CIA Director William Burns said Russian President Vladimir Putin believes the American public has "attention deficit disorder" when it comes to issues such as support for the Ukraine war, and he is relying on that to help him eventually win.
The United States has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, supplying military equipment and humanitarian backing as well as leading the international effort to impose sanctions on Russia.
But the war is expected to go on for some time, leading Ukraine to fear that support could wane. Putin is counting on it, Burns said Wednesday during a question-and-answer session at the Aspen Security Conference in Colorado, The New York Times reported.
"Putin's view of Americans is we always suffer from attention deficit disorder and get distracted by something else," Burns said.
But, Burns pointed out, Putin has consistently misjudged the situation in Ukraine, from the beginning when he expected his troops to march into the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv within days and to shouts of welcome from the Ukrainian people.
With that failure, he focused efforts on the eastern regions where Russian troops already had seen successes, but, again, things did not turn out as he expected due to Ukrainian troops rallying against Russia and Western nations continuing to provide aid.
"And I think he's wrong now," Burns said of Putin's current predictions.
"I've watched and dealt with Vladimir Putin for more than two decades now," added Burns, who previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Russia and deputy secretary of state.
"I've watched him stew in what is a very combustible mix of grievance and ambition and insecurity," Newsweek reported. "He's professionally trained to be a cynic about human nature. He is relentlessly suspicious."
Mikk Marran, who leads the Estonian foreign intelligence service, told the summit he is "cautiously confident" that Ukraine will defeat the Russian army in Ukraine "sooner or later."
"It will not come easily, it will take time," he said. "And Ukraine probably might not be able to liberate all the occupied territories. But strategically speaking, Putin will not succeed in his ambition of taking Kyiv and the majority of Ukraine."
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