Putin 'in denial' that he failed — and that his army can't outlast Ukraine: Ex-CIA chief

Former Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that Russia's Vladimir Putin is "in denial" about the state of the invasion of Ukraine — and that the whole enterprise is crashing down around him.

This comes as President Joe Biden, who has already declared his confidence that Ukraine will be triumphant over the Kremlin invasion, proclaimed that they already have at a summit in Helsinki, during celebrations about Finland's admission into NATO.

"Put on your CIA director cap for a moment," said Tapper. "What do you think went through Putin's mind today when President Biden declared that Putin has already lost the war?"

"Well, Putin of course is still in denial," said Petraeus. "He doesn't look in the mirror yet and see a leader who made a catastrophically bad decision for his country, that he set out to make Russia great again and really has made NATO great again. And of course we're going to see another NATO join, adding Sweden to Finland already having joined as a result of this Russian invasion. And he doesn't yet acknowledge that Russia will not be able to out-suffer the Ukrainians, the Europeans, and the Americans. But that has to be creeping into his mind."

It's worth noting, Petraeus continued, that "the casualties have been enormous — many, many times the losses just in the first year and a half that they took in a decade in Afghanistan which was, of course, unsustainable. And now the bite on the economy is really starting as well."

"I'm sure you've seen their current account surplus is down by 93 percent over this year last time," added Petraeus. "So he's got problems at home, and then he has problems with his mutinous Wagner Group commander, the loss of a very senior officer, the most senior so far you announced earlier, and, of course, the firing of one of his most popular frontline commanders who commanded a little bit less than 30,000 Russians, who played well with the troops, who's a very charismatic figure, had real flair. His call sign was 'Spartacus,' he called his troops 'gladiators,' and he was complaining about a number of other issues he raised to them, and they fired him. These are not heartening signs if you're overseeing this operation for the Kremlin."

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