Biden 'failed to deter' Russian army in Ukraine & 'made mistake after mistake': Ex-US NSA

United States President Joe Biden has "failed to deter" Russian military aggression in Ukraine and now he is "clueless about what to do" with the ongoing conflict, said former US national security adviser John Bolton as the war entered day 130. The national security adviser of Donald Trump-era even claimed that a deal between Ukraine and Russia appears to be unlikely in the present circumstances.

While appearing on CBS on Saturday, Bolton, a Republican who is a vocal critic of Russia, claimed that Biden had “made mistake after mistake” in handling the Russia-Ukraine war. According to the former security adviser, Biden had the means to prevent the Russian army from launching the full-scale attack on Ukraine but “didn’t exercise them”. Bolton critiqued that Biden shouldn’t have publicly admitted that Washington will not send its troops to Ukraine to “leave the burden of ambiguity on Russia”.

While the West ramped up anti-Russia sanctions after Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24 announced the “special” military operation in Ukraine, Bolton believed that the sanctions should have been imposed before the start of the offensive, not after it had already begun.

Putin will find way to stop hostilities ‘on his own terms’: Bolton

Weighing in on Russia and Ukraine reaching a settlement on the negotiation table, Bolton said, “I don't see any possibility of a deal between the two of them”. He went on to say that Putin would find a way to stop hostilities in the war “on his own terms”. 

Bolton said, “I don’t think [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is in a position to say he has achieved Russia’s objectives. He may come to that at some point. It may be a lie, but he’ll find a way to stop the hostilities on his own terms”. 

Moreover, according to the former national security adviser, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also “has no flexibility to negotiate at this point”. He added, “So, sadly, particularly for Ukraine, I think this grinds on for some time”. Regarding the White House’s winning strategy for Ukraine, Bolton said, “I don’t think so”. 

“I think now they don’t know what outcome to expect; they don’t know what they want to achieve…The initial strategy [of the Biden administration] was to prevent catastrophic defeat” for Kyiv as Washington expected Ukraine to fall in a couple of weeks, he said.

Image: AP