The retired US general sees Russia’s president as losing ground – despite “significant but desperate” steps taken by Putin, as he stressed in an interview with US broadcaster ABC. Europe is threatened with a “hard winter”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing an “irreversible” quagmire amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the retired army general and former has said CIACEO David Petraeus in an interview with US TV broadcaster ABC on Sunday. Putin “loses” despite “significant” but “desperate” moves in the war that began in late February, Petraeus said in an interview with host Jonathan Karl on the show This Week. Ukraine has “recruited, trained, equipped, organized and deployed” better forces than Russia.
Putin has maneuvered himself into a position from which “no amount of annexation, no amount of veiled nuclear threats” can get him out. Petraeus pointed to Russia’s recent withdrawal from the city of Lyman. He will continue to lose on the battlefield. The increasing sanctions are another complication, according to Petraeus.
“Europe will experience a hard winter,” said Petraeus. “Natural gas supplies will be very limited but they will get through it and I don’t think they will back down on the issue of supporting Ukraine.”
Nuclear threat must be “taken seriously”.
It might always get worse for Putin and for Russia. The use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield would not change that, Petraeus told the US broadcaster. Nevertheless, the nuclear threat must be “taken seriously”.
According to Petraeus, there is only one answer to a Russian use of nuclear weapons. The US and NatoAllies would “take out every Russian conventional force we can see and identify on the battlefield.” This applies to Ukraine, Crimea and the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
But, emphasizes Petraeus, a response from NATO and the USA would be “not nuclear for nuclear”. You don’t want to get into a nuclear escalation here, but you have to show “that this can in no way be accepted.”
Petraeus is one of the most prominent representatives of the military in the USA. He was supreme commander of US troops in Iraq, NATO forces in Afghanistan and head of US Central Command. In 2012, he resigned as head of the CIA for leaking confidential information to his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell. After admitting guilt, he was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence and a $100,000 fine in 2014 for leaking secrets.
(Red./Ag.)
