Russia Running Out Of Steam In Ukraine – British Intelligence

Ukraine’s ability to counter-attack may well depend on greater supplies of Western weaponry, which its officials say has often been too slow in arriving
round 400 Russian intelligence officers operating under cover have been expelled across Europe, he said, reducing Russia’s ability to spy in the continent by half

EDITOR’S PICK

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service has said that Russia will struggle to maintain its military campaign and Ukraine may be able to hit back.

MI6 chief Richard Moore said Russia had seen “epic fails” in its initial goals; removing Ukraine’s president, capturing Kyiv and sowing disunity in the West.

He was speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, in a rare public appearance.

He called the invasion “the most egregious naked act of aggression… in Europe since the Second World War.”

He said recent Russian gains were “tiny” and that Russia was “about to run out of steam”.

“Our assessment is that the Russians will increasingly find it difficult to find manpower and materiel over the next few weeks,” Mr Moore told the conference in Colorado. “They will have to pause in some way and that will give the Ukrainians the opportunity to strike back.”

That view may be seen as optimistic and Ukraine’s ability to counter-attack may well depend on greater supplies of Western weaponry, which its officials say has often been too slow in arriving.

The MI6 chief said some kind of battlefield success would be an “important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign” – particularly ahead of a winter which was likely to see pressure on gas supplies.

“We are in for a tough time,” he said. A further reason to maintain support to help the Ukrainians win, or “at least negotiate from a position of significant strength”, he said, was because China’s leader Xi Jinping was “watching like a hawk”.

“There’s no evidence that [President Vladimir] Putin is suffering from ill-health,” he replied when asked, echoing comments from his US counterpart CIA Director William Burns at the Forum yesterday.

FURTHER READING

Around 400 Russian intelligence officers operating under cover have been expelled across Europe, he said, reducing Russia’s ability to spy in the continent by half.

“Our door is always open,” he said when it came to recruiting disaffected Russian officials to spy for Britain.

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Yinka Akanbi

Yinka is an aesthete and a cosmopolite.