Russian President Vladimir Putin can become “pretty dangerous and reckless” if he feels cornered, Bill Burns, director of the American intelligence agency CIA, said in an interview, according to CNN.

Putin “should be concerned not only with what’s happening on the battlefield in Ukraine, but also with what’s happening at home, in Russia, and what’s happening internationally,” Bill Burns said in an interview with CBS.

In particular, he noted that, despite China’s February pledge of “boundless friendship,” Beijing has refused to provide Moscow with the military support that Putin has requested, and has also “curbed its enthusiasm for how Russia is waging this war.”

The growing challenges facing Russia have left Putin with fewer options at his disposal, making him potentially more dangerous, the CIA chief believes.

“A cornered Putin, a Putin who feels his back is against the wall, can be quite dangerous and reckless,” Bill Burns warned.

Photo: Adrien Fillon / Zuma Press / Profimedia Images

Putin and his delusional statements

Vladimir Putin’s strange ceremony formalizing the annexation of occupied Ukrainian territories, followed by the defeats suffered by his army in Liman and then in Kherson, once again showed the gulf between the Kremlin’s triumphalism and reality, he wrote in an analysis titled “This is the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin?” “Conversation” edition.

• Read also: Is this the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin? As evidenced by his latest statements and defeats

According to the quoted publication, Putin’s speech on Friday before a very submissive audience in itself gave us enough clues about the state of mind in the Kremlin and its leader in particular.

Russia’s president has called the West “Sex-changing” “Satanists” as he called for a holy war against transsexual Western bau-bau. The characterization of the Americans as “neo-colonialists” was laughably hypocritical, given that it was made just as Putin announced the restoration of the empire.

He again referred to the Russian empress Catherine the Great, claimed that Southern Ukraine had always been Russian, and loosely used the imperialist term “Novorossiya”.

NATO expansion, which would trigger an existential security crisis for Russia that would leave it with no choice but to invade Ukraine, was barely mentioned in Putin’s tsunami of xenophobia.

However, the real story of Putin’s latest melodrama is that he has clearly staked his political survival on “victory” over Ukraine and the West.

But there are now some signs that his tight grip on power is beginning to crack, even if the Kremlin leader’s ultimate downfall may take some time.

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• Read also: “No signs of unusual activity of Russian nuclear forces” – a Western official / What the Kremlin says about “nuclear rhetoric”

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