Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Douglas Lute has argued that Russia doesn’t have what it takes to capture the capital city of Kyiv or replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government during the war in Ukraine.

His comments came during an interview with ABC News, after host Martha Raddatz posed the question to the former ambassador, “What do you think Russia’s ultimate goal is here? Have they given up on Kyiv?”

“I think Kyiv is beyond their means. They can’t seize Kyiv, they can’t replace the Zelensky government. I think they’re still looking for opportunities to figure out what their goals are. They’re sort of making it up as they go along,” posited Lute.

“Putin is trying to assess what might be possible and looking for opportunities and he’ll grab the first good one available. Right now, there don’t seem to be many good opportunities for Vladimir Putin,” he added.

Russia has failed to take Kyiv since it began its invasion in late February, with troops withdrawing from the capital city earlier this month.

Lute further argued that the “problems that the Russian army demonstrated in phase one of this fight, in and around Kyiv…those same shortfalls by the Russian military I think will be on display again in the Donbas.”

“You can’t reform an army in a matter of a couple weeks. This is the same Russian army, so I expect many of the same failures,” Lute said further.

He also said that the Biden administration’s help can make “can make a real difference.”

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Readers Bureau, Contributor

Edited by Jesus Chan

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