CIA Director William Burns on Monday met with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top intelligence official in Turkey to convey a stern message about the consequences that would occur if Moscow uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
The meeting came at a moment of ongoing Russian military setbacks in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly toured the newly liberated city of Kherson on Monday, hailing Russia’s withdrawal from the southeastern Ukrainian city as the “beginning of the end of the war.”
Mr. Zelenskyy acknowledged the heavy price Ukrainian troops are paying in their grinding effort to push back the invaders, although the retaking of Kherson dealt a stinging blow to the Kremlin — a development that could open the way to more Ukrainian advances into Russian-occupied territory.