"Russian soldiers can’t even last 35 minutes on the front line"... CIA chief presses Putin’s camp for an end to the war

[Financial News] U.S. President Donald Trump has made a bold move to end the war in Ukraine by sending the CIA chief directly to Russia to convey the reality of the battlefield. He pressed Moscow to enter peace talks sooner rather than later, citing an assessment that Russian forces have suffered heavy losses while capturing less than 1% of Ukraine’s total territory over the past 18 months.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on the 27th local time that John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA, recently visited Russia and met with Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), to deliver the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of the war.
The assessment Ratcliffe delivered was bleak. Russian forces are continuing to suffer mass casualties, yet they are making little progress on the front line.
In particular, the analysis reportedly said that the expected survival time for Russian soldiers deployed to the front line is less than 35 minutes, and that the territory Russia has gained over the past 18 months amounts to less than 1% of Ukraine’s total area.
Russia has continued its offensive in an effort to seize all of Donbas, which includes Donetsk Oblast and Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine. But U.S. intelligence believes that Ukrainian resistance, backed by drones, has prevented major advances, forcing Russia to absorb huge losses in manpower without pushing the front line forward significantly.
Ratcliffe advised that "it would be better to reach a ceasefire agreement before Russia’s military and economic conditions deteriorate further." He was not reported to have threatened additional U.S. sanctions or military measures if the war continues.
It is unusual for the CIA chief to travel to Russia in person and deliver such sensitive battlefield analysis. The Trump administration appears to be using the heads of intelligence agencies as part of its negotiation channel as it tries to restart efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
The fact that the message was delivered to Bortnikov, the FSB chief, is also drawing attention. The CIA has believed that aides to Vladimir Putin have not been properly reporting the course of the war and Russia’s losses.
The Trump administration appears to believe that delivering Washington’s sober battlefield assessment through an intelligence chief trusted by Putin, who came from the Soviet-era KGB, could influence his judgment as well.
Since taking office for a second term last year, President Trump has tried to mediate by meeting alternately with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, saying he would quickly end the war in Ukraine, but he has yet to find a compromise.
It remains unclear whether this latest effort will lead to a breakthrough in peace talks. Putin has not abandoned his core war aims of replacing the government led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a pro-Russian regime and disarming Ukraine. Ukraine, meanwhile, is unlikely to accept Russia’s demand that it give up eastern territory, even as U.S. military support has declined.
Some in European diplomatic circles say this winter could offer a window for negotiations, as Russian advances have stalled and Ukraine continues to inflict steady losses on Russia through drone attacks.
European officials are urging the Trump administration to involve national security officials who can deliver a blunt assessment of the battlefield to Russia, much like Ratcliffe. That stands in contrast to criticism that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have led the talks so far, have been overly friendly toward Russia.
Ratcliffe has recently taken on a series of covert envoy roles for President Trump. In January, after U.S. special forces captured Nicolás Maduro Moros and brought him to the United States, he visited Venezuela. In May, he traveled to Cuba to describe the country’s economic situation under the U.S. oil blockade and called for a policy shift.

[email protected] Kim Kyung-min Reporter