Intelligence suggests Russian President Vladimir Putin is going through the motions and still thinks he can eventually control all of Ukraine, the sources told NBC News.
As the Trump administration begins preliminary talks with Russian officials about ending the war in Ukraine, intelligence from the United States and close allies shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to control all of Ukraine, according to four Western intelligence officials and two U.S. congressional officials.
“We have zero intelligence that Putin is interested in a real peace deal right now,” one of the congressional officials said.
Putin is sending representatives to Saudi Arabia for negotiations Tuesday with the U.S. that are aimed at ending the war. But, the six officials said, current intelligence shows Putin still believes he can wait out Ukraine and Europe to eventually control all of Ukraine.
“He thinks he’s winning,” one of the Western intelligence officials said, adding that Russian losses on the battlefield are not pressuring Putin to stop fighting.
All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence.
Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said in response to a request for comment: “President Trump’s leadership has created the first opening for talks in years, and he did this after only four weeks in office. The Trump Administration will continue to pursue a deal that advances American interests and brings this conflict to a permanent resolution.”
President Donald Trump said that Putin told him in a phone conversation last Wednesday that he wants to end the war in Ukraine, and Trump repeated that in comments to reporters on Sunday.
“I think he wants to stop the fighting,” Trump said. Asked if he thinks Putin wants all of Ukraine, Trump said, “No, I think he wants to stop.”
“That was my question to him, because if he’s going to go on, that would have been a big problem for us, and that would have caused me a big problem because you just can’t let that happen,” Trump said Sunday. “I think he wants to end it. And they want to end it fast.”
Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also told him when they spoke last Wednesday that he wants a peace deal to end the war.
With his phone calls to Putin and Zelenskyy, Trump, who had promised during the campaign to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, kickstarted a negotiating process aimed at halting the war. The effort coincided with his administration securing the release from Russia of American teacher Marc Fogel, who had been designated by the U.S. as wrongfully detained.
Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, flew on his private plane to Moscow to retrieve Fogel, and Trump told reporters Sunday that while Witkoff was there, he met with Putin for about three hours. The administration has not shared further details of that meeting.
Witkoff is now part of a negotiating team Trump announced last week, along with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and national security adviser Michael Waltz. Rubio, Witkoff and Waltz met with the Russian team Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
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The six officials said they believe Putin could agree to a ceasefire and broader peace deal because it would give his military time to reset and rebuild.
They said there is skepticism among U.S. and Western officials that Putin ultimately will compromise and agree to a real, lasting peace deal. There is a belief, though, that he could go through the motions of negotiations to see what concessions he might get and to attempt to reintegrate himself back onto the world stage, where he has been largely shunned since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
Putin is not making any plans to draw his troops down in Ukraine or pull any formations or equipment back from western Russia, the intelligence officials said.
The six officials also said Putin feels empowered by recent comments by Trump administration officials indicating that the U.S. does not see NATO membership for Ukraine as a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.
“His goals remain maximalist,” one Western intelligence official said.
U.S. intelligence assessments of Putin’s thinking have been very limited, U.S. officials have said.
But U.S. intelligence and intelligence it receives from other countries have consistently showed for some time that Putin maintains broad ambitions for Ukraine, the U.S. officials said. The congressional officials and one former senior administration official said that remained the case at the end of the Biden administration as it transitioned to the Trump administration and hasn’t changed in the month since Trump took office.
The Ukrainian government is concerned about being left out of negotiations and that Russia will come to the table unwilling to compromise on maximalist demands, according to current and former U.S. officials.
In an exclusive interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” broadcast Sunday, Zelenskyy told Kristen Welker, “I will never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine, never.”
“This is the war in Ukraine, against us, and it’s our human losses.”
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