- David Petraeus thinks Vladimir Putin hopes to beat Ukraine by sacrificing more lives.
- Petraeus cited previous conflicts where Russia won at the cost of an overwhelming death count.
Retired US general David Petraeus says Russian leader Vladimir Putin is hoping to win its war against Ukraine by being prepared to suffer more.
Petraeus, who rose to fame as the leader of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was later director of the CIA, gave his assessment in an email interview with CNN.
"He still believes that Russia can 'out-suffer' the Ukrainians, Europeans, and Americans in the same way that Russians out-suffered Napoleon's army and Hitler's Nazis," Petraeus said.
"And the US and our NATO and western allies and partners need to do all that we can, as quickly as we can, to enable Ukraine and prove Putin wrong."
Petraeus was referring to two major conflicts that Russia managed to win, but at an enormous cost.
Russia lost more than 200,000 soldiers fending off Napoleon's Grande Armée in 1812. Meanwhile, 6.75 million Russian troops died during World War II for an Allied victory, a far higher toll than any other nation suffered.
As of February 17, Ukraine claims to have killed at 141,260 Russian soldiers.
Putin announced a partial military mobilization in September, drafting 300,000 people from Russia's reservists to fight in Ukraine. The Wagner Group, a Russian paramilitary organization, has also sent more than 40,000 former prisoners to fight in Ukraine, but a majority of them have died, per investigations by The New York Times and Reuters.
Ukraine's government claimed in January that Russia may be preparing to mobilize some 500,000 more troops, but that has not happened yet.
Petraeus also told CNN he thinks Putin has "earned a failing grade" in the Ukraine war because he's not been able to get the basics of his military strategy right. But Petraeus cautioned, too, that Russia should not be counted out or thought of as a diminished global power.
"Russia still has enormous military capacity and is certainly still a nuclear superpower, as well as a country with enormous energy, mineral, and agricultural blessing," Petraeus said.
"And it is still led by a kleptocratic dictator who embraces innumerable grievances and extreme revanchist views that severely undermine his decision-making," he said in reference to Putin.
Petraeus in January also called for more aid for Ukraine from the West, saying that the war with Russia is now at a pivotal point.
"This is an inflection point because Russia is taking steps which clearly indicate they don't think the war is lost," Petraeus told the Financial Times.