ISTANBUL — There’s “completely no proof” that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin desires to barter peace in Ukraine, the pinnacle of Britain’s overseas intelligence company mentioned Friday in an outgoing speech.
Sir Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6 as it’s extra generally recognized, mentioned Putin was “stringing us alongside.”
“He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal. However he can not succeed,” Moore mentioned. “Bluntly, Putin has bitten off greater than he can chew. He thought he was going to win a straightforward victory. However he – and lots of others – underestimated the Ukrainians.”
Moore was talking on the British consulate in Istanbul after 5 years as head of MI6. He leaves the put up on the finish of September.
Throughout his tenure, Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, a struggle that has seen tens of 1000’s killed and nonetheless rages, principally in japanese Ukraine.
Moore mentioned the invasion had strengthened Ukrainian nationwide identification and accelerated its westward trajectory, in addition to pushing Sweden and Finland to hitch NATO.
“Putin has sought to persuade the world that Russian victory is inevitable. However he lies. He lies to the world. He lies to his folks. Maybe he even lies to himself,” Moore advised a information convention.
He mentioned that Putin was “mortgaging his nation’s future for his personal private legacy and a distorted model of historical past” and the struggle was “accelerating this decline.”
Moore, who beforehand served because the U.Ok.’s ambassador to Ankara, the Turkish capital, added that “larger powers than Russia have didn’t subjugate weaker powers than Ukraine.”
Analysts say Putin believes he can outlast the political dedication of Ukraine’s Western companions and win a protracted struggle of attrition by carrying down Ukraine’s smaller military with sheer weight of numbers.
Ukraine, in the meantime, is racing to broaden its protection cooperation with different international locations and safe billions of {dollars} of funding in its home weapons business.
