William Burns said Putin had underestimated Ukraine’s resolve when he decided to invade in February and was now making the same mistake in terms of international support for Kyiv. “Putin’s bet right now is that he will be tougher than the Ukrainians, the Europeans, the Americans… I believe, and my colleagues at the CIA believe, that Putin is as wrong on that bet as he is deeply wrong on the affairs of. back to last February about Ukraine’s will to resist,” Burns said at a conference in Washington, in comments reported by the New York Times. “Not only has the weakness of the Russian military been exposed … but long-term damage will be done to the Russian economy and to generations of Russians,” he said. Ukrainian forces have made significant progress in their first major counteroffensive since the spring, pushing Russian forces out of a number of settlements in the Kharkiv region. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Thursday that Ukrainian forces had recaptured more than 1,000 square kilometers of territory from the Russians since early September. “Our heroes have already liberated dozens of settlements. And today this movement continued, there are new results,” the president said. Ukrainian authorities have imposed a “regime of silence” on the entire frontline, banning journalists from traveling to the front and citing the importance of surprise in their counterattack against Russian forces. Instead of the long-awaited counterattack in the Kherson region in the south, the main focus was Kharkiv in the northeast, leading to the recapture of Balaklia, a town of 27,000. Ukraine’s next major target is likely to be the city of Kupiansk, which has been occupied by Russia since the first days of the war. On Thursday, Russian occupation authorities said they planned to evacuate women and children from Kupyansk, citing Ukrainian artillery fire on the city. The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based thinktank, said Ukrainian forces could retake the city in the next three days. Taking the city would cut some communications links between the occupied territories and “impede Russian efforts to support offensive and defensive operations,” the institute said. Numerous videos shared by Ukrainian soldiers showed Kiev forces entering Balaklia, where they received an emotional welcome from residents. However, Ukrainian authorities will have the difficult task of calibrating how to deal with individuals suspected of collaborating with Russian authorities. Some Russian military commentators criticized their military for not giving enough warning to Balaklia residents that they would withdraw, leaving their local accomplices to face the wrath of Ukrainian authorities. Start your day with the top stories from the US, plus the day’s must-reads from across the Guardian Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Iryna Vereshchuk, Ukraine’s Minister of Temporarily Occupied Territories, announced on Friday that Kyiv will create an agency for occupied territories that will coordinate the various branches of state and government in the regions. “[The agency] it will mean that the dispossession and then the reintegration will be done as efficiently and quickly as possible,” Verehshuk told Ukrainian television. He said there had been an increase in calls to a government hotline for people in the occupied territories wanting to leave, but there were currently no official humanitarian corridors agreed with Russia. “We have written to Russia to open humanitarian corridors, but we have received a refusal, so we are asking the IAEA, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to force Russia to open humanitarian corridors,” Vereschuk said. Currently, there are only three crossing points along the front line for the millions of civilians living in the occupied territories. People wait in lines for days, often surrounded by shelling. In the first months of the war, Russia agreed to open official corridors to allow mass evacuations from occupied areas such as the Kiev region and Mariupol, but only after weeks of pressure from international leaders and the UN.
