The US and Ukraine do not acknowledge defeat in the conflict.
(Baonghean.vn) - American intelligence analysts believe that Ukraine has abandoned its counterattack against Russia, and the only thing prolonging the conflict is Washington and Kyiv's unwillingness to admit defeat, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh noted.
Writing on Substack on September 21, the veteran reporter quoted an anonymous source as saying: “It’s all lies... The fighting is over. Russia has won. There are no more Ukrainian attacks, but the White House and the American media must continue to lie.” He explained that this view is shared by many figures in the US intelligence community, and that the CIA, in particular, is skeptical of Kyiv’s claims of continuing the counteroffensive, unlike the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).
Trent Maul, Director of Analysis at the DIA, praised Ukraine's success to The Economist earlier this month, claiming Ukrainian forces have a “realistic” chance of breaking through Russian defenses this year. The British newspaper matched this assessment with that of a senior, unnamed US intelligence official who said the battlefield “could look similar” for the next five years. The source quoted by Hersh criticized leaders in both Moscow and Washington for acting “stupidly” during the crisis. He argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “provoked to violate the UN Charter” with a poorly prepared military campaign. US President Joe Biden retaliated with a proxy war and had to rely on media smears of Putin “to justify our mistakes.”
Moscow rejected the US claim that the campaign against Ukraine was an act of "unprovoked aggression," emphasizing that the people of Donbass have the right to self-determination under the UN Charter and acted appropriately in deciding to secede from Ukraine after the 2014 armed coup in Kyiv.
The Russian government insists it acted legally when it recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics in February 2022. A few days later, after Kyiv refused to halt its attacks on Donbass and withdraw its troops, Moscow launched a special military operation.
