Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to capture most of Ukraine, US intelligence agencies have disclosed.

Moscow’s troops have been weakened by combat, however, US officials’ assessment suggested that they are only capable of making slow territorial gains. According to the Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, she said this means the war could last for a long time.

In March 2022, Moscow refocused its efforts on seizing Ukraine’s Donbas area after failing to take Kyiv and other cities. Mr. Putin still carries the same goals as the ones he held at the start of the conflict, the US’s top intelligence officer Mrs. Haines said, which is to take most of Ukraine. But she said Russia is unlikely to achieve that goal any time soon. “We perceive a disconnect between Putin’s near-term military objectives in this area and his military’s capacity, a kind of mismatch between his ambitions and what the military is able to accomplish,” she disclosed while addressing a US Commerce Department conference.

Since failing to achieve its initial goal of capturing Kyiv, Russia focused on seizing territory in the Eastern Donbas region, which is a large industrial area where Mr. Putin falsely claims Ukraine carried out a genocide against Russian speakers. Russian forces made gains there, recently taking control of the city of Severodonetsk, but progress has been slow, and Ukrainian forces keep putting up strong resistance.

Long-running war

In Mrs. Haines’ first public comments since May 2022 on the US intelligence assessment of the war, she suggested that Russia’s invasion would grind on “for an extended period of time” and that “the picture remains pretty grim”. She said intelligence agencies see three scenarios of how the war could play out, the most likely being a slow-moving conflict with Russia making “incremental gains, with no breakthrough”.

The other scenario, less likely possibilities include a major Russian breakthrough, or a stabilisation of the frontlines with Ukraine achieving small gains, with intelligence suggesting that Moscow may become more dependent on “asymmetric tools” to target its enemies; including cyber-attacks, efforts to control energy resources and even nuclear weapons.

Mrs. Haines’ comments came after NATO leaders pledged to stand behind Ukraine for as long as it takes, thereby boosting their troop presence across Europe and inviting Finland and Sweden to join the group.

NATO Chief, Jens Stoltenberg, called it the alliance’s biggest overhaul since the Cold War, with US President, Joe Biden, vowing that NATO would be “strengthened in all directions across every domain – land, air and sea”.

A Putin Warning

Responding to the possibility of the two Nordic countries becoming NATO members, Mr. Putin accused the military alliance of deliberately escalating tension, cautioning that “If NATO troops and infrastructure are deployed, [Russia] will be compelled to respond,” while on a trip to Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, the UK government is to provide a further £1bn ($1.2bn) in military aid to Ukraine, a near-doubling of its support so far. Per analysis, only the US provided more military aid to Ukraine than the UK. Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, intimated that his country needs around $5bn (£4.12bn) a month to fund the war against Russia.