Former CIA Chief: Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine Has Backfired Badly On Him

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has bogged down as Russian troops attempt to take the capital, Kyiv, according to The Telegraph:

Units in Russia’s vast army have got lost in Ukraine and some have run out of fuel as poor planning and fierce Ukrainian resistance appears to be hampering Vladimir Putin’s plans for a lightning invasion.

Russian forces seemed to be bogged down with the war a little over 48 hours old, as more Ukrainians took up arms and the West sent millions of pounds worth of new lethal weapons.

Russia on Saturday appeared to have sent secondary units to some areas, possibly in a bid to relieve exhausted troops and energise the advance on Kyiv.

These latest developments beg the question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has overplayed his hand and is now facing a protracted war and occupation that is already sparking large anti-war protests at home.

Steve Hall, who served as CIA Chief of Russia Operations, says he believes the Ukraine invasion has already backfired badly on Putin, telling CNN host Jim Acosta:

“It really is amazing, and it is almost like you would love to somehow have a phone call with Putin, and say really? Is this how you thought it was going to work? You spent most of the past decade trying to split the west and you are doing a good job of it, not just here in the United States, but split the NATO allies. There was a lot of discontent. People were talking about how much NATO was spending. Is it still relevant and all of that. All of a sudden you have this amazing unification.”

Hall added:

“The same thing inside of Ukraine. There was this sort of cultural similarity… and now, what he has done is what I don’t think any other Soviet leader or Russian leader could possibly have ever hoped to do, which is alienate Ukraine, which is a really significant country for Russia, so initially, it appears to have backfired. We have a long way to go on the fighting part of it. There is still a lot of Russian soldiers that are on Ukrainian territory. We’ll have to see how it works out. In terms where he wanted to end up geopolitically, it seems like the opposite of what he wanted.”

If Putin thought the Ukrainian people would roll over when they saw Russian troops, he was mistaken. Now he has what seems to be an endless war on his hands and unity among the NATO nations. He’s also facing crippling economic sanctions that threaten to cause astronomical inflation and bring the Russian economy to a standstill. That will only increase the anti-war protests, which will further weaken Putin.

It’s impossible to know exactly what Putin’s endgame is at this point, but it certainly appears he’s in one hell of a quagmire with no end in sight.