Putin’s reckless gamble will not pay off, agrees MI6 boss

PUTIN’S war in Ukraine will probably be “unwinnable” because he will never secure a wider political victory, the head of MI6 has appeared to suggest.

Richard Moore, chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service, described a report by a leading professor as “fascinating” after it suggested the Russian president would fail in Ukraine because he underestimated its military might and people’s determination to defend their country.

In a comment on his Twitter account, Mr Moore, 58, said the article published by Sir Lawrence Freedman, the emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London – which claimed Putin was “prone to outrageous theories” and an “unhinged rant” – “makes sense”.

The paper, called A Reckless Gamble, concludes that “whatever the military victories to come, this will be an extraordinarily difficult war for Putin to win politically”.

The professor points out how despite their military “superiority … and potentially overwhelming numbers [of troops]”, Russian forces “made less progress than might have been expected on the first day”, even though they had the advantage of “tactical surprise”.

“Yet it is still reasonable to ask if Vladmir Putin has launched an unwinnable war,” Sir Lawrence wrote on the Substack website. Posting a link to the article, Mr Moore wrote: “Fascinating. Makes sense to me.”

It is unusual for the MI6 chief to comment so openly about diplomatically sensitive affairs.

The professor wrote how Ukraine’s “spirited resistance” meant “we have been reminded that the morale and determination of those defending their country tends to be higher than that of those mounting an invasion, especially if they are unsure why they are doing so.”

He said Putin’s “less than sure-footed start to his campaign” meant Russia would have to treat Ukraine with “more respect” and respond methodically.

Sir Lawrence concludes: “At times in democracies we lament the flabbiness, incoherence, short-sightedness and inertia of our decision-making, compared with autocrats who can outsmart us by thinking long-term and then taking bold steps without any need to convince a sceptical public, listen to critics, or be held back by such awkward constraints as the rule of law.

“Putin reminds us that autocracy can lead to great errors, and while democracy by no means precludes us [from] making our own mistakes, it at least allows us opportunities to move swiftly to new leaders and new policies when that happens.”