U.S. intelligence: Putin has not abandoned plans to conquer Ukraine – WP

That is according to The Washington Post, citing people familiar with the intelligence analysis, Ukrinform reports.

The reports are not intended to assess President Donald Trump's high-stakes diplomacy to end the three-year Ukraine war or the prospects of a 30-day ceasefire proposal that U.S. and Ukrainian officials agreed on this week. But they underscore the tough task Trump and his national security team face, and raise the question of whether the White House is misreading Putin's willingness to seek peace.

One of the secret assessments distributed to Trump administration policymakers, dated March 6, says Putin remains determined to hold sway over Kyiv, a person familiar with the document said.

Some current and former U.S. officials said that the Russian leader, even if he agreed to a temporary truce, would use it to rest and refit his troops -- and was likely to break the terms of the deal by creating a provocation that he would blame on Ukraine. Other officials said the reports were more cautious on what peace terms Putin might accept. But they acknowledged that there is no sign Putin has relented in his demand that Ukraine be brought into Russia's security and economic orbit.

Other analysts said they thought the talks could yield a positive outcome if Washington and Europe play their cards right.

"For Putin to stop fighting, he has to think he can win in a negotiation," said Eric Ciaramella, who is also a former U.S. intelligence official and Russia expert at Carnegie. "But that doesn't mean he will win. The key to making a favorable and lasting ceasefire deal will be setting up security arrangements for Ukraine that would allow it to rebuild its military strength and deter a renewed attack."

While it is unclear whether Trump was personally briefed on the March 6 intelligence report, the person familiar said it is the type of analysis that has traditionally been shared with the president.

Some of the U.S. assessments on Putin’s intransigence have appeared to irk Trump, another person familiar with the matter said. Indeed, Trump and his aides in recent days have raised the prospect of stiff new sanctions on Russia if it refuses to agree to end the war.

Meanwhile, a European intelligence official, citing intelligence gathered within the past month, said officials in Moscow believe that Trump is weak, lacks a core set of principles and may be open to manipulation.

The European intelligence official said that if a permanent ceasefire is achieved, Moscow probably will revert to "hybrid" or nonmilitary means of undermining Ukraine, as it did in 2014 after it invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine and on through the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Those means include economic and diplomatic coercion; penetrating Ukrainian elites, business circles, security services and the military; and exerting influence through the Russian church in Ukraine, the official said. Russia's leaders have long painted Zelensky as a puppet of the West and tried to undermine his legitimacy.