Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Newsmax Wednesday that, as winter deepens, the Kremlin has changed tactics in an effort to achieve its objectives in Ukraine.
"I think it's pretty clear, at least for the moment, that the Russians are not achieving their objectives on the battlefield. And I think the Kremlin has switched for the coming winter to seeing if they can win politically what they have not been able to win militarily," Bolton said during an appearance on Newsmax's "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "That involves pressure on the Europeans, the cutoff of natural gas, efforts by Putin and others to convince European leaders that the war has gone on long enough.
"You've got the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, just within the past few weeks saying Russia has to be given security guarantees in any settlement," he continued. "I think that while [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is trying to break Ukrainian morale with this effort to destroy their electrical generation infrastructure, I don't think they're going to break the Ukrainian resolve."
Bolton said Putin likely believes he can "break Europe's resolve or maybe even in the United States as well."
The Russian leader is angling to "get a settlement process going that will save his face, freeze the battlefield and allow him to regroup," the former U.N. ambassador said.
"That's a mistake we should not make," he said.
When asked about U.S. oversight on Ukrainian aid, Bolton said that several government agencies are responsible for tracking foreign aid.
"They just don't shovel it out the door, so I think there is information in the [Biden] administration about what has been done with those resources," he said. "To be clear, it isn't the case we've simply written checks for billions of dollars that just disappear.
"We're delivering hardware, so we're not giving Ukrainian officials money that's fungible," he continued. "We're giving them things that have a battlefield use."
Stressing that aid delivered in the form of hardware needs to be tracked as well, Bolton said that the battlefield is "not necessarily a benign environment for accountants."
"I support accountability and transparency," he said, "but let's not go so far that we impede the battle effort."
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