Putin wants to seize most of Ukraine: US intelligence chief

After more than four months of war, Russian President Vladimir Putin remains intent on seizing most of Ukraine, but his forces are degraded by combat and can only expect to achieve incremental gains in the near future, the top US intelligence officer has said, according to reports.

Members of Ukraine's territorial defence force take part in a training exercise near the capital Kyiv earlier this month.

Photo: PAP Viacheslav Ratynskyi

Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, told a conference on Wednesday that US spy agencies believed the Ukraine war would will grind on "for an extended period of time," the Reuters news agency reported.

She said Putin still wanted to seize most of Ukraine, but there was "a kind of mismatch" between his ambitions and what his military, degraded by more than four months of combat, "is able to accomplish" in Ukraine, according to Reuters.

"We think he has effectively the same political goals that we had previously, which is to say that he wants to take most of Ukraine," Haines said of Putin, as quoted by Reuters.

She also said that the overall picture of the conflict remained "pretty grim" and Russia's attitude toward the West was "hardening," Reuters reported.

(gs)

Source: PAP, Reuters