‘Putin wants more’: Amid peace talks, US says Russia still aims to reclaim former Soviet bloc

Washington/Paris: US intelligence reports continue to warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire, even as negotiators seek an end to the war that would leave Russia with far less territory.

The reports from six sources familiar with US intelligence present a starkly different picture from that painted by US President Donald Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators, who have said Putin wants to end the conflict. The most recent of the reports dates from late September, according
to one of the sources.

The intelligence also contradicts the Russian leader’s denials that he is a threat to Europe.

The US findings have been consistent since Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. They largely align with the views of European leaders and spy agencies that he covets all of Ukraine and territories of former Soviet bloc states, including members of the NATO alliance, according to the sources.

“The intelligence has always been that Putin wants more,” Mike Quigley, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, told Reuters. “The Europeans are convinced of it. The Poles are absolutely convinced of it. The Baltics think they’re first.”

Russia controls about 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory, including the bulk of Luhansk and Donetsk, the provinces that comprise the industrial heartland of the Donbas, parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces and Crimea, the strategic Black Sea peninsula.

Russian President Vladimir Putin during his annual news conference and call-in show last week.Credit: AP

Putin claims Crimea and all four provinces as belonging to Russia. Trump is pressuring Kyiv to withdraw its forces from the small part of Donetsk they control as part of a proposed peace
deal, according to two sources familiar with the matter, a demand that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and most Ukrainians reject.

“The president’s team has made tremendous progress with respect to ending the war” and Trump has stated that a peace deal “is closer than ever before”, said a White House official without addressing the intelligence reports.

In an X post on Saturday, US National Intelligence director Tulsi Gabbard said intelligence officers had briefed politicians that “Russia seeks to avoid a larger war with Europe” and that its troops’ performance in Ukraine shows it lacks the capacity to overrun “all of Ukraine, let alone Europe”.

The office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA and the Russian embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s negotiators, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and billionaire real estate developer Steve Witkoff, have for weeks been negotiating the 20-point peace plan with Ukrainian, Russian and European officials.

While US officials say they have made progress, major differences remain on the issues of territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a media conference at an EU summit in Brussels last week.Credit: AP

Kushner and Witkoff met Russian officials in Miami on Sunday AEDT for the latest talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, following a meeting the previous day with Ukrainian and European officials.

Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters after the meeting that the talks had been constructive and that they would continue on Monday AEDT.

US, Ukrainian and European negotiators reached a broad consensus last week in talks in Berlin on what four European diplomats and the two sources familiar with the matter said were robust US-backed guarantees of Ukraine’s security against future Russian aggression.

US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at talks in Alaska in August.Credit: AP

One source and a diplomat said that those guarantees hinged on Zelensky agreeing to cede territory to Russia. But other diplomats said that was not the case and alternatives were still being examined as Zelensky has ruled out ceding territory.

The diplomats said the guarantees, which would take effect after the signing of a peace agreement, call for the deployment of a mostly European security force in neighbouring countries and in Ukraine away from the front lines to aid in repulsing any future Russian attack.

Ukraine’s military would be capped at 800,000, said the source. But several diplomats said Russia sought a lower cap to which the Americans were open.

The US would provide intelligence and other support, and the package would be ratified by the US Senate, they said.

According to two sources familiar with the talks, Washington’s plan would also include US-backed air patrols over Ukraine.

Zelensky on Thursday appeared cautious on the proposals, saying: “There’s a question I still can’t get an answer to: What will these security guarantees actually do?”

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And it is deeply uncertain whether Putin will agree to such guarantees, as he has repeatedly rejected the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine.

Putin on Friday offered no compromises, although he told an annual news conference that he was ready to discuss peace. He said his terms would have to be met as his forces have advanced by 6000 square kilometres this year.

It is unclear how US officials have responded to Putin’s demands. Witkoff has previously suggested that Russia has a right to claim the four provinces and Crimea.

Some Trump administration officials have acknowledged that Putin may be unwilling to settle for less than his initial goal of conquering Ukraine.

“I don’t know if Putin wants to do a deal or Putin wants to take the whole country. These are things that he has said openly,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday US time at a press conference.

“We know what they wanted to achieve initially when the war began. They haven’t achieved those objectives.”

Reuters

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