The war in Ukraine has “quietly corroded” the power of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, CIA director William J. Burns wrote in an essay published on Tuesday.

While Putin’s grip on power was unlikely to soon weaken, Burns wrote in Foreign Affairs, that disaffection had “gnawed away at the Russian leadership and the Russian people”, allowing the CIA to recruit more spies.

The agency has made a series of videos aimed at recruiting Russian officials. The most recent, released last week, encourages Russians to securely provide information to the CIA using a secure browser on the dark web. The latest video makes an appeal to their anger over corruption in the Russian government.

While the US government will not say how many spies have been recruited with the videos, officials said the agency would not have continued to push them on Telegram and YouTube if they were not effective. Burns echoed this sentiment in his article.

“That undercurrent of disaffection is creating a once-in-a-generation recruiting opportunity for the CIA,” he wrote. “We are not letting it go to waste.”

Part of Putin’s weakness stems from his handling of the mutiny last year by members of Russia’s most powerful mercenary group. He looked “detached and indecisive” in the face of the mutiny led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, Burns wrote.

Burns wrote that Putin “eventually settled his score with Prigozhin”, a reference to the mercenary leader’s death in a suspicious plane crash. Despite that, the critique of Russian leadership that Prigozhin put in front of the Russian people “will not soon disappear”, Burns wrote.

Russia has rebuilt its military-industrial production, but its economy has been deeply wounded by the war, he said. And the long term, Russia is “sealing its fate” to be a vassal of China, dependent on Beijing for trade and technology. Russia’s efforts to modernise its military has been “hollowed out”, and 315,000 Russians have been killed or wounded, Burns wrote.

The key to Ukraine’s success, Burns wrote, was to continue providing US aid. Congress is considering a new package of military aid, but it has become entangled with the politics of a border and immigration deal on Capitol Hill.

Cutting off Ukraine, Burns wrote, would be a huge mistake.

Prisoner exchange

Russia and Ukraine said on Wednesday they had completed another large prisoner exchange despite the crash last week of a Russian military transport plane that Moscow says was shot down by Ukraine carrying Ukrainian PoWs en route to a similar swap.

The two countries have carried out periodic prisoner swaps via intermediaries since the war began.

The Russian defence ministry said each side had received 195 soldiers, while Ukraine said it had got 207 people back.

New York Times News Service and Reuters