Putin is 'nervous' and 'cornered himself' says Andriy Zagorodnyuk
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A UK intelligence chief has claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is running out of “friends, weapons and troops” amid his brutal invasion of Ukraine and stressed that he sees no sign of Russia using nuclear weapons amid the conflict. While Russia has unleashed a barrage of missile strikes on at least 10 Ukrainian cities over the last two days, a number of experts believe Putin’s troops may now be running low, leaving Putin in a “desperate” situation. While some experts fear Putin could press the red button in a last-ditch attempt to win the war, Sir Jeremy Fleming from QCHQ disagrees.
For instance, nuclear expert Hamish de Bretton Gordon from Cambridge University has previously told Express.co.uk: “I think Putin is clinging on by his fingernails and will say anything to justify whatever he does to stave off defeat in Ukraine. Add this to the forced annexation of 4 regions and we are getting closer to when/where Putin thinks he can use nuclear weapons.”
But Sir Jeremy told BBC Radio Four’s Today Programme that GCHQ has seen no clear “indicators” that Russia will use a nuclear attack, although he warned that “any talk of nuclear weapons is very dangerous and we need to be very careful of how we are talking about that.”
He said: “It’s clear to me that whilst we might not like and in many ways abhor the ways the Russian military machine and President Putin are conducting this war, they are staying within the doctrine that we understand for their use, including for nuclear weapons.
“I’m sure Putin’s worried about the dangers of escalation. He thinks about those in different terms. But I think it is a sign that he has not reached for these other forms of waging war.”
This comes after a huge explosion on the bridge linking Russia to Crimean Penninsula, the location annexed by Russia in 2014, was decried as a “terrorist attack” by Putin, who has tried to justify his brutal missile attacks as a response to the incident.
In a major escalation, even the captial city Kiev has been targeted, killing and injuring civilians while critical and energy infrastructure has also taken a beating across the nation. But after raining down missiles across its neighbouring country, there are reportedly signs the Russian stockpile of missiles is depleted, while the army may also be struggling to mobilise troops.
Speaking on Sky News on Tuesday, Security and Defence Analyst Professor Michael Clarke said: “We’ve seen missiles slamming into buildings, which are sea-based missiles. They’re anti-ship missiles carrying a half a tonne warhead intended for against aircraft carriers. We’ve seen surface-to-air missiles meant to be anti-aircraft missiles used against ground targets.
“And the Russians don’t have that many it seems calibre Tomahawk-like cruise missiles, ship-launched cruise missiles which they are using, they used a few of them yesterday. But if they had more, I’m sure they would use more.
“The problem is that they seem to be running out of the components that they need for these things because they’ve been under sanction for quite a long time.”
Sir Jeremy has also said that Russia is “running short of munitions” and “is certainly running short of friends”. However, he also uggested that Moscow still has a “very capable military machine” despite these apparent setbacks, although top officials are still said to be “worried about the state of their military machine”.
And making matters worse for Russia, the spy chief believes Putin is now in a “desperate” situation as Ukrainian troops have valiantly launched successful counter-offensives. In an address to the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, he said: “Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.
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“Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machine spouted, it’s clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide.”
Sir Jeremy has also suggested that Putin has “badly misjudged the situation” given that his troops are “fleeing the draft, realizing they can no longer travel. They know their access to modern technologies and external influences will be drastically restricted. And they are feeling the extent of the dreadful human cost of his war of choice.”
Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kuleba, has claimed that Putin is using “missile terror” to try and turn the tide in the war amid his battlefield losses. He tweeted: “Putin was not ‘provoked’ to unleash missile terror by ‘Crimea Bridge’. Russia had been constantly hitting Ukraine with missiles before the bridge, too. Putin is desperate because of battlefield defeats and uses missile terror to try to change the pace of war in his favor.
“This nonsense about Putin being ‘provoked’ must stop. He does not need anything to ‘provoke’ him in order to commit heinous crimes. I ask international media to stop shifting the blame on the victim of aggression by suggesting that Putin ‘responds’ or is being ‘provoked'”.
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