Today the NY Times published a long piece on the relations between the Trump administration and the government of Ukraine.
The Separation: Inside the Unraveling U.S.-Ukraine Partnership (archived) – NY Times, Dec 30 2025
There is a lot of gossip about the back and forth between the U.S. Ukraine and Russia in it, but also some interesting nuggets which confirm U.S. intelligence involvement in attacks on Russia and Russia related shipping:
Even as Mr. Trump bullied Mr. Zelensky, he seemed to coddle Mr. Putin. When the Russian stiff-armed peace proposals and accelerated bombing campaigns on Ukrainian cities, Mr. Trump would lash out on Truth Social and ask his aides, “Do we sanction their banks or do we sanction their energy infrastructure?” For months, he did neither.
But in secret, the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military, with his blessing, supercharged a Ukrainian campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil facilities and tankers to hobble Mr. Putin’s war machine.
The CIA, like usual, seems to work at cross purpose of Pentagon policies:
In so many ways, the partnership was breaking apart. But there was a counternarrative, spooled out largely in secret. At its center was the C.I.A.
Where Mr. Hegseth had marginalized his Ukraine-supporting generals, the C.I.A. director, Mr. Ratcliffe, had consistently protected his own officers’ efforts for Ukraine. He kept the agency’s presence in the country at full strength; funding for its programs there even increased. When Mr. Trump ordered the March aid freeze, the U.S. military rushed to shut down all intelligence sharing. But when Mr. Ratcliffe explained the risk facing C.I.A. officers in Ukraine, the White House allowed the agency to keep sharing intelligence about Russian threats inside Ukraine.
Now, the agency honed a plan to at least buy time, to make it harder for the Russians to capitalize on the Ukrainians’ extraordinary moment of weakness.
One powerful tool finally employed by the Biden administration — supplying ATACMS and targeting intelligence for strikes inside Russia — had been effectively pulled from the table. But a parallel weapon had remained in place — permission for C.I.A. and military officers to share targeting intelligence and provide other assistance for Ukrainian drone strikes against crucial components of the Russian defense industrial base. These included factories manufacturing “energetics” — chemicals used in explosives — as well as petroleum-industry facilities.
…
In June, beleaguered U.S. military officers met with their C.I.A. counterparts to help craft a more concerted Ukrainian campaign. It would focus exclusively on oil refineries and, instead of supply tanks, would target the refineries’ Achilles’ heel: A C.I.A. expert had identified a type of coupler that was so hard to replace or repair that a refinery would remain offline for weeks. (To avoid backlash, they would not supply weapons and other equipment that Mr. Vance’s allies wanted for other priorities.)
As the campaign began to show results, Mr. Ratcliffe discussed it with Mr. Trump. The president seemed to listen to him; they had a frequent Sunday tee time. According to U.S. officials, Mr. Trump praised America’s surreptitious role in these blows to Russia’s energy industry. They gave him deniability and leverage, he told Mr. Ratcliffe, as the Russian president continued to “jerk him off.”
The energy strikes would come to cost the Russian economy as much as $75 million a day, according to one U.S. intelligence estimate. The C.I.A. would also be authorized to assist with Ukrainian drone strikes on “shadow fleet” vessels in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Gas lines would start forming across Russia.
“We found something that is working,” a senior U.S. official said, then had to add, “How long, we don’t know.”
But is it really working? The likely too high estimate of US $75 million damage per day is a relatively small in comparison to the total $110-150 billion per year of Russian gas- and oil sector revenue that flows towards the state.
The gas lines that had formed at a time were caused by logistical problems, not by a general lack of gasoline. It took a about a week to fix that. Russia does have more refining capacity than the country needs. Local demand is prioritized over exports. Attacks on refineries are unlikely to ever bring Russia to its knees.
Another part of the NY Times piece is about an alleged concession Putin was said to have made during peace talks with the Trump administration. It insists that Putin agreed to give up on those parts of Kherson and Zaparozhia that have not yet been captured if the Ukrainians retreat from Donetsk and Luhansk oblast. The Russian side has, to my best knowledge, never confirmed such a deal. The description of the Times on how this allegedly came to pass lets me doubt that any such deal really exists:
“I refuse to be a guilty man,” Mr. Kellogg told a colleague.
At an Oval Office meeting, still hoping to salvage some equity in Ukraine’s territorial concessions, he had offered a plan for a land swap. In this “two-plus-two plan,” Mr. Putin would withdraw from Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts. Ukraine would relinquish the rest of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The plan, Mr. Kellogg admitted, was a Hail Mary, and Mr. Trump told him, “Putin probably won’t go for it.” Still, he directed Mr. Witkoff, “Get this to Putin.”
They met on Aug. 6. Mr. Putin didn’t go for it; he was not about to cede territory voluntarily. But Mr. Witkoff heard what he interpreted as a breakthrough. According to a Trump adviser, the envoy reported back that Mr. Putin had told him: “OK, OK, we can’t figure out a cease-fire. Here’s what we will do, we will do a final peace deal, and that peace deal is the balance of Donetsk.”
Actually it was more.
In this “three-plus-two plan,” the Russians would also keep Crimea and get the last sliver of Luhansk. Instead of withdrawing from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as Mr. Kellogg had proposed, they would keep the territory they’d already conquered. The plan was not the total control Mr. Putin had long demanded, but it was still far more favorable to Russia.
…
[After the August meeting in Anchorage the presidents] took no questions, leaving the world to puzzle over just what they had agreed on. But according to two Trump advisers, Mr. Putin repeated what he had told Mr. Witkoff: He would end the war if he could get the balance of Donetsk.
I very much doubt that the Russian president agreed to this. Putin is a trained jurist and the inclusion of Kherson, Zaparozhia, Dontesk and Luhansk into the Russian Federation is a part of its constitution. Not even the president can overrule it.
The so called peace process the U.S. pursues runs on illusions. This while the Russians clearly see what the CIA is doing to them.
They surely won’t fall for the conditions the U.S. is trying to impose on them.
Reprinted with permission from Moon of Alabama.
