By Patricia Zengerle, Idrees Ali and Doina Chiacu
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Russia’s three-month-long war in Ukraine is at a “bit of a stalemate” and Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be preparing for a long conflict, top U.S. intelligence officials said on Tuesday.
Russia, which calls the invasion “a special military operation,” poured more troops into Ukraine for a huge offensive last month in the eastern part of the country but its gains have been slow.
Russia’s assault on Kyiv was beaten back in March by strong Ukrainian resistance.
“The Russians aren’t winning and the Ukrainians aren’t winning and we’re at a bit of a stalemate here,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
He added that so far, between eight and 10 Russian generals have been killed in the deadly war.
Russia’s war has killed thousands of civilians, sent millions of Ukrainians fleeing and reduced cities to rubble. Moscow has little to show for it beyond a strip of territory in the south and marginal gains in the east.
President Vladimir Putin exhorted Russians to battle in a defiant Victory Day speech on Monday but was silent about plans for any escalation in Ukraine despite Western warnings that he might use his Red Square address to order a mobilization.
During the same hearing, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said that a Russian victory in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine might not end the war.
“We assess President Putin is preparing for a prolonged conflict in Ukraine during which he still intends to achieve goals beyond the Donbas,” Haines told lawmakers.
She added that Putin was counting on the Western resolve to weaken over time and as the conflict continued, there was concern about how it would develop in the coming months.
“Combined with the reality that Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities … the next few months could see us moving along a more unpredictable and potentially escalatory trajectory,” Haines said.
TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Western concern at the risk of nuclear war increased after Putin launched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 with a speech in which he pointedly referred to Moscow’s nuclear forces and warned that any attempt to get in Russia’s way “will lead you to such consequences that you have never encountered in your history.”
Russia said last month that it plans to deploy its newly tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of mounting nuclear strikes against the United States, by autumn.
Asked about the prospect of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons, Berrier said: “Right now, we do not see that.”
Haines said earlier that the intelligence community believes Putin would authorize the use of nuclear weapons only if he perceived an existential threat to the Russian state.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday said he is worried that Putin does not have a way out of the Ukraine war, and Biden said he was trying to figure out what to do about that.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Idrees Ali and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Porter)
