U.S. intel chiefs warn Putin is growing his nuclear weapons arsenal as the war in Ukraine drags on

WASHINGTON – Russian President Vladimir Putin is probably to further update the Kremlin’s arsenal of lengthy-selection nuclear-able missiles in get to deter Kyiv and its powerful Western allies, U.S. officials warned Wednesday.

The warning from the nation’s best spymasters arrives as Russia intensifies its now 12 months-extensive battle in Ukraine and as Putin threatens to withdraw from a key nuclear arms treaty.

“Through its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has continued to demonstrate that it sights its nuclear abilities as vital for keeping deterrence and accomplishing its targets in a possible conflict in opposition to the U.S. and NATO and it sees its nuclear weapons arsenal as the final guarantor of the Russian Federation,” the nation’s top intelligence company wrote in its annual threat report.

The unclassified 35-website page intelligence assessment provides that Moscow will come to be a lot more dependent on nuclear weapons adhering to substantial battlefield losses and punishing rounds of sanctions that have crippled the Kremlin’s potential to finance its war equipment.

“Major losses to its floor forces and the substantial-scale expenditures of precision-guided munitions through the conflict have degraded Moscow’s floor and air-centered regular capabilities and greater its reliance on nuclear weapons,” the intelligence group wrote.

Putin, whose nation offers the greatest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the entire world, has earlier rattled the nuclear saber on the heels of Ukrainian advancements on the battlefield.

The West, in the meantime, has explained Putin’s threats of utilizing nuclear weapons as “irresponsible” and an try to reassert Russia’s dominance in the location.

Final month, Putin upped the ante by announcing he would suspend participation in the New Commence treaty, a essential nuclear arms reduction agreement. The arrangement is the sole arms command treaty in place among Washington and Moscow following former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Selection Nuclear Forces, or INF, treaty.

Secretary of Condition Antony Blinken named Putin’s determination “deeply unfortunate” and explained the Biden administration remains completely ready to negotiate “at any time with Russia, irrespective of something else likely on in the earth.”

What is actually far more, Avril Haines, director of countrywide intelligence, explained to lawmakers on Wednesday that Russia’s navy is unlikely to make “significant territorial gains” this yr, which could existing an opportunity for added nuclear threats.

“Putin most possible calculates that time operates in his favor and that prolonging the war like with possible pauses in the preventing, may well be his finest remaining pathway to at some point securing Russian strategic pursuits in Ukraine, even if it takes yrs,” reported Haines, who qualified prospects America’s 18 intelligence companies, ahead of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The intelligence chiefs, who experienced formerly warned past calendar year that Russia would double down in Ukraine amid stalled progress, wrote that Putin’s invasion has not yielded the final result he anticipated and he “miscalculated the skill of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

The spymasters also reported the Russian armed service will carry on to experience staff shortages, logistical setbacks as nicely as morale issues.

Haines, who spoke alongside CIA Director William Burns, FBI Director Christopher Wray, NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone and DIA Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, claimed the intelligence local community continues to keep an eye on Russia’s nuclear threats.