US intelligence leaders say Vladimir Putin could escalate offensive in Ukraine despite military setbacks and economic hardship caused by international sanctions, Voice of America reports..

“Putin is unlikely to be deterred by such setbacks and may escalate, redoubling his efforts to achieve the disarmament of Ukraine,” said Director of National Intelligence Avril Haynes..

With tensions this high, there's always the potential for "

CIA director William Burns says Putin is now 'angry and upset'. This could cause the Russian president to literally redouble his efforts to crush the Ukrainian army, ignoring civilian casualties..

At the same time, Burns and CIA analysts do not see how Putin can achieve his goals: to seize Kyiv and replace the government of Vladimir Zelensky with a pro-Moscow puppet leadership..

Despite such an obsession with capturing Ukraine, Putin appears unwilling to sacrifice valuable weapons. As Bellingcat investigative journalist Hristo Grozev told the telethon, Putin was "

“After being informed that 8 missiles, very expensive missiles, of those that are already few in Russia’s stocks, were fired at Vinnitsa, Putin was furious because he was informed that these missiles were the most valuable and they were not there at all..

The journalist suggested that most likely Putin is not being told the full picture of the Russian invasion.. There is reason to believe that he does not know about almost 100% of the Ukrainian population negatively disposed towards the Russian occupiers. According to Grozev, vertical people are afraid to report such things to Putin.

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Earlier, Defense Minister Alexei Reznikov said that in a few days the losses of the enemy army would exceed the number of deaths recorded after the war in Afghanistan, which lasted 10 years..

" Ukrainian soldiers have already destroyed more than 11 thousand Russian soldiers in 11 days. This is more than two Chechen wars that lasted 6 years. A couple more days, and Russia's losses in killed and wounded will exceed the losses in 10 years of war in Afghanistan,"