The CIA chief tells Putin: You got wrong thinking you're the strongest, war results are failure for the Russians

So far it is difficult to see the outcome of the war, or Putin results, as something other than a” failure, said Mr. Burns, at a cyber security conference held in Washington on Thursday.

“Russia will pay a huge price“, said Mr. Burns. Not only was the Russian Army's weakness exposed, but war will have long-term damage to the Russian economy and to future generations in Russia“.

The open assessment is not the first by a senior American intelligence official to warn that the war in Ukraine would turn Russia into boomerang.

In June, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines said Russian ground forces “have been degraded to the point, which will take years to return where it was, in many respects”.

Mrs. Haines said Russia's losses could persuade Mr. Putin to negotiate at least a temporary end to fighting.

But the Russian president seems to have exacerbated his attitude towards Ukraine.

“It wasn't us who started the military operation, we're trying to put an end to“, Mr. Putin said at an economic forum in the port city of Vladivostok on Wednesday, repeating his early stance that he was obliged to send forces to Ukraine to protect the separatist regions supported by Moscow, which have fought against Ukrainian forces since the crime prosecution in 2014.

The long-term “will help strengthen our country both inside and abroad“, he added. The CIA director said Thursday he expects the war in Ukraine to prove Mr. Putin wrong.

“Putin has bet it will prove stronger than Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans“, said Mr. Burns. His “His view has always been that we (God) have problems with attention and we will be distracted. But Putin was wrong, as far as he deeply erred in his assumptions since last February, regarding Ukrainian will to resist, or the will of the West, of the United States and of all our partners to support Ukrainian”, he added.