The head of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency claimed there was “absolutely no evidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine while giving his outgoing speech on Friday (September 19), ABC News reports.
Sir Richard Moore, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as MI6, who is set to leave his post after five years at the end of September, claimed that Putin was “stringing us along” while speaking at the British consulate in Istanbul.
“He seeks to impose his imperial will by all means at his disposal. But he cannot succeed,” Moore said via ABC News. “Bluntly, Putin has bitten off more than he can chew. He thought he was going to win an easy victory. But he – and many others – underestimated the Ukrainians.”
Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the war has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths since. Moore said the invasion managed to strengthened Ukrainian national identity and ramp up its westward trajectory, as well as lead to Sweden and Finland joining the allied NATO.
“Putin has sought to convince the world that Russian victory is inevitable. But he lies. He lies to the world. He lies to his people. Perhaps he even lies to himself,” Moore said via ABC News.
Last month, Putin was reported to be demanding that Ukraine surrender the eastern Donbas region, renounce desires to join NATO and remain neutral and keep Western troops out of the war-torn country, three sources familiar with his thinking confirmed to Reuters on August 22. The Russian sources said Putin had laid out territorial demands in June 2024, which require Ukraine to cede the four provinces — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — since occupied by Russia during the three-and-a-half-year war.
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