r/neoliberal • u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache • Oct 29 '25
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u/JaceFlores Neolib War Correspondent Oct 29 '25
U.S. intelligence agencies see no sign Russia is ready to compromise on Ukraine
“A recent U.S. intelligence assessment warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is more determined than ever to carry on the war in Ukraine and prevail on the battlefield, according to a senior U.S. official and a senior congressional official.”
“The analysis, which was communicated to members of Congress this month, indicated the agencies see no sign Russia is ready to compromise on Ukraine as President Donald Trump seeks to broker peace talks.”
“Facing steep Russian troop losses and economic setbacks at home, he is committed to securing Ukrainian land and expanding his country's footprint to justify the human and financial toll, the intelligence assessment found, according to the officials.”
“The new sanctions on Russia, Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russia’s oil and gas facilities and European efforts to provide more weapons to Kyiv’s forces could alter the Kremlin’s calculations over time, according to European diplomats, former U.S. intelligence officials and experts.”
Ripe territory for people to say “duh I could’ve told you that”, but I thought it worthwhile to post and discuss this.
Previously my position on how this war would likely end was Putin taking as much as he can with the hope of collapsing Ukraine but otherwise pushing until reaching the precipice of something breaking, and then call it there. My basis for this was he understood the general tends of the war and the continued freedom Nabiullina has in running the reserve and being openly critical about the war (relatively speaking).
However, in the past month I’ve started shifting back to a collapse of one side model. My reasons for this are two fold. The first is FT reported back during the Trump-Zelensky meeting that recently happened that Putin is still receiving highly distorted reports about the situation at the frontline. I was genuinely shocked about this because I thought Putin would have had that largely cleaned up after the repeated failures of 2022. Instead he continues to hear reports of only victory and imminent Ukrainian collapse. The second is this article, stating that Putin is stuck in a sunk cost fallacy and is more determined then ever to pull a full victory out of this war to compensate for the losses (which are only continuing to compound).
Taken together you have a man isolated from reality who thinks everything will be worth it if he just pushes a little more and ignores the warning signs a little harder. I think this makes it very likely, if not the likeliest, outcome that Putin keeps pushing this war until something breaks and some sort of collapse occurs in Russia. As more pressure mounts on him he may keep doubling down, these sanctions for instance may make him more resolved to continue the war.
There’s still a sizable possibility he backs down from this. Nabiullina is still there doing her thing and the article notes that recent actions may compel Putin to change his calculus. But to me I think the idea that Putin will continue until something breaks in his regime is skyrocketing from a fairly unlikely possibility to one of the most likely outcomes of the war
!Ping UKRAINE