A former head of British spy agency MI6 says Russia cannot maintain its war with Ukraine due to the size of the country and the will of the Ukrainian people.
Key points:He says the invasion is a wake-up call for the West
"Even if militarily [Mr] Putin manages to bombard the cities into submission, that the Russians then take control, he's going to be facing an insurgency, which probably would be resupplied from the west. He said he could not see the situation "doing anything but deteriorating really seriously into an even bigger crisis than it is at the moment".Sir Richard was head of MI6 from 1999 to 2004, having begun his service as a spy there in 1966.Alina Frolova worries Mr Putin will use nuclear weapons.She said Russia was trying to create as much "devastation" as possible to destroy the Ukrainians' morale.
Current vice-chair of US Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Marco Rubio, suggested last week that Mr Putin had a "neurological" condition, backing that up just days ago by telling CNN: "It's not a curiosity, it's not to mock him or troll him, it's because he may be willing to take steps now that the old Vladimir Putin would not.
"That is, I gather, one of the standard treatments if you have got Parkinson's, which is pretty worrying. "Sources inside the Kremlin, they have existed historically from time to time, the most famous probably being Oleg Penkovsky during the Cuba crisis [in 1962]," Sir Richard said.