{"id":46527,"date":"2025-08-24T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46527"},"modified":"2025-08-24T21:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T02:46:15","slug":"former-cia-director-putin-clearly-has-no-intention-to-end-war-unless-hes-given-additional-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=46527","title":{"rendered":"Former CIA director: Putin \u2018clearly\u2019 has no intention to end war \u2018unless he\u2019s given additional territory\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Retired Gen. David Petraeus,<\/u><\/a> a former CIA director and former head of U.S. Central Command, on Sunday said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2002<\/u><\/a>has no intention of agreeing to a peace deal \u201cunless he\u2019s given additional territory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an interview on ABC News\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Petraeus said he was not optimistic about the prospects of a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky\u2002<\/u><\/a>\u2014 for which President Trump\u2002<\/u><\/a>has been pushing \u2014 and said he does not see reason to believe such a meeting would prove successful, even if it did materialize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOut of the last two weeks, really, Jonathan, I think what should be clear to all, and I think it is even clear to President Trump, is that despite all of his efforts \u2014 again, which we applaud, to end the war, to stop the killing \u2014 Vladimir Putin clearly has no intention of doing that unless he\u2019s given additional territory,\u201d Petraeus told ABC News\u2019s Jonathan Karl.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former CIA director noted the additional Ukrainian territory Putin wants \u201cis heavily fortified, and Russian forces would have to fight for years at the pace that they\u2019re going\u201d to capture it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to media reports, Putin wants all of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions<\/u><\/a> in the Donbas, including areas Russia does not currently occupy, and is willing to freeze the front lines in Kherson and Zaporizhzhia \u2014 marking a slight retreat from Putin\u2019s previous demand for all four regions outright. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite Trump\u2019s claims of progress in peace talks, Russia has not shifted its core demands for Ukraine\u2019s complete political and military capitulation, as Putin reiterated in public remarks following the high-stakes summit with Trump in Alaska.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe wants to displace President Zelensky, replace him with a pro-Russian figure, and frankly, to demilitarize Ukraine,\u201d Petraeus said, \u201cnone of which can be acceptable to Ukraine nor to the European countries and the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn fact, by the way, President Zelensky, under the Ukrainian Constitution, doesn\u2019t even have the authority to declare that certain territory would be controlled by the Russians. That would have to go to a national referendum,\u201d Petraeus continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petraeus made clear that Putin remains the roadblock to peace and urged the U.S. and Ukrainian allies to push negotiations along by increasing aid to Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it should be clear: The obstacle to peace at this point in time is President Putin,\u201d Petraeus said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what we need to do is change those dynamics by helping Ukraine far more than we have so far: lifting restrictions on them, seizing the $300 billion of frozen reserve in European countries of Russian money, giving it to Ukraine, more sanctions on Russia, even including the Gazprombank and curtailing the export of oil further than we have already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, a former CIA director and former head of U.S. Central Command, on Sunday said he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2002has no intention of agreeing to a peace deal \u201cunless he\u2019s given additional territory.\u201d In an interview on ABC News\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Petraeus said he was not optimistic about the prospects of a meeting between […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":46528,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[1870,1359,1483],"class_list":["post-46527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-cia","tag-former","tag-he"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46530,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46527\/revisions\/46530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}