up “an ugly next few weeks.”They estimated that 2,000 to 4,000 Russian troops had died and said Russia was feeling the effects of sanctions, but the situation could become much worse for Ukrainians, with food and water supplies in Kyiv possibly running out within two weeks. “Our analysts assess that Putin is unlikely to be deterred by such setbacks and instead may escalate,” director of national intelligence Avril Haines told the annual House of Representatives Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats, where she testified with other intelligence agency directors.Haines said Putin’s announcement that he was elevating his nuclear forces’ readiness was “extremely unusual” since the 1960s, but that intelligence analysts had not observed changes in Russia’s nuclear posture beyond what was detected during previous international crises.“We also have not observed force-wide nuclear posture changes that go beyond what we’ve seen in prior moments of heightened tensions,” Haines said.William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, echoed Haines’ assessment that Russia is unlikely to back down.“I think Putin is angry and frustrated right now. He’s likely to double down and try to grind down the Ukrainian military with no regard for civilian casualties,” Burns said.Burns said he and CIA analysts do not see how Putin can accomplish his goal of taking Kyiv and replacing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government with a pro-Moscow or puppet leadership.“I fail to see how he can produce that kind of an end game and where that leads, I think, is for an ugly next few weeks in which he doubles down... with scant regard for civilian casualties,” Burns told the committee.‘Given reports that Russia is cutting off basic supplies to Kyiv, home to 2.8mn people, lieutenant general Scott Berrier, director of the defence intelligence agency, said the situation in Ukraine’s capital could worsen quickly.Berrier said the US did not have evidence that Russia had committed war crimes beyond what has appeared on social media.Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, invoking the wartime defiance of British prime minister Winston Churchill, yesterday vowed to “fight to the end” in a historic virtual speech to UK lawmakers. “We will not give up and we will not lose,” he said, giving a day-by-day account of Russia’s invasion that dwelt on the costs in lives of civilians including Ukrainian children. “We will fight to the end, at sea, in the air. We will continue fighting for our land, whatever the cost. “We will fight in the forests, in the fields, on the shores, in the streets,” he told the packed chamber, which greeted him with a standing ovation at the start and rose again at the end.