Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

CIA Director William Burns said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view that Western resolve in Ukraine will gradually weaken is wrong.

“Putin’s view of Americans is we always suffer from attention deficit disorder and, you know, we’ll get distracted by something else,” Burns said at the Aspen Security Forum. “I think my own strong view is that Putin was wrong in his assumptions about breaking the alliance and breaking Ukrainian will before the war began. And I think he is just as wrong now.”

He emphasized that America’s attention will not be diverted elsewhere despite Russia’s “grinding war of attrition.”

Burns said U.S. intelligence estimates Russia has suffered “something in the vicinity of 15,000 killed and maybe three times that wounded.” While the Ukrainians have likely seen slightly less in terms of losses, he said they were still “significant.”

— Natalie Tham

Kyiv has called for more air defense systems as its forces fight on in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Fighting is concentrated around the cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Bakhmut, and Ukrainian forces are desperate to hold the line to prevent Russian advances in Donetsk.

The latest update Thursday morning from the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said those cities and the settlements around them continued to be attacked by Russian artillery. Separately, Kharkiv to the north and Mykolaiv to the south are also coming under attack, with powerful explosions rocking the port city of Mykolaiv during the night.

“In [the] Donetsk region, the invaders are seeking to advance to the Debaltseve-Sloviansk highway, while Ukraine’s forces are holding them back,” the armed forces said in its update.

In the meantime, Ukraine has repeated its call for more air defense systems to it fend off Russian aircraft and missile attacks. First Lady Olena Zelenska, who has been in Washington this week, repeated those calls to America…