Russia responds to ominous US intelligence report on Putin's war goals

 The Kremlin rejected a reported assessment by U.S. intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin still seeks the entirety of Ukraine and harbors ambitions to retake the former Soviet states now within the NATO alliance.

Reuters, citing six unnamed sources familiar with U.S. intelligence, reported the assessments, which cut against Putin’s public claims that he does not threaten Europe nor want a war with NATO.

“We do not know how reliable they are. That is the first point,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesperson, said of the reports on the U.S. intelligence at a news briefing on Monday, originally in Russian.

“We have indeed seen some scattered reports on this matter. But even if this corresponds to reality, these data—situations in which intelligence produces some erroneous assessments, analyses and conclusions—do not correspond to reality,” he continued.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard disputed the Reuters report, accusing “warmongers” of trying to undermine President Donald Trump’s peace efforts on Ukraine.

Gabbard said on X that U.S. policymakers had been briefed that “U.S. Intelligence assesses that Russia seeks to avoid a larger war with NATO. It also assesses that, as the last few years have shown, Russia’s battlefield performance indicates it does not currently have the capability to conquer and occupy all of Ukraine, let alone Europe.”

Trump is brokering indirect peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which Kyiv and its European partners believe is a process that has so far too heavily favored Moscow’s demands.

The process is stuck on differences over territorial concessions and security guarantees for Ukraine.

NATO allies fear Russia is preparing for a much larger war in Europe, and that Ukraine is the vanguard for the Kremlin’s covert ambition to restore much of its Soviet-era sphere of influence.

They say Russia is using Ukraine to test the strength of the alliance, including its willingness to defend Baltic states along Russia’s border.

Allies want Trump to take a harder line against Moscow over the war and find a settlement that does not reward the Kremlin for its aggression, which could incentivize similar action elsewhere in post-Soviet Europe.

Putin, in his annual Q&A with the media and public last week, called accusations that Russia seeks to invade European NATO allies “hysteria” and “lies.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte gave a stark warning about Russia at a speech in Berlin earlier in December.

“We are Russia’s next target. I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don’t feel the urgency. And too many believe that time is on our side. It is not. The time for action is now,” Rutte said, adding: “Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared.”