A former CIA director on whether Russians are losing faith in Vladimir Putin

Can I take you back to November 2021? Um. you are director of the agency. You have. in your possession this exquisite. intelligence showing Russian intentions. towards Ukraine, the plans for invasion. And you're in Moscow. You're talking to. Vladimir Putin over the phone, I. understand. Not not not face-to-face. And you've talked about it before. You've said, you know, he's. unapologetic. He's He's got a good poker. face, a good poker voice. Um but tell me. a bit more about the mood. But perhaps. more importantly, with the benefit of. hindsight, I'm really interested whether.

you wish you'd said anything. differently, signaled anything. differently, or whether it was a sense of. inevitability about this in that moment, by that point. In many ways, you know, I. was quite troubled. I remember on that. flight to Moscow, a flight I made many. times before. And and even more troubled. when I left because I had, you know, had a very strong feeling. based not only on the precision of the. intelligence we were collecting, not. only about the military planning, but. also the political planning. In other.

words, at levels from the highest federal. government levels all the way down to a. mayor's offices, you know, the FSB was. clearly thinking carefully about which. tame Ukrainian officials they wanted to. put where. >> FSB is Russia's domestic security. service. >> Security services. And it's it's telling. that, you know, it was the FSB, a. domestic security service, that had the. lead on Ukraine and on the pre-invasion. planning. Because from Putin's point of. view, and the point of view of the. Russian political elite, this was.

essentially a domestic issue. And, you know, Putin, in my experience, had always had a singular fixation on. Ukraine. Um. his view, I think, was, and I had heard. him talk about this many times, was that. Russia couldn't be a great power. He. couldn't be a great Russian leader. without controlling Ukraine and its. choices. So, having had that sense of Putin and the. precision, the granularity of the. intelligence we had collected, um. you know, I was very strongly of the. view going out there that this time he.

was likely to want to invade. And as you. mentioned, I did find him utterly. unapologetic. He made no effort to say. there you go again, the CIA has gotten. it wrong. His message in so many words was kind of. so what are you going to do about it? Because I also laid out at at President. Biden's direction, you know, in a fair amount of detail. what the consequences would be should. the invasion move ahead. So I don't know. that there was much that could be said.

in those kind of conversations which. would have changed Putin's fixation at. that time. He had convinced himself that. tactically there was a window here. With the United States, you know, still. recovering from COVID and you know, the. economic. challenges that were connected with. that. You know, after the withdrawal. from Afghanistan, European leaders that. Putin tended to have a fairly dim view. of at that time. He felt he had modernized the Russian. military to the point where they would. easily roll over the Ukrainians. And his.

view always was in my experience with. him that Ukraine was not a real country. as he used to put it to me. And he would. treat me like a particularly dim. elementary school student who didn't. understand that, you know, Ukraine is. weak and divided. Now he his assumptions. turned out to be profoundly flawed. And the one thing I was convinced of, and this was in part because as an. agency CIA had been working very closely. with the Ukrainian security services. since 2014 and Putin's illegal. annexation of Crimea. So I was convinced.

that the, you know, the Ukrainians were. going to push back hard even in the face. of what on paper. was the military superiority of Russia. And so it didn't surprise me a bit that. they stood their ground as effectively. as they did. And in those conversations. in Moscow. November of 2021, I actually had that. conversation with some of the people. around Putin and in part of the. conversation with Putin himself to say, you know, don't don't you understand.

that, you know, the Ukrainians are going. to resist this as tenaciously as they. possibly can and they'll have our full. support. Take us to the present day. So, four years on, the war is rumbling on. It does feel like a moment of. optimism for Ukraine relative to where. we were if we had this conversation a. year ago. The battlefield gains for. Russia have slowed down enormously. Um, we're seeing uh In some cases been. reversed. >> cases reversed. We're seeing Russian. casualties monthly now exceed.

mobilization and recruited Russians for. a few months, which is a a major. inflection point. And Ukrainian deep. strikes are doing really heavy damage to. Russian energy industry. Let's first of all look at the mood in. Moscow. You know, my colleagues at The. Economist ran uh an anonymous op-ed just. a few weeks ago from a. a very senior former Russian figure. saying, "The mood in Moscow is changing. People are. talking about a post-Putin future. They're talking about his war, not our. war." Uh influencers are coming out and.

laying out grievances and on and on and. on. We also don't want to be uh. you know, too optimistic or or or see what we wish. to see. What are you seeing in Moscow at. the minute? How do you interpret all of. these signals? I think their pressures. are building, I think, and it's not. surprising after well over four years of. war, well over a million. casualties killed and wounded for the. Russians. Uh Putin clearly has mortgaged. the medium-term future of the Russian. economy. He's gotten thrown a temporary.

lifeline with the war in Iran, you know, which has boosted energy revenues um for. Russia and also diminished the inventory. of, you know, US military systems that. the Ukrainians desperately need, especially air defense interceptors. But, that's temporary, I think. And I. think those pressures are beginning to. build. Not to the point, at least in my. judgment, that it affects Putin's grip. on that society. He's still pretty good. at one thing, which is repressing people. and discouraging anyone who might think. otherwise. But whereas, I think, if we had had this.

conversation a year ago, my view would. have been Putin's feeling entirely too. cocky. The time is on his side. He can. grind down the Ukrainians. Now, I think, for, you know, a number of Russians in. the elite and outside it, they're. beginning to question that as well. They. don't see any likely breakthroughs on. the battlefield. I do think Putin and. the people around him are beginning to. feel some greater pressures to negotiate. more seriously. Whether that's going to. emerge, you know, next month or 6 months.

from now, it's hard to say. But I think, in my view, it's an argument for keeping. up the pressure on Putin, both. economically, um, and also in terms of support for the. Ukrainians on the battlefield. I mean, he's, you know, a very unsentimental. person. That's the only thing that's. going to drive him to negotiate more. seriously.