In an interview with FRANCE 24, former US national security adviser and retired lieutenant general Herbert Raymond McMaster said that Ukraine can win the war with Russia, remarking that President Vladimir Putin had already lost the conflict in a sense by not winning outright.
McMaster said the Russian military had proven to be a "Potemkin army" and said they would continue to face stiff resistance from Ukrainians backed by a united West.
He said he feared, however, that Putin might launch an all-out assault on Kyiv, similar to the one he unleashed on Grozny in Chechnya and in Syria's Aleppo. He urged Western countries to do more to help Ukraine by sending increasingly sophisticated weapons and setting up training posts in the west of the country.
McMaster predicted that Putin’s final goal is not limited to Ukraine but that he also has his eyes trained on Moldova and Georgia. He urged the world to take seriously the threat of Russian using a nuclear device, especially as it struggles on the ground in Ukraine and faces crippling sanctions from a united front of Western powers.
