CIA chief: Kyiv faces tough battle in 2024, US aid flows vital
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CIA director William Burns said support for Ukraine might temper a Chinese view that the United States “was in terminal decline”.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - Ukraine will likely face a tough year fighting Russia in 2024, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director William Burns said on Jan 30, arguing that to cut off US aid to Kyiv would be an error of “historic proportions”.
In an article on the Foreign Affairs journal’s website, he also said Ukraine could raise the costs of the war to Russia by striking deeper behind the front lines.
A former US ambassador to Russia, Mr Burns said the war has begun to erode Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power and suggested that China could adopt a more aggressive stance towards Taiwan if it saw US support for Ukraine wane.
“This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine,” he wrote. “For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions.
“Ukraine’s challenge is to puncture Putin’s arrogance and demonstrate the high cost for Russia of continued conflict, not just by making progress on the front lines but also by launching deeper strikes behind them and making steady gains in the Black Sea.”
The comment appeared to refer to hitting territory Russia has seized from Ukraine and claimed as its own, rather than to strikes on Russia itself.
The administration of US President Joe Biden bars Ukraine from firing US-supplied weapons at targets inside Russia, refusing Kyiv’s requests for long-range missiles known as high mobility artillery rocket systems.
“The US does not enable or encourage strikes inside of Russia,” said a Biden administration official.
While some senior Republicans in Congress favour continued US funding for Ukraine, others on the right oppose it, and an effort to tie such assistance for Ukraine and Israel to a US policy shift on immigration undercut such a Bill in December.
Congress has approved more than US$110 billion (S$147 billion) for Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022,
Saying Mr Putin may threaten to use nuclear arms, Mr Burns wrote: “It would be foolish to dismiss escalatory risks entirely. But it would be equally foolish to be unnecessarily intimidated by them.”
He also said support for Ukraine might temper a Chinese view that the US “was in terminal decline” and would send “an important message of US resolve that helps Taiwan”.
“One of the surest ways to rekindle Chinese perceptions of American fecklessness and stoke Chinese aggressiveness would be to abandon support for Ukraine,” he wrote. REUTERS
