Former CIA director John Brennan said that the president of the country-aggressor Vladimir Putin needed to "smash his nose in Ukraine". So he commented on the decision of former President Barack Obama not to arm Ukraine with an interview with PBS FrontLine, which was recorded in July, but was published in October 2017, the Voice of America.

"The US should have" let Putin get a yushka out of his nose "and respond to the aggression against Ukraine by the military. I think that this would force him to retreat, but, like most hooligans, he knows that he can not confront others, "Brennan stressed..

At the same time he called Putin "a very clever individual who really appreciates his enemies and opponents".

"I believe that he expected (Putin, ed.. ) that at the end of the last term of the Obama administration, Washington's reaction could be expected, and in my opinion, he saw that Obama does not want a military conflict, and therefore uses other tools available in the US, for example, sanctions, "he said. Bones.

Ex-CIA Director sure that Putin expected that he would not be given a symmetrical military response.

"But I believe that Putin's decision to go against Ukraine, his decision to launch a military campaign in Syria, was based on the belief that a symmetrical military response would not follow. I thought, in certain cases, that we had to make our reaction less predictable for Putin. It seemed to me that we could resort to actions that would not lead to an indirect war with Russia, "Brennan said..