RUSSIA is counting on Western support for Ukraine fading as its advances in the country splutter to a halt, according to British Major General Chip Chapman.
Mr Chapman, a former senior British advisor to US Central Command, told GB News: “The Americans…said at the end of June, as has been proven correct, that the grinding struggle would go on, that the Russians would struggle to overtake the Donbas, which has been proven to be correct.
“And that we’d see limited counter attacks from the Ukrainians in Kherson and in the south, which also seemed to be correct…this will go on for some time.
“I think Avril Haines [director US Defence Intelligence Agency], of course is correct, in terms of escalation for the future.
“You can escalate in seven ways. You can escalate by weapons, targets, objectives, rhetoric, which we’ve seen the Russians do a number of times, domains including cyber and space, geography or mobilisation.”
Speaking to Alastair Stewart on GB News, he said the Russians have been making predictable threats to use nuclear weapons.
He said: “…in March, they said in the [US] House Armed Services Committee that there was a grim assessment that if there was a protected struggle, Putin was likely to make nuclear threats because that reflected the Russian doctrinal view on the use of tactical non-strategic weapons to compel an adversary to bend to your will.
“And of course, all wars are fought for political objectives. That doesn’t mean just because it’s a doctrinal view that it is something that they will do, for the use of threats is something which could also be used to try and bend the will of the West.
“One of the things that Putin is relying on is that the West will tire of the support for Ukraine.”
He added: “We’ve seen that in the last few weeks that he has already played the hunger card. That didn’t work because of the reaction of the Middle East and Africa.
“He may want to play the cold card in Europe when the winter comes.
“And, of course, now he’s trying to play the new killer card and amplified in the information domain by the knowledge today that they say that some of the Russian soldiers around the [Zaporizhzhia ] nuclear power plant have gone down with some strange biotoxin wounds, over which they are going to take the Ukrainians to the OPCW [Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons].
“That is all designed to sow doubt in the minds that Ukraine are the bad guys, when in fact they’re not the bad guys. They’re the good guys.”
