When U.S. intelligence chiefs travel to Congress on Tuesday to offer their first public “global threat assessment” of President Trump's second term, they will face extraordinary choices.
Do they stick to the long-term conclusions about Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose goal is to smash the Ukrainian government and “destroy the United States and the West?”
Or are they now describing him in terms that Mr. Trump and his top negotiators with Russia: As a trusted future business partner, they just want to end a nasty war, control parts of Ukraine, they are right and restore their conventional relations with the United States?
Since Mr. Trump was one of the biggest friends in the real estate world, Steve Witkoff and his election as the Middle East and Russia envoy, especially with increasingly obvious choices, he has begun to raise Mr. Putin’s favorite conversation points.
Mr. Vikov wrote that Europeans were concerned that Russia might violate any consent of a ceasefire and that peacekeeping forces must be assembled to stop Moscow. In an interview with Tucker Carlson of Pro-Maga Podcaster, Mr. Witkov said the idea of maintaining peace is the “combination of posture and posture” of the United States' closest NATO allies.
It was a kind of “we all have to be like Winston Churchill, and the Russians will march in Europe.” He continued, “I think that's ridiculous.”
Mr Witkov argued that it has been more than three years since Russian troops poured into Kiev and tried to withdraw from the government and Putin did not want to take over all Ukraine.
“Why do they absorb Ukraine?” he asked Mr. Carlson. “What exactly is the purpose? They don't need to absorb Ukraine.” He believes that all Russia's searches are “stability there.”
Mr. Witkov said of Mr. Putin: “I thought he was direct to me.
Today, of all the spin reversals in Washington, perhaps the Trump administration’s perception of Russia, and its seemingly willingness to believe Mr. Putin’s will has left allies, intelligence officials and diplomats the most disorienting.
Before Trump took office, it was the consensus view of the United States and its allies that their true ambitions for Russia lasted for a long time, and they were naive – they first argued in 2007 that parts of Russia needed to restore parts of Russia. He then invaded Georgia, annexed Crimea, and sent troops to wear uniforms – to engage in guerrilla warfare in Donbas.
Still, sanctions are slow and Europe is too slow to re-adopt.
Now, Mr. Trump refuses to acknowledge Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Several European leaders have been openly conflicting, saying they won't even if the U.S. plans to seek normalization of relations with Russia. “I don't trust Putin,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the New York Times last week. “I'm sure Putin will try to insist that Ukraine should be unprepared after the deal, because it gives him what he wants, and it's a chance to get in again.”
But for U.S. intelligence agencies, their views should be rooted in a rigorous analysis of secret collection and open source analysis, and so far there is no sign that their perceptions of Mr. Putin and his ambitions have changed. So it will depend on Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of National Intelligence, and John Ratcliffe, the new CIA director, to describe Russia as a beautiful route to the incumbent opponent and future partner.
Mr. Witkov followed this road in his conversation with Mr. Carlson. “Share the sea routes at sea, maybe sending LNG into Europe, maybe working together on AI,” he said. He imagined a negotiated ceasefire where Russia could take over the land it occupied and promised that Ukraine would never join NATO. “Who doesn't want to see such a world?”
Senator Mark Warner of Virginia of the Chamber of Commerce Intelligence Committee said Mr. Witkov and others from the Trump administration were deeply confused by the comments about U.S. spies.
“If you grew up in the intelligence community and knew all the horrible things Vladimir Putin did, and suddenly you would change your posture and you would completely occupy Russia's side, how do you understand that?” Mr. Warner said.
Mr Warner said the document, the intelligence community will unveil Tuesday's annual threat assessment, is very traditional and consistent with previous versions. But what Mr. Trump's intelligence leaders would say is not so clear in their testimony. Warner said that so far, the government’s comments on Ukraine reflect traditional views on the Russian threat.
Warner said the U.S. policy toward Russia has shifted, threatening the intelligence partnership. He said that although the United States collects much more intelligence than other countries, the combined contribution of its major allies is huge. And if they pay attention to U.S. policy and its faithful analysis of intelligence, they will score a small point.
Officials from several allies, refusing to speak on the record, noted that several of Mr. Vidokov's remarks were panicked, saying they closely reflected the key points of Russia's conversation. He endorsed the Russian “referendum” in four Russian provinces that are primarily seen as manipulation, and if voters vote in the wrong way, they are threatened by torture and deportation. But what Mr. Vikov said seemed to be a legal election.
“In the referendum, the vast majority expressed their desire to be under Russian rule.” Shortly thereafter, Ukrainian parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Oleksandr Merezhko said on Monday that Mr Witkoff should be removed from his post.
“These are simply shameful, shocking statements,” Mr. Merezhko told the Ukrainian media. “He is conveying Russian propaganda. I have a question: Who is he? Is he an envoy to Trump, or is he a special envoy to Putin?”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was more cautious in his interview with Time magazine released on Monday. He said he believed that “Russia successfully influenced some people on the White House team through information.” Earlier, he spoke about Mr. Trump’s “false information” surrounding Mr. Trump and said it helped their famous relationship.
He noted that Mr. Trump repeated Mr. Putin's statement that Ukrainian troops retreating in western Russia were surrounded.
“That's a lie,” Mr. Zelensky said.
The Continuing Mehet Reports from Kyiv.
