In 2024, Ukraine is likely to face a difficult year in the war with Russia, CIA Director Bill Burns said on Tuesday, explaining that ending US aid to Kyiv would be a mistake of “historic proportions”, reports Reuters.

In an article published on the website of Foreign Affairs magazine, Burns also noted that Ukraine could make Russia pay more for the war it started by striking further behind the front lines.

Burns, a former US ambassador to Moscow, said the war had begun to erode the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and suggested that China may take a more aggressive stance towards Taiwan if it sees US support for Ukraine waning.

“This year is likely to be difficult on the battlefield in Ukraine,” Burns wrote.

“It would be an own goal of historic proportions”

“If the United States withdrew from the conflict at this crucial moment and stopped supporting Ukraine, it would be an own goal of historic proportions,” added the head of the CIA.

“The challenge for Ukraine is to create cracks in Putin’s arrogance and demonstrate the high price for Russia of continuing the conflict, not only by making progress on the front lines, but also by striking deeper behind them and making further progress on the Black Sea. The sea,” he added.

The statement appears to be about strikes on territories that Russia has occupied in Ukraine and which it has recognized as its own, and not about strikes on the territory of Russia itself, Reuters notes.

Joe Biden’s administration bans Ukraine from using US-provided weapons against targets inside Russia and rejects Kiev’s request for long-range missiles. “The United States does not allow or encourage strikes inside Russia,” said a representative of the Biden administration.

While some senior Republicans in Congress favor continued US funding for Ukraine, others on the right oppose it, and an attempt to tie such aid to Ukraine and Israel to a change in US immigration policy undermined the bill in December.

Congress approved more than $110 billion for Ukraine after February 2022, but no new funding has come since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January 2023.

It would be “stupid” to be frightened by Putin’s threats

Burns says that Putin may threaten to use nuclear weapons and that “it would be unwise to completely dismiss the risks of escalation. But it would be equally foolish to allow them to frighten us needlessly.”

He also said that if Ukraine is given aid, the Chinese will no longer think that the United States is “at the advanced stage of decline,” and it will send “an important message about the firmness with which the United States supports Taiwan.”

“One of the surest ways to restore China’s perception of American intransigence and fuel Chinese aggression would be to withdraw support for Ukraine,” he said.