VIPS tells President Trump that once apprised of the reality on the ground (and in the air) by his intelligence advisors, he might choose to do what is in his power to end the disaster in Ukraine.
President Donald Trump on call with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the White House on Aug. 18, 2025, before the U.S. president met with with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and European and NATO leaders in the Oval Office. (White House/Daniel Torok)
August 28, 2026
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Dangerous Talk of Putin’s ‘Loss’ in Ukraine
Dear President Trump:
The New York Times is reporting that the outlook for Russia in Ukraine is “bleak.” C.I.A. Director John Ratcliffe is said to have explained that to the Russians while in Moscow Tuesday. He reportedly urged them “to cut a deal before their military and economic situation gets worse.”
We write you on the chance you may be taken in by this latest song and dance. We believe it is orchestrated by the same kind of geniuses who told President Joe Biden to announce on July 13, 2023, in a major speech in Helsinki, that the Russians had “already lost the war” in Ukraine.
We suggest that you “kick the tires,” if they try to sell you that same car. Nothing could be further from the truth. Your predecessor was ill-served by intelligence. We suspect you are getting the same tendentious treatment from your own advisers. Indeed, many of them seem unconscionably relaxed about risking wider war with Russia over Ukraine.
We offer you, as we offered Biden, the following jogs to memory:
— December 3, 2022: “Russia is using up ammunition quite quickly. It’s pretty extraordinary. Our sense is that Russia is not capable of indigenously producing what they are expending at this stage.” (National Intelligence Director Avril Haines)
— March 18, 2022: “Russia has lost in Ukraine. The West should recognize this Russian defeat.” (Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute)
— July 1 & July 7, 2023: “Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare; its economy badly damaged for years to come.” (C.I.A. Director William Burns)
The Church of Latter-Day Pundits
Two NY Times journalists who specialize in intelligence matters report Thursday that this latest version of the Russia-has-already-lost story is “the current C.I.A. director’s assessment.” They warn somewhat quizzically that, despite this, President Putin might ignore it “and choose to keep fighting.” But why would Putin do that?
Indeed, the Gray Lady and her intelligence sources seem quite baffled by why Putin would keep trying when, according to U.S. officials and pundits, he started losing three and a half years ago and continues to lose. Could it possibly be that it was they that were wrong – terribly wrong?
Dismissing that as a possibility, they perform a somersault, straighten up, and chose to blame Putin’s advisers who, the Times says, have not “given Putin honest assessments of the war’s trajectory and toll.”
If Black Humor is at work here, we do not find it funny. The slaughter in Ukraine brings hundreds of victims daily.
Russia is methodically advancing in Donbass along a thousand-mile front, it is weathering drone attacks on its oil and civilian infrastructure with enhanced interception and has enforced a virtual blockade on Ukraine’s largest port, Odessa, with withering aerial attacks. Ukraine’s manpower and interceptor shortages make it impossible for it to ever recover its lost territory, as you acknowledged after your meeting with President Putin in Alaska.
Mr. President, if you were given access to reality-based, honest intelligence, you would be able to decide for yourself whose advisers have gotten it right over these past five years. And, once apprised of the reality on ground (and in the air), you might choose to do what is in your power to end the disaster in Ukraine.
Déjà Vu
This is not the first time we advised a president to seek unbiased advice with a view toward avoiding unnecessary, catastrophic war. We did that just a few hours after Colin Powell’s deceptive presentation to the U.N. Security Council on February 5, 2003.
Today, we strongly suggest that you broaden your circle of advisers, as we urged President George W. Bush to do then, in our first VIPS Memorandum, which ended with this recommendation:
“After watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.”
FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)
-
Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer (ret.)
- Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.); Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
-
Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
-
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
-
Larry C. Johnson, former C.I.A. and State Department Counter Terrorism officer
-
John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
-
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
- Douglas MacGregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS)
-
Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
-
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer/NE, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
-
Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq
-
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
-
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
-
Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War
Please Donate to
CN’s Summer
Fund Drive Today!
…p.s., Ladies & Gentlemen, in response to “VIPS MEMO: Dangerous Talk of Putin’s ‘Loss’ in Ukraine,” August 28, 2026. I, submit:
…. MEMO TO: VIPS, et al!
…..FM: LeoSun
…. RE: Another Colossal ‘WIN’ for Everyone! 1) Douglas MacGregor, Colonel, USA (ret.) (associate VIPS) IS a Veteran Intelligence Professional for Sanity. F/YEAH!!! Like VIPS, rock’n “off-the-charts” not only intelligence; BUT, “emotional” intelligence. No doubt, per VIPS’ “lived” experience, “Dollars, today. Blood, tomorrow.” Peter Kuznik;
2) Hence, Ray McGovern/Clare Daly + VIPS for President 2028!!! G.O.A.T. “Make it Rain!”
3) NEEDED, A.S.A.P.: An Amendment to The U.S. Constitution that reads, “You don’t have to be born in the USA to be President of The Divided States of Corporate America. Consequently, Clare Daly fm Ireland is “On Board!” Every Day Of The Week, Ray McGovern/Clare Daly + VIPS, for President 2028!!!
4) Everybody knows, “Politeness is the key to the heart of the people.” IMO, Clare Daly is exactly who would “politely” Shake it Up!!! Outta the gate, those who are not “Dear” would f/know, “They’re, yesterday.”
5) *“It’s us versus them, whoever they are. And the government helps to feed that. The government generates perceptions. And people think, well, there must be a reason for the government’s position on this war.” Dennis Kucinich. “ And what’s happened is this is being twisted, and suddenly Ukraine becomes a bloodbath of a chess board where these innocent people are just being used as pawns in a game of nations.”
…..“But because there’s a game of nations going on and the US was concerned about Russia’s pivot to Asia, well, guess what? This whole thing is blowing up in the face of the West. We forced Russia to pivot to Asia, and now Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia. There’s a whole new world being formed, and the catalyst of it is the misjudgment that occurred about Ukraine and the effort to try to control Ukraine that began in 2014 that most people aren’t aware of, I would say.” Dennis Kucinich/Chris Hedges, “How the war machine took over the Democratic Party,” December 16, 2022.
Onward & Upwards! TY.
Colonialism is in its death throes and those who profit off its blood drenched legacy can’t imagine this is possible. They’ll drag all of us into the abyss rather than accept the inevitable. We never needed a robust international tribunal more than we need it now. These freakazoids must be stopped.
The war in Ukraine is the CIA’s war from top to bottom. It is illegal and immoral. It is also stupid. It serves no one but the egos of a few and the pocketbooks of our Epstein-elite. So once again, America’s perpetual neocon state doubles down on stupid. The CIA gives biased “intelligence” to the other branches of government in order to keep their “gravy train” war going just as the mainstream media feeds their audience a constant diet of manure to support these neocon ventures as well. Thus they drag us all to the edge of the abyss and then beyond.
Gee, VIPS, all you had to do was resurrect your Iraq War memo, and just change a few names and places. Pretty sad!!
And Ukraine is doing SO well, that with the male population under 75 now depleted, they will start – maybe will have already started – conscripting women to fight on the front lines.
Maybe they are working with a wish and a prayer that after a religious empire leader freed Poland from godless communism that is a sign from heaven that that other Orthodox franchise competitor over the centuries can finally be swatted down with new century swattage.
If one logged into The Guardian daily, (hxxps://www.theguardian.com/international)
and read everything presented to the viewer about the Ukraine War, there are several
themes constantly fed to the viewer…
1) Russia is losing the war
2) Russia targets civilians
3) Russia is losing personnel at a greater rate than Ukraine and at a rate faster than can be replaced
4) Ukraine is shooting down the majority of Russian Drones and Missiles.
5) the war is progressing decidedly in Ukraine’s favour
6) Russia is running out of fuel
…which is why only gullible cretins still read The Guardian!
there was a time I financially supported the Guardian, albeit a very small monthly donation. Not anymore, I’m done with them, they’re a State Propaganda Tool.
I hope they read this…
and now the BBC which always offered free unlimited viewing of State Propaganda, aka News, are now soliciting viewers for money to watch their State Propaganda.
the latest Russia bashing from the guardian:
xxxx://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/28/russia-losing-6000-more-troops-than-it-can-recruit-each-month-in-ukraine-says-west
“Russia is losing about 6,000 more troops in Ukraine each month than it can recruit, western officials have said.
While Russia is still acquiring new battlefield recruits at speed, with an estimated rate of 1,000 a day, in the last two months even this has not been sufficient to replace those killed or injured.
“We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit is around 6,000 a month at the moment,” one western official said.”
who are these “western officials”? we are never informed as to who they are or how they ascertain these figures.
in Orwellian terminology, it’s called double-speak…
In George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty Four… the future has arrived… state censorship and control
they are pro UK government. (ie: controlled.)
For those of us who never served a day in any armed forces or in any intel capacity, let alone in the US Armed Force and/or the CIA but who’ve followed the conflict in the Ukraine since November 2013, often-times daily, specifically so since February 2022, it is crystal clear that not alone is Russia winning the War in the Ukraine but Russia is destroying the entire of what passes for the Ukraine’s Military, destroying its Intel capacities, destroying its Arms manufacturing and destroying the forest of lying engaged in by the US Security State and by the NeoCons, nowadays aka the ZioCons who, quite literally, surround Tramp on all sides, having previously surrounded both Obama during his 2nd Term from 2013 to 2017 and Biden throughout his disastrously genocide-enabling Presidency and destroying the entire European Union that is “led” by some of the most disastrously inept, ignorant and ineluctably incompetent European political leaders in history. And I know and fully understand how the EU is collapsing in on itself despite the fact that the majority of the electorate across the EU has yet to be struck with the realization that the reason why both their Economy and their Society is imploding derives from and is driven by the in(s)ane and shameful bending of the knee by EU Member State “leaders” and our even more in(s)ane EU Lieders to the NeoCon-ZioNastis who have infected the US Government, think-tanks and Media and almost all EU Governments, think-tanks and Media. Much and all as I dislike both the hard Right and hard Left across Europe, their election to Governments all across Europe is fast approaching and what I fear is the obstacles that will be put in their way by the European Old Guard who continue in wanting to defeat Russia and break it up into little pieces, just as did the Germans, the British, the Poles, the Finns, the French and many more across Europe just 80 years ago. There is unfinished business in Europe and it is my sincere and heartfelt wish that the soldiers and leadership of today’s Russia will clean house from the Dnieper to the west coast of Ireland and to Portugal, Italy, Malta, Cyprus and Greece.
I don’t know who controls the Labour party in Britain, but whoever does, is fully committed to Russia phobia and perpetual war to varying degrees, depending on the issue with Russia.
I think Europe and especially the British have a death wish. If this Ukraine business ever goes nuclear, and it could, there will only be one outcome, Europe and especially the British Isles will be charred embers and the end of the colonial powers.
Zionists control the Labour party and have done for quite a while now. The same handful of donors and proxy-donors fund most of our political class, buying influence in our wider Establishment, and owning outright most of our state-corporate media. The evidence of this is in the public domain for anyone who wishes to look. And no, they don’t give a crap if the UK ends up as an uninhabitable pile of smoking, melted rocks off the coast of Europe. Successive neoliberal zio-fascist Uniparty governments have turned us into a vassal state of the US/Zionist Western Empire, entirely against the interests of the UK population – and with no electoral mandate whatsoever from 4 of the 5 countries that comprise the Union and more than 2/3 of the UK electorate. Meanwhile, thanks to the relentless lies, misinformation and distractions pumped out by the state-corporate media here, most of the UK population are still incapable of grasping the speed with which we are approaching the edge of the cliff-edge – let alone why the undeniable disintegration of our country is happening. I live very close to three US bases – and a nuclear power-station: my only consolation is that if/when the balloon finally goes up, for me, at least, it will be mercifully quick.
I very much enjoyed reading your reply, THANK YOU!!
the scary part is you’re correct, and the idiot movers and shakers who are *not* of the Jewish faith, allow it to go on, and on and on
Unfortunately, you are right.
There is an article by Kit Klarenberg on the Grayzone website which may well answer your question.
According to an assessment in a German article i read, Putin,s intent is to reestablish communism in Russia. Hankus
If you read even Ukrainian telegram accounts (leave alone Russian accounts of those people who live/used to live in Ukraine ) you will see in their daily posts and videos that ALL of this is false.
There is another way of looking at this:
Inventing a Russian defeat, for the media to sell to the US public, gives Trump his way out of the war in Ukraine. The US wins, Russia wins and the Ukrainians are trashed.
Fair assessment! Enough supporting the Nazi Kiev regime. Putin is not bluffing; he will use the nukes.
He is not afraid to die if he doesn’t have a choice. Russia stood strong in all years of its existence.
Time to stop the Russophobia and repair the relationship with this great nuclear power.
Thanks for this historically based piece on the folly of intentional deceptive intel. Too sad for all of us that ego, greed, and profiteering trump reality.
Thanks to VIPS for this and previous warnings. Unfortunately, as before, they are continuing to lie and misinform the current disgrace in the WH about Ukraine/Russia AND Iran.
Regis –
Could you please clarify your comment. It can be read as a statement, the opposite of which I think you meant to say?
I’m sorry that Trumpolini, befogged of brain, succumbs to the warp & weft in the weaving of his own unreality. What goes around eh, DonDon?
But give him credit too. He goes Turd-Blossom one better. It’s not a new reality he & his chumps have been creating for us to follow & to figure out … (FTS) but an anti-reality baptized in “heavy water” carried by the defatigable, A#1 news source in the land.
What’s next? Anti-gravity? Will DonDon morph into a bulging dirigible to hover over the land off-gassing a kind of narcotizing vapor that renders unwitting imbibers stupid? Talk about high on your own supply.
Seems as if much of his work is already done for him, gratis, as sleepy denizens of the greatest land in the history of the Universe doze through another hair-trigger showdown without a moment’s reflection on what it may mean for their progeny, let alone their own portfolios.