Putin Escalates Bombing Campaign Against Ukraine After CIA Chief's Moscow Visit, Says Report

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be betting that a heavier bombing campaign can push Ukraine into accepting some of his territorial demands, possibly before winter ends. The escalation has unfolded in the ten days since CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unannounced trip to Moscow. Since then, Russian forces have stepped up missile attacks and strikes using jet powered drones, hitting not just military targets but civilian infrastructure such as power and water systems, grocery stores and food storage sites, according to the Washington Post.

The intensity was on display Friday, just as US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were expected to travel to Moscow and Kyiv in an attempt to revive stalled peace negotiations. A Russian drone hit the main headquarters of Ukraine's Security Service that day. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, called it a major escalation.

That confidence lines up with a broader read on Ratcliffe's trip: rather than convincing Putin to wind down the war, the visit may have pushed him further away from a ceasefire and toward continuing to press Ukraine for territorial concessions.

Yet a fourth person familiar with the matter said Ratcliffe left feeling he had gotten the message across without actually shifting Putin's thinking. That person described Russia's interpretation of the trip bluntly: Moscow saw it as an American attempt to talk Putin down, and Putin took that as a sign of American weakness rather than genuine leverage.

One person close to the discussions summarized the core warning Ratcliffe delivered as a simple one, essentially that Russia's situation would only worsen the longer the war dragged on, and that now was the moment to negotiate.

A Russian academic with close ties to senior diplomats, who spoke anonymously given the sensitivity of the topic, suggested the wave of strikes on Kyiv and other cities since the Ratcliffe visit may function as a message to Washington that Russia intends to keep up its offensive and sees no reason to soften its stance.

Money is also tight. Ukraine's government is pushing the European Union for an extra 27 billion dollars in financing to help close a gap in its defense budget.

Sagar is a journalist with an interest primarily in geopolitics and American domestic politics. Before joining Times Now, he wrote for Republic and Sw... View More