Speaking in a podcast episode with Foreign Affairs Deputy Editor Kate Brannen released Thursday, Boris Bondarev said that he didn’t think the longtime Russian leader would actually launch his invasion in the first place.

“I didn’t think that he would start the war…It was obvious to me and I thought it was obvious to everybody, including Putin, that Ukraine is not that weak as it was in 2014. The Russian army is not as strong as it is reported to be,” he said.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and still controls it to this day, but Ukraine has vowed to retake control of the peninsula in the war. Bondarev added that he also thought that Putin knew that the West “would not refrain from anything” if Russia attacked Ukraine.

“I think those three things were very evident to me, and I thought that Putin, having them in mind, would not start the war because what could he get?” Bondarev said.

While the limits on the Russian army’s power before the war began may have been clear to Bondarev, this was not the case for many outside of Russia and Putin’s circle. Russian troops and equipment had been building up on Ukraine’s borders for months before the invasion, and when Putin ultimately launched his attack, some expected his troops to quickly overrun Ukraine.

But as Ukraine fiercely resisted the attack, Russia’s image as a superior military power began to crumble. The war has now stretched on for more than eight months.

To make matters worse for Russia, Western countries did not sit by idly after the war began. Russia has been hit with unprecedented sanctions over the aggression, while Western nations have provided Ukraine with weapons, defensive equipment and other aid.

There have been frequent reports of issues within Putin’s armed forces, such as purported morale and discipline issues, ineffective military leadership and shortages in weapons and supplies.

Bondarev served as a Russian diplomat for 20 years, according to Foreign Affairs, but quit his role in Russia’s mission to the United Nations (U.N.) in May over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He said in a resignation letter that the war is “not only a crime against the Ukrainian people, but also, perhaps, the most serious crime against the people of Russia.”

In an interview with Sky News last month, Bondarev said that he believes Putin’s “political survival” depends on the outcome of the Ukraine war.

“You have to understand that, if he loses the war, it will be the end for him,” Bondarev said.

Newsweek reached out to the Kremlin for comment.