Above photo: Smoke rises from the Unecha oil pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region after a fire on Aug. 21, 2025, amid a campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil facilities.
While the Trump administration spoke publicly of peace talks, the CIA escalated a covert war on Russia’s oil infrastructure with the president’s approval.
A recent New York Times report documents this dual track, detailing how covert attacks continued even as public diplomacy gestured toward negotiations. The contradiction reflects divisions within the U.S. ruling class over how to keep wars going without provoking opposition at home.
What follows draws in part on New York Times reporting.
Two wars, one state
Within the administration, rival groupings clashed over Ukraine policy, not over whether U.S. imperialist interests should be defended, but over how. One current, associated with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, argued that the Ukraine war was bleeding U.S. military stockpiles needed for a larger confrontation with China. From this standpoint, Ukraine was a secondary theater draining resources from the main strategic priority.
Another current, represented by figures such as Gen. Jack Keane and Gen. Keith Kellogg, insisted that failure in Ukraine would signal a dangerous retreat. For them, NATO expansion eastward and the subordination of Russia were central to maintaining U.S. dominance in Europe. Failure on that front would expose the limits of U.S. power after decades of expansion.
Hegseth acted on his assessment. Military aid to Ukraine was repeatedly frozen, including critical artillery shipments. Senior officers described what amounted to a de facto suspension of Pentagon support. Those within the military who favored continued backing for Ukraine found themselves sidelined.
This paralysis did not restrain U.S. war policy. It merely shifted where decisions were made.
The Agency steps in
As the Pentagon stalled, the CIA moved forward. Under Director John Ratcliffe, the agency’s operations in Ukraine continued uninterrupted and, in some cases, expanded. Funding increased even as official military aid was frozen. When Trump briefly ordered a cutoff in intelligence sharing, the armed forces complied. The CIA did not. After Ratcliffe warned of the risks to agency operations, the White House quietly authorized continued intelligence flows.
Working in tandem with select military elements, the CIA intensified a campaign of drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and tankers. These operations were not conducted through Ukraine’s regular armed forces. They were carried out through Ukraine’s intelligence services, which relied heavily on networks of far-right and openly fascist paramilitaries.
At the center of this effort was the Russian Volunteer Corps, led by Denis Kapustin, a neo-Nazi organizer with long-standing ties to transnational fascist circles. That the CIA chose such forces was not an aberration. Imperialism has long promoted and relied on mercenary forces.
Trump approved the campaign privately. According to U.S. officials, he viewed covert escalation as a way to strike Russia while avoiding the political risks of open confrontation. Deniability was not an accident; it was the method.
Targeting the weak points
By early summer, CIA and military planners refined the campaign. Rather than symbolic attacks on easily repaired facilities, the focus narrowed to specific refinery components that were difficult to replace. The aim was not spectacle but sustained covert disruption.
The U.S. role remained indirect. Intelligence and targeting assistance were provided, but weapons and equipment were not. The attacks themselves were carried out by fascist paramilitaries, made effective by U.S. intelligence support.
The campaign later expanded to include Russia’s so-called shadow fleet — oil tankers operating outside the sanctions blockade in the Black Sea and Mediterranean.
Measuring the damage
U.S. intelligence estimates claimed the strikes were costing Russia up to $75 million per day. Officials spoke of gas lines and economic strain. One senior figure declared, “We found something that is working.”
Independent assessments told a different story. Analysts noted that even the highest estimates represented a small fraction of Russia’s annual oil and gas revenue. Reported shortages were linked to temporary logistical disruptions, not structural damage. Russia retained refining capacity well beyond domestic needs.
This divergence is not incidental. Intelligence estimates under imperialism are not neutral measurements; they are tools used to justify policy. In this case, inflated figures helped sell the program to a president looking for leverage. The damage was real, but it was manageable. Russia’s capacity to fight was not broken.
What the contradictions reveal
Publicly, the administration pressured Ukraine to accept territorial concessions in negotiations that bore little relation to the realities on the ground. Russia’s position was explicit: demilitarization, denazification, and the removal of NATO infrastructure. These demands are considered by Moscow to be nonnegotiable. Russian forces now control the Donbass, which was incorporated into Russia’s constitutional framework in 2022. (See “Why Russia recognized the Donbass republics.”)
Washington’s proposals ignored these facts. There was no negotiating space on terms that would require Russia to surrender territory it already holds militarily and claims politically.
Alongside this public track ran a covert one: economic warfare aimed at raising the costs of continued resistance.
This was not confusion. It was the expression of real divisions within the U.S. ruling class over how to allocate shrinking resources in defense of global dominance. One faction sought to conserve military capacity for Asia. The other refused to accept limits in Europe, fearing that failure to subordinate Russia would expose the weakening grip of U.S. imperialism after decades of expansion.
The CIA’s role was not an exception but a confirmation of how imperialism operates in periods of decline. When open policy stalls and consensus fractures, the most unaccountable arms of the state move to the foreground. Covert war becomes the preferred instrument precisely because it bypasses public debate, conceals failure, and allows imperialist violence to continue without political reckoning.
