US intelligence reports; Putin’s goals in Ukraine still stand

According to Isna, knowledgeable sources said in a claim to the American intelligence community: “Despite negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his goals of capturing all of Ukraine and recapturing parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire.”

According to the Reuters News agency, the six sources familiar with US intelligence said: “These reports present a very different picture than the one painted by US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian peace negotiators, who have said that Putin wants to end the conflict.”

According to one of these sources, the most recent reports are from late September.

Reuters added that the information also “contradicts” the principle that the Russian president is not a threat to Europe.

US findings have been consistent since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022. According to the sources, the findings are largely consistent with claims by European leaders and intelligence agencies that Vladimir Putin “covets all of Ukraine and the territories of former Soviet bloc countries, including members of the NATO alliance.”

“The intelligence has always been that Putin wants more,” Mike Quigley, a Democratic member of the US House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview with Reuters. Europeans are sure of this. The Poles are completely sure of this. “The Baltic states think they are in the first place.”

Russia controls about 20 percent of Ukraine’s territory, including most of Luhansk and Donetsk, the provinces that make up the industrial heartland of the Donbass, parts of Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Crimea, a strategic Black Sea peninsula.

Putin has repeatedly emphasized: “All four provinces belong to Russia.”

As part of a proposed peace deal, Trump has pressed Kiev to withdraw troops from the small part of Donetsk they control, a demand that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and most Ukrainians reject, two sources familiar with the matter said.

“The president’s team has made significant progress toward ending the war, and Trump has announced that a peace deal is closer than ever,” a White House official said, without referring to U.S. intelligence reports.

Tulsi Gabbard, director of US national intelligence, claimed on Saturday on the X social network: “Intelligence officers have informed lawmakers that Russia is seeking to prevent a larger war with Europe, and the performance of its forces in Ukraine shows that it currently lacks the capacity to dominate all of Ukraine, let alone Europe!”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the Russian Embassy have not yet commented on this matter.

American negotiators, including Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, and Steve Wittkoff, the special envoy of the US president, have been negotiating a 20-point peace plan with Ukrainian, Russian and European officials for weeks.

While US officials say they have made progress, major disputes over territorial issues remain.

A White House official said: “Kushner and Witkoff met with Ukrainian negotiators in Miami on Friday and are scheduled to hold talks with Russian representatives.”

“The security guarantees are dependent on Zelensky agreeing to cede territory to Russia,” said one source and a diplomat.

But other diplomats said that was not true and that other options were still being considered because Zelenskiy has ruled out ceding territory.

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