Original title: The head of US intelligence said that it will take "years" for the Russian military to recover, which increases the nuclear risk.
Author: Baibei Translation www.baibeitrans.com
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that based on the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment, it will take “several years” for the Russian military to recover from the losses suffered by the war in Ukraine Recover.
"Their ground forces have now degraded so much that we expect it will take years for them to recover in many respects," she told a conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.
She said this could prompt Russia to rely more on "asymmetric tools" such as cyber attacks, efforts to control energy and even nuclear weapons to demonstrate "power and influence".
Grim assessment: Haynes said Russia was beginning to shift its focus to the Donetsk region. The intelligence community believes Russia will struggle to conquer the eastern province in the same way it has nearly seized neighboring Luhansk, but Russian President Vladimir Putin may think time is on Moscow's side as he believes the West will eventually grow tired of supporting it. Ukraine.
"The consensus is that the war in Ukraine is going to continue for a long time," Haines said, acknowledging that the U.S. assessment of the situation was "grave."
Three scenarios: Haines said the intelligence community believes three possible scenarios will come into focus in the coming weeks and months.
"Most likely, the conflict remains an uphill struggle in which the Russians have made incremental progress but no breakthrough," she said. In this scenario, the Russian military would capture large parts of Luhansk and Donetsk by autumn and consolidate control over southern Ukraine.
Other scenarios are that Russia could make a breakthrough and renew its offensive into Kiev or Odessa ; or, finally, Ukraine could stabilize the situation on the front lines and possibly start to gain ground in Kherson or elsewhere in southern Ukraine. Small progress.
