More than a year after the invasion of Ukraine began, there are no signs that Russian President Vladimir Putin has weakened, says Germany’s secret service.

The head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service BND, Bruno Kahl, said on Monday at the Federal Academy for Security Policy (BAKS) in Berlin that there are no discernible cracks in Mr Putin’s system.

Russia was still in a position to “wage war over the long haul’’ with newly recruited soldiers, Mr Kahl said.

This also applied to armament and ammunition.

Asked when exactly the BND knew that Russia would attack Ukraine, Mr Kahl said, “About 14 days before the start of the war, we also detected phenomena that could not be interpreted in any other way.’’

Russia launched the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Mr Kahl rejected criticism that the intelligence services in the United States and Britain expected an attack much earlier than the BND.

He said those intelligence services strongly predicted the probability of war based on their observations.

On the other hand, the BND emphasised that Mr Putin would ultimately decide to attack.

The Kremlin leader had made this dependent on many things, “which did not consist of counting missiles or tanks,’’ he said. 

(dpa/NAN)