This is the lead story in Reuters today. (You may have to find a way to get round their horrible money-grabbing ‘paywall’ to locate the piece). The article claims, “U.S. 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”.
What is the source for this? It appears to be attributed to “six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence”. One source is cited publicly in the article: Mike Quigley, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee. I would hazard a guess that the other 6 unnamed ‘sources’ are other members of the Committee.
This story – about Russia gearing up to invade Europe, (after he has conquered all of Ukraine), is also being put about by some European intelligence agencies and leaders [1]. It is a good example of how the intelligence agencies plant stories in the media to aim to influence public opinion. In this case I would imagine some kind of team effort with war-mongering US Congressmen. The textbook example of this was MI6’s working with the British government in the run-up to the (illegal) UK ‘invasion’ of Iraq in 2003, to dupe the British public into supporting the war. They took certain statements, such as “be ready to launch a WMD attack within 45 minutes” and publicised them, stripping away the context and nature of the source, (I believe in that case a taxi driver over-hearing a snippet of conversation probably about local battle-field weapons since Iraq had no means of getting anywhere near Britain), [2] and pushed it out as evidence of a huge threat to Britain. A little media sensationalism helped it over the line and we ended up with headlines like “Thousands of us could die” (Daily Mail). But; it, happens all the time.
The intelligence services are not some kind of independent agency providing informed and objective analysis as a free service to the media. On the contrary; the intelligence services fully understand that one way of achieving certain (military-industrial-corporate-neo-con-liberal-internationalist) objectives is to shape public opinion through media manipulation, and this is what they do. Israel intelligence services do it all the time. They generally, in the UK, use the Times. MI6 seems to have developed good relations with the Guardian.
Of course, it is nonsense that Russia ever wanted to take the whole of Ukraine. The initial ‘invasion force’ was nowhere near big enough for such a task. Nor would they be able to govern Western Ukraine – where the population is very nationalist and would certainly resist being governed by Russia. The idea that Russia is planning to invade Europe is fiction. Why would they? The same people who spin these fictions also mock Russia, saying that the snail’s pace of their advance in Eastern Ukraine means it will be years before they even take the whole of Donetsk. These lies/propaganda narratives serve three very specific purposes. Firstly; they aim to scare citizens of the West into accepting a large-scale expansion of the military industrial centre at their expense. Secondly; they aim to create an eternal rift between Russia and the West; this aim is, as far as one can tell, simply driven by hatred of Russia. Thirdly; it is about narrative management. The aim of this narrative line is to smother the actual reasons for the war, which are, give or take some small exaggerations here and there, essentially what Russia says they are. NATO expansion and attempts by Ukraine and their partners to reject the Minsk agreements. This latter, the attempt to legitimize abrogating Minsk, was itself accompanied by an obviously coordinated intelligence service led operation. In Q2-Q4 2021 as Ukrainian MPS, and at least one Baltic government minister started saying that “Minsk does not need to be respected because it was brought in at the point of a gun” so Western media articles and think-tanks started telling exactly the same story, (after the media at least, had nominally supported it for 6 years previously) [3]
Interestingly, in this case the head of US National Security has felt obliged to step in.
No, this is a lie and propaganda @Reuters is willingly pushing on behalf of warmongers who want to undermine President Trump’s tireless efforts to end this bloody war that has resulted in more than a million casualties on both sides.
Dangerously, you are promoting this false narrative to block President Trump’s peace effort, and fomenting hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.
The truth is the US intelligence community has briefed policymakers, including the Democrat HPSCI member quoted by Reuters, that US 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.[4]
What has probably happened is that a group of pro-war Congressmen have attended a briefing and then gone off and issued what they see as a corrective, to Reuters.
The propaganda spreads – like nasty rumours
Reuter’s hoax is now reproduced in the Guardian:
US intelligence believes Putin remains intent on capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet Union, Reuters reported, citing six sources familiar with US intelligence. [5]
The thing is – people reading this with its reference to “six sources familiar with US intelligence” might actually believe it. It is sheer lying and for the purposes of prolonging and even escalating the war. The Guardian must know that the head of US intelligence has issued a public rebuke and correction – but they do not report that. A quick internet search shows that this hoax has already been reproduced by other media outlets around the world.
One can find reports about Tulsi Gabbard’s correction of the record in Western media, but they are few and far between. Very interestingly most of the reports of this important correction appear in Russian state media, (expected), but also in Ukrainian media. The propaganda is being produced by the West – who want to prolong the war at Ukraine’s expense.
Meanwhile over at the Guardian – dreams of US troops boarding Russian linked vessels
Today the Guardian runs an amazingly irresponsible story. The story links the so-called Russian ‘shadow fleet’, of oil tankers, with the Venezuelan one, and is illustrated with a photo of US forces boarding a Venezuelan tanker. The author sounds a little mournful when he admits that “some analysts” do not think it likely that Europe will start abseiling down onto tankers carrying Russian oil any time soon. The provocation, of course, lies in the photo, and connecting it with the Russian ‘shadow fleet’. They are trying to create an atmosphere of war amongst the public. A senior UK military commander recently tried to tell people to get ready to sacrifice their sons and daughters. [6]
They, the block I identify above, as military-industrial-corporate-neo-con-liberal-internationalist, want war with Russia and are preparing the ground for it. They are being aided at every turn by the liberal Western media, (who are, in fact just the PR arm of the corporate and intelligence services sector).
Notes
- https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-foreign-minister-warns-russia-could-attack-nato-by-2029/3753463
- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/6762635/Iraq-Inquiry-45-minute-WMD-claim-was-lost-in-translation-says-Sir-John-Scarlett.html
- https://cepa.org/article/the-minsk-protocol-a-menace-to-ukraines-future/ / https://jacobin.com/2021/04/ukraine-russia-border-troop-buildup-ldpr-territories-shoigu / https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-with-ukraine-showdown-vladimir-putin-reveals-goal/a-60304587 / https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/04/16/ready-assault-ukraines-war-weary-troops-brace-new-onslaught/ and so on.
- https://x.com/DNIGabbard/status/2002484806978834862 (the account on X.com appears to belong to Tulsi Gabbard, head of US NSA. It has a ‘verified’ sign, though, to be honest I am not 100% sure how reliable that is – but it seems unlikely that it would be possible for such a high-profile account to be fake). Apparently confirmed by other US media: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/foreign-policy/4135307/gabbard-denies-intelligence-putin-war-goals-beyond-ukraine/
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/21/kremlin-russia-ukraine-war-end-changes-europe-miami-talks
- https://news.sky.com/story/uks-sons-and-daughters-need-to-be-ready-to-fight-amid-growing-russian-threat-says-head-of-armed-forces-13483860