Putin’s regime not yet threatened by concern about growing cost of war, believes CIA director
CIA chief William Burns (Photo:Tasos Katopodis/Pool via REUTERS)
U.S. intelligence chief, CIA director William Burns, doesn’t believe that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s regime is at any risk of collapse, despite rising concern about the costs of their full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he said in an interview with U.S. public broadcaster PBS on Dec. 16.
In his interview, Burns noted that Russia’s reputation has been “badly undermined” by the war against Ukraine, adding that there is growing concern in Russia about the damage to the economy and the future of Russia.
“The Russian population seems increasingly uneasy about the costs of war as well,” said Burns.
“ The fact that Putin, when he launched at the end of September a partial mobilization, the reality was that more Russians of military age fled the country than he was able to round up and send to the front.”
This however does not represent a threat to the regime just yet, Burns noted.
“I'm not trying to suggest that that poses an immediate threat to his grip on power,” the CIA director clarified.
“He's created a very secure and repressive authoritarian regime.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously said that it was the citizens of the Russian Federation who allowed Putin to attack a foreign country, and therefore they are responsible for the crimes of the Russian army in Ukraine.
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