The head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency has said Russia is struggling to sustain its military campaign in Ukraine and that President Vladimir Putin will soon be forced to temporarily halt his invasion, potentially giving Ukraine an opportunity to strike back.
Richard Moore, in a rare public appearance at the Aspen Security Forum, said Russia had experienced “epic failures” in achieving its original goal of removing Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy from his post, seizing Kyiv and sowing disunity in the West.
The intelligence service sees Russia’s military achievements as “tiny” and noted that the country is “running out of power,” which could allow Ukrainian forces to launch a counterstrike.
“Our assessment is that the Russians will find it increasingly difficult to find manpower and supplies over the next few weeks,” Moore said at the conference of top foreign policy experts and White House officials in Colorado, adding, “They will be taking a pause.” have to intervene somehow, and that will give the Ukrainians an opportunity to hit back.”
A macro view of war
Moore called the invasion “the most egregious naked act of aggression … in Europe since World War II,” noting that a greater supply of Western weapons may be needed to arm Ukraine and help the country counterattack the Russian armed forces to undertake when he becomes President Vladimir Putin temporarily halts his invasion.
Individual NATO member countries have so far sent billions of dollars worth of military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in the form of arms, ammunition and many types of light and heavy military equipment – but the country still does lacks military parity with Russia, according to Ukraine’s chief negotiator Mykhailo Podolyak.
MI6 believes that some sort of success on the battlefield would be an “important reminder to the rest of Europe that this is a winnable campaign”, which would be particularly good for morale if it came ahead of the winter season when energy supplies are likely to be severely stretched will be.
The story goes on
Moore also echoed the comments of his US counterpart, CIA Director William Burns, who also said at the Aspen Security Forum that there is no evidence that Putin’s health is deteriorating.
“There’s no evidence of that [President Vladimir] Putin is in poor health,” Moore said.
Moore also noted that about 400 Russian intelligence officers who had been operating covertly in Europe were expelled, reducing Moscow’s ability to spy on the continent by half. And to the disaffected Russian officials who wanted to switch sides and spy for Britain, Moore remarked: “Our door is always open.”
MI6 deepens its efforts in China
In his comments, Moore stressed that a key reason for supporting Ukraine, or at least negotiating from a position of considerable strength, is that China’s President Xi Jinping is “watching like a hawk.”
Moore said China poses a clear threat to Western governments and societies, and the country has surpassed counter-terrorism in terms of importance within the service. MI6 now devotes more resources to China than any other entity within its agency.
“It reflects the seriousness of the mission for us,” Moore said. “We shouldn’t be naïve about what the Chinese want to do to our society.”
According to Moore, it is still unclear what lessons China will draw from Putin’s actions in Ukraine. But while China has hundreds of thousands of civilian intelligence officers, as well as its military intelligence agency, Moore argues that the West’s “five-eyes” bloc — made up of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — gives it a strong advantage.
“We have this huge advantage that the Chinese don’t have: we have friends, we have allies,” he said.
This story was originally published on Fortune.com