A former top NATO commander has said Western fears “about nuclear weapons and World War III” have left it “fully deterred” and Vladimir Putin “completely undeterred” as the Russian leader pursues his increasingly brutal invasion of Ukraine.

“We have ceded the initiative to the enemy,” Philip Breedlove told RFE/RL’s Georgian Service in a recent interview.

Breedlove is a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general who led U.S. forces in Europe and served as NATO’s supreme allied commander from 2013 to 2016.