Sy Hersh’s latest Substack article on the prospects a successful outcome of the US attempt to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is important because it reveals the pathetic incompetence of the CIA. It appears that Sy reported what senior Trump officials told him about the on going negotiations with the Russians and Ukrainians, and that those officials were sharing their understanding of the capabilities of Russia and Ukraine based on intelligence reports and intelligence analysis provided principally by CIA analysts. Here are some of the more egregious claims by these officials:

Both nations are on the verge of economic and military collapse…

Putin is facing economic, political, military, and public pressure…

Putin is facing increasing political, economic, and military opposition in Moscow—mortgage rates are soaring and the Russian military is in serious disarray—has realized that he must end the war…

Ongoing warfare is not going to change the balance of forces. Putin is under pressure to end the war from his military and from a public staggered by its continuing cost, and inflation is at 8.4 percent…

Some of the most senior Russian generals, while still loyal to Putin, urgently want the depleted Russian Army to get out.

Putin is staying afloat by borrowing money from Russian banks that are not permitted to lend to the population.

Rather than debunk each of these claims, I will focus on the last two. Regarding the claim that Russian banks “are not permitted to lend to the population.” Wrong! Russian banks are fully allowed—and actively do—make loans to Russian citizens. According to Russia’s Central Bank and news reports from Reuters, Bloomberg, and The Moscow Times, there are no prohibitions on domestic lending to Russian individuals under current regulations (as of December 2025). Consumer lending (unsecured loans, mortgages, car loans, credit cards) is a major part of the Russian banking sector, with retail loan portfolios growing steadily because Russian wages have increased more than the rate of inflation — 20% — and are greater than the high interest rates. How could the Trump intelligence community get such an easy fact to verify so wrong?

Then there is the assertion that the Russian army is “depleted.” Russia’s active-duty military personnel strength as of December 2025 is approximately 1.32 million. This figure comes from the 2025 Global Firepower Index (reviewed January 2025) and cross-verified sources like Statista, which cite ~1.32 million active troops (part of a total force of ~3.57 million including reserves and paramilitary). My sources in Russia put the number at greater than 1.5 million. In February 2022, according to IISS Military Balance 2022 and Global Firepower, Russia’s active-duty military forces were 900,000.

In terms of Russia’s ground forces, they have grown from 300,000 in February 2022 to 623,000 in just the Ukrainian theater, according to Ukraine’s General Syrsky. Total Russian ground forces now exceed 1 million men. Does that sound like depletion to you?

So why does the CIA persist in peddling provably false information. I blame former CIA Director John Brennan. John Brennan, as CIA Director (2013–2017), initiated a major reorganization in March 2015 that integrated analysts (from the Directorate of Analysis) and operations officers (from the Directorate of Operations) into hybrid mission centers.

This “modernization plan” aimed to break down traditional silos — i.e., previously analysts and operations officers worked in separate units — by creating 10 new mission centers (focused on regions/threats like counterterrorism and cyber), where analysts, operators, digital experts, and support staff would work side-by-side under unified leadership. Brennan announced the overhaul on March 6, 2015, with implementation beginning shortly after (e.g., assistant directors named April 30, 2015). The ostensible goal was better integration for modern threats like cyber warfare, modeled partly on the existing Counterterrorism Center, but the actual effect subordinated independent analysis to the covert programs directed and managed by the operations officers.

When I started working as an analyst in the fall of 1986, the Directorate of Intelligence occupied the north wing of the CIA headquarters and the Directorate of Operations occupied the south wing… We were in our respective silos. I was the Honduras analyst when the war in Central America was a top priority for the Reagan administration. Funding the Contras and fighting the Sandinista was a major covert action program of the Director of Operations… The Central American Task Force (CATF) to be precise. The case officers in the CATF had every incentive to make the program look like it was being successful.

I vividly recall a briefing that I, along with the Nicaragua branch military analyst, gave to members of Congress on March 12, 1988 about a developing situation on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua. We were accompanied by the Chief of military operations for the CATF. We had intelligence that the Sandinistas were prepared to launch military operations against Contra forces in the Las Vegas salient of southern Honduras. During the course of that briefing we received news from headquarters that the Sandinistas had allegedly overrun a Contra base and were killing the CIA-backed Contras. What a disaster!

As we filed out of that briefing got into the van to take us back to headquarters, the CATF military chief began berating me and the military analyst for the Nicaraguan branch as having contributed to this alleged disaster for the Contras because our analysis did not enthusiastically support the CATF covert program. When I arrived back at headquarters and had a chance to look at the actual intelligence, I discovered that we had been told a lie. Instead of the Sandinistas swarming a Contra camp like Mexican troops attacking the Alamo, the intel report simply stated that a Contra patrol had skirmished with a Sandinista patrol 15 km south of the Contra base. The point of telling this anecdote is to illustrate the kind of pressure that we as analysts faced from the operations side of the house to spin a narrative that portrayed the Contra’s in the best possible light while downplaying the competence of the Sandinista forces.

I think a similar phenomena has been at play since the start of Russia’s Special Military Operation in February 2022. I believe that the analysts responsible for reporting on the Ukrainians and Russians are fully embedded in a Missison Center, something akin to the CATF, and that analysts face daily pressures from operations officers to paint the Ukrainians as victors and the Russians as losers who are on the verge of economic and political collapse. It is simple human nature… If you want to get promoted, don’t tell the truth, just go along with the program.

I also have learned that the primary source material the analysts are using is generated by the Ukrainians, who are working in concert with CIA officers deployed in Ukraine. I believe that the combination of peer pressure from operations officers to support a covert mission and a steady supply of tainted information from biased Ukrainian sources explains why the US officials who spoke to Sy Hersh are painting such a false and distorted picture of the war in Ukraine and are describing the Russians as incompetent, depleted and on the verge of crumbling. Garbage in, garbage out.

If the CIA has any hope of being able to provide something approaching objective, truthful analysis, the Mission Centers created by Brennan must be dismantled. There was a press report last February that current CIA director Ratcliffe was reviewing whether to reverse Brennan’s changes due to perceived negative impacts on human intelligence (HUMINT) and core missions. Let me assure you that the negative impacts are real, not perceived. So far, Ratcliffe has not acted to reverse Brennan. Maybe the defeat of Ukraine by Russia will finally convince Ratcliffe to take action to rescue analysts from the clutches of the operations officers.

Reprinted with permission from Sonar21.