Next six months will be decisive for the outcome of war in Ukraine

CNN writes about it.

“I think what’s going to be the key — because we do not assess that (Russian President Vladimir Putin) is serious about negotiations — the key is going to be on the battlefield in the next six months, it seems to us,” Burns said, 

The result includes “puncturing Putin’s hubris, making clear that he’s not only not going to be able to advance further in Ukraine, but as every month goes by, he runs a greater and greater risk of losing the territory he’s illegally seized so far.”

According to Burns, the Russian leader is “betting that he can make time work for him.” Putin believes that he can “grind down” Ukraine, while political fatigue will grip Europe and the United States will become distracted.

Burns also said he told the director of Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergey Naryshkin, in November that “that Russian calculation is as deeply flawed as the original decision to go to war last Feb. 24 was.”

He also stated that there is no foreign leader who would follow the experience of Russian President Vladimir Putin more closely than Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

According to him, Beijing was alarmed by the poor performance of the Russian Armed Forces, but the two countries are still "committed" to their partnership, although they are "very reluctant" to provide, for example, lethal weapons.

• In January it became known that CIA Director Bill Burns was secretly coming to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• Burns also arrived in Tel Aviv on January 26 amid the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Palestine and attacks on Iran.