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CIA, with Trump’s blessing, is using Ukrainians to sabotage Russia’s energy infrastructure and oil tankers – NYT

Iona Cleave, The telegraph, Fri, 02 Jan 2026, https://www.sott.net/article/503791-CIA-with-Trumps-blessing-is-using-Ukrainians-to-sabotage-Russias-energy-infrastructure-and-oil-tankers-NYT

Attacks on oil refineries have cost Moscow $75m a day, according to US intelligence

The CIA secretly taught Ukraine how to target crucial components of Russia’s oil refining infrastructure and its sanction-busting shadow fleet, according to officials.

Despite Washington pulling back its support for Kyiv’s war effort under the Trump administration, it has emerged that US intelligence and military officers continued to find new ways to stifle Vladimir Putin’s war machine.

Since June, the CIA, with Donald Trump’s blessing, has been covertly providing specific intelligence to bolster Ukraine’s aerial offensive against oil refineries inside Russia, according to the officials.

The move came amid Mr Trump’s growing frustration with Putin’s unwillingness to negotiate while Russian forces accelerated attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The US has long shared intelligence with Kyiv that helps with attacks on Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and provides advanced warning of incoming Russian missiles and drones.

Under persuasion by Ukraine sceptics in the White House, led by JD Vance, the vice-president, and his allies, Mr Trump froze military aid in March and intelligence sharing was suspended as a result.

However, The New York Times, citing officials, said the CIA heavily lobbied for the agency to keep sharing intelligence.

Before summer, the impact of the strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure – which often hit storage depots or structures easily repaired – had been relatively minimal.

Under a new plan, crafted by the CIA and US military, the campaign was concentrated exclusively on oil refineries, targeting a newly found Achilles heel.

A CIA expert had identified a coupler device that is so difficult to replace that it could lead to a facility remaining shut for weeks.

The strikes became so successful that Russian oil refining was reduced by as much as a fifth on certain days, cutting exports and leading to domestic fuel shortages.

It was costing its economy an estimated $75m (£55m) a day, according to US intelligence.

Comment: That’s certainly one way to make your otherwise useless sanctions work: just start blowing up your opponent’s oil business! Uniquely American…
In response, Mr Trump praised the strikes for the leverage and deniability they gave him as Putin continued to stonewall negotiations, according to the sources.

It was first reported in October that Washington was closely involved in the planning of such strikes, but it wasn’t known that the CIA was responsible for the new focus of the campaign and identifying specific weaknesses in its energy infrastructure.

In late November, Ukraine also began a maritime campaign against Moscow’s shadow fleet, a clandestine network of hundreds of vessels carrying sanctioned oil to keep the Russian economy afloat.

Comment: At least we now know how ‘Ukraine’ struck a Russian oil tanker off West Africa.

Kyiv was using its explosive-laden long-range naval drones to blow holes in the ships, opening a new front in the war to cut off Russia’s largest source of funding and strengthen its negotiating position at US-led peace talks.

According to US and Ukrainian officials, the CIA was authorised to assist Kyiv’s military in these efforts, despite the risk of angering Putin’s regime.

It is not clear exactly when such help was approved by the Trump administration.

The New York Times report, citing hundreds of national security officials, military and intelligence officers and US, Ukrainian and European diplomats, charts the unwinding of the US-Ukrainian alliance over the past year.

The officials argued that as Mr Trump attempted to broker peace, factions in the White House and Pentagon pushed the president and his aides to make inconsistent, and at times, erratic decisions that damaged Kyiv’s war effort.

This included how the newly renamed Department of War, led by Pete Hegseth, repeatedly made unannounced decisions to withhold vital munitions from Ukraine that had already been given under the Biden administration, costing lives at the front.

A critical error, according to the officials and diplomats, was Mr Trump overestimating his rapport with Putin and ability to get him to meaningfully engage in negotiations.

Despite repeatedly touting his ability to secure an end to the war in “24 hours”, the Republican was forced to admit on Sunday his lack of a breakthrough after a year of on-off negotiations.

As he hosted Volodymyr Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago, he was forced to admit “it is not a one-day process deal. This is very complicated stuff”.

The officials also revealed that Mr Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart bonded over a love of Ukrainian women.

Following their disastrous meeting in February, Mr Zelensky returned six months later to win back Mr Trump’s support.

Sitting in the Oval Office, Mr Trump said “Ukrainian women are beautiful”, to which Mr Zelensky replied, “I know, I married one.”

In an odd sequence of events, Mr Trump rang up an old friend who had married a former Miss Ukraine who was then put on the phone to speak to Mr Zelensky.

“It humanised Zelensky with Trump,” an official who was there told the New York Times. “You could feel the room change.” The meeting, in which the Ukrainian leader was on the charm offensive, proved crucial for their relationship moving forward.

The officials also revealed that Mr Trump had approved a back channel being opened with Moscow before his inauguration, despite the fact that doing so before his first term prompted claims of conspiracy and became part of a long-running Russian investigation.

The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly introduced Mr Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff to Kirill Dmitriev, who would later emerge as the lead negotiator in peace talks with the US.

That move reportedly came after Joe Biden rejected a request for a secret letter granting Mr Trump and his team permission to begin talks during the transition, for fear the incoming president would sell out Ukraine in a deal.

Comment: So, apparently ‘an edge on the oil markets’ is more important to ‘the peacemaker’ than actual peace.

January 5, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Russia, Ukraine, USA, weapons and war