2024 will test Ukraine's endurance — CIA head
CIA Director William
Burns believes 2024 will be an endurance test for Kyiv, since Russian
dictator Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his plans to subjugate Ukraine, Burns
wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs on Jan. 30.
In the article, he said that Putin remains fixated on establishing control over Ukraine. Without this control, the dictator “believes it is impossible for Russia to be a great power or for him to be a great Russian leader.”
The CIA chief notes that at least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war in Ukraine, and that Russia has lost two-thirds of its battle tanks.
Additionally, Putin's “decades-long” program for military modernization in Russia has failed.
“All this is a direct result of Ukrainian soldiers’ valor and skill, backed up by Western support,” said Burns.
He also mentioned the problems in the Russian economy, which continues to experience "long-term setbacks," while Moscow gradually becoming an economic vassal to Beijing.
Burns added that it will also be challenging for Ukraine to continue the fight and urged continued Western support.
“This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine, a test of staying power whose consequences will go well beyond the country’s heroic struggle to sustain its freedom and independence,” he concluded.
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