The conflict in Ukraine will become a “second Vietnam” for the United States, warned the foreign intelligence chief of Russian President Vladimir Putin today. He said that the Western support for Ukraine would only prolong the war that has been raging since Putin invaded Ukraine last year. The war has caused massive casualties and sparked the worst crisis between Russia and the West in 60 years. Despite receiving over US$246 billion worth of aid and weapons from the West, Ukraine has been unable to reclaim the nearly 20% of its land that Russia occupies.

“Ukraine will turn into a ‘black hole’ absorbing more and more resources and people,” Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said in an article in the SVR’s house journal, “The Intelligence Operative”.

“Ultimately, the US risks creating a ‘second Vietnam’ for itself, and every new American administration will have to try to deal with it.”

US President Joe Biden has warned that a direct Nato-Russia confrontation could trigger World War Three and repeatedly ruled out sending American soldiers to Ukraine.

A Cold War showdown between the East and the West played out in the Vietnam War, where the United States and South Vietnam fought against North Vietnam and its backers China and the Soviet Union. The war killed millions and ended in 1975 with a resounding victory for North Vietnam and a shameful defeat for the United States, which had suffered more than 58,000 casualties and ignited a fierce anti-war movement at home. Biden appealed to Republicans on Wednesday to give more military support to Ukraine. He said that Putin would not be satisfied with Ukraine, but would also attack a Nato ally. He said, “we’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops”