(Bloomberg) -- America’s top spy said she sees a “grinding struggle” ahead for Russia in Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin’s military able to make incremental gains but no significant breakthrough.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines presented this as the most likely of three scenarios the US intelligence community is forecasting in an appearance Wednesday at an annual conference of the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security in Washington.

The other, less likely, scenarios she identified: Either Russia has a breakthrough or Ukraine stabilizes its front lines and is able to make small gains in the south of the country.

The US intelligence community believes there’s a gap between Putin’s near-term goal of making gains in the eastern Donbas region while collapsing Ukrainian forces and what Russia’s military is actually able to accomplish, Haines said.  

Longer term, Putin’s aims have remained consistent, even in the face of military setbacks, Haines said. The Russian leader still seeks to take most of Ukraine and to achieve the “neutralization” of the country by preventing it from edging toward membership in the NATO alliance, she added. 

Haines also said that the intelligence community hadn’t anticipated the extent to which U.S. companies would “self-sanction” in response to Russia’s invasion. 

“It’s had quite an impact on the Russian economy -- the degree to which the private sector came in behind and decided to disinvest,” she said. “That’s something that we’re now trying to better evaluate.”

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