Putin ‘Will Not Outlast The West’ In Ukraine, State Dept Says

The United States said on Thursday that it noticed Russia's Vladimir Putin, during a news conference, confirmed for the first time that he expected to outlast the West in his Ukraine war, but this is a miscalculation on the part of the Kremlin, as the State Department out it, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"... That bet is wrong and we believe that he will not outlast the West and he will not outlast the United States of America," spokesperson Matthew Miller told a daily press conference when responding to TURAN's questions.

He went on to elaborate: "You have heard us say from the beginning of this campaign that Vladimir Putin’s bet was that he could outlast the West and that the West would weaken, the West would stop supporting Ukraine, and that Russia would still be there ready to fight, and he just had to outlast us.... And now it’s up for the United States Congress to prove that that bet is wrong."

Miller also noted that Putin's war aims "have not changed in any way," and that he "still wishes" to conquer Ukraine:   "... He still wishes to subjugate Ukraine, and nothing that he set out to accomplish in this campaign has he given up on, despite the fact that his army has been rolled back from their initial objectives, despite the fact...  they’ve suffered a multitude of battlefield defeats. He still has all the same war aims that he had from the beginning."

Late on Thursday the U.S. House and the Senate quickly passed the National Defense bill after reaching a compromise on the mammoth $886 billion legislation, which enables the U.S.to hold the line against Russia, along with other key challenges.

President Biden is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as today, which would finalize the legislative process.