INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
01.01.2025
January 1st, 2026
Greetings! Happy New Year to you & your family! Today, in a New Year’s Day special edition of the INTREP360 Intelligence Report, we want to focus on recommending a New Year’s resolution for President Donald Trump: Please stop falling for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lies & disinformation!
As our friends at the New York Post opined last week, “Putin’s entire war is a lie.” He is only after capitulation, not peace.
Photo credit: Russia One. Putin addresses the Russian people on New Year’s Day, 2026.
No business deal is going to dissuade him from pursuing his maximalist demands in Ukraine and ultimately his designs in Europe to either destroy NATO or to reset the defensive alliance to its pre-1997 borders.
Intelligence data is only of worth if it informs your thought process, decision-making methodology & ultimately your actions.
Trump must resolve in 2026 to cease taking Putin at his word. Lying is deeply embedded into Russian culture.
Elena Gorokhova, perhaps, said it best. In her memoir about growing up in the Soviet Union, “A Mountain of Crumbs,” she put it this way.
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
Photo credit: Simon & Schuster. A Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova.
Putin & his Kremlin ilk are no different than their Soviet predecessors. Lying is a Kremlin way of life.
Fortunately, Americans & our democratic allies have no need to pretend. We clearly see Putin for what he is: a war criminal & a liar.
Let’s get started!
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OUR RECOMMENDATION FOR TRUMP’S NEW YEAR’S NATIONAL SECURITY RESOLUTION
For many Americans it was clear that Putin never had any intention of agreeing to the latest 20-point peace deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky presented to Team Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday.
Instead, Putin concocted a story that his personal residence – known as Dolgiye Borody, near the town of Valdai in the Russian Novgorod region – was targeted by 91 Ukrainian drones to provide him yet another excuse to justify his hardening stance in peace negotiations, validate ‘retaliatory’ strikes.
Photo credit: Unknown. Officially known as Object 201 & sometimes unofficially as Uzhin, Putin’s Dolgiye Borody residence is located on Lake Valdai in the Novgorod region of Russia.
Photo credit: Google Maps.
It was, simply put, Putin’s latest attempt to gaslight Trump. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated the false claim.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed the alleged attack was aimed at “sabotaging President Trump’s efforts to facilitate a peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.” He got part of that right. But it is Putin who is trying to sabotage the attacks as Mark noted yesterday on TVP World’s World News Tonight.
Without first validating the Kremlin’s allegation with his national security team, Trump told reporters after his phone call with Putin, “I don’t like it, it’s not good. This is not the right time. It’s one thing to be offensive, because they’re offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that and can’t do it. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.”
Russian gaslighting all too often works with Trump. It did here. He readily bought the story – one that the Kremlin cannot provide any credible evidence to support. Nor did they initially think they needed to. When pressed for evidence of the attack, Peskov told reporters, “I don’t think there needs to be any evidence when such a massive drone attack is carried out. This is a terrorist act, aimed at disrupting the negotiation process.”
Later, after Zelensky vehemently denied it, Moscow changed course. On Wednesday, Russia’s defense ministry released a video of a downed drone it says was used in the attack, and a map showing the alleged routes used by Ukrainian drones.
Neither could be verified. Then again – cue the Pink Panther movie fans! – even the bumbling Inspector Jacques Clouseeau once played by Peters Sellers could’ve figured out that the Russians are lying.
Photo credit: IndieWire.
On Tuesday, Trump’s Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said it was unclear whether the incident had occurred. The question remains whether this will be enough to change Trump’s opinion of Zelensky.
To date, Trump – wrongly! – has considered Zelensky as an obstacle to his peace plan with Russia. That was evinced many months ago in the Oval Office when he and Vice President J.D. Vance chastised Zelensky before the international media.
Trump later acknowledged his error in judgement after a CIA report assessed that Ukraine had not targeted Putin’s residence. Trump reposted a New York Post article on Wednesday that accused Putin of lying and obstructing peace on his Truth Social account. But the damage was already done – Putin had played him again.
Screenshot source: Donald J. Trump’s Truth Social.
Zelensky, however, rejected Moscow’s claim immediately, stating it was “another lie from the Russian Federation.”
European Union (EU) Foreign Policy Chief Kaja Kallas accused Moscow of spreading “unfounded claims,” describing the alleged attack as a “deliberate distraction” by which “Moscow aims to derail real progress towards peace by Ukraine and its Western partners.”
While Trump quickly expressed his displeasure with Ukraine allegedly targeting one of Putin’s personal residences, he seemingly forgot that Russia attempted to assassinate Zelensky at least ten times during the first year of the war.
Then again in March 2024 when Zelensky and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – head of a NATO member-state – narrowly avoided a Russian ballistic missile strike in the Black Sea port city of Odesa targeting their motorcade.
Nor did Trump comment about the 10-hour Russian aerial bombardment of Ukraine’s capital city – with over 40 ballistic missiles and 519 drones – targeting residential neighborhoods and a university dormitory the day before Zelensky’s meeting with Trump last week at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
As Zelensky noted, “This is the true attitude of Putin and his inner circle. They do not want to end the war and seek to use every opportunity to cause Ukraine even greater suffering.”
What is so apparent to so many people is lost upon Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. Trump far too often accepts Putin’s word at face value without reservation, while discounting Zelensky, NATO and EU leaders, along with the expert advice of his own generals, senior intelligence analysts and diplomats concerning Russia.
After 11 months of dealing directly with Putin and his negotiation team, Team Trump takes the bait at every opportunity. The President values his personal relationship with the Russian President – and the prospect of ‘economic opportunities’ – over the advice and council of professionals at his beck and call.
According to the New York Times, Trump lashed out at his Special Envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, after he publicly praised Zelensky as a courageous leader and voiced support for Ukraine, calling him an “idiot.”
Kellogg is not an idiot. He sees Putin for what he is: a liar. He also recognizes Zelensky for who he is: a modern-day Abraham Lincoln fighting to save his country.
Trump needs to recognize his blind spot when it comes to Putin and take corrective action. His business senses do not translate into national security interests, and his political appointees are failing him.
Photo credit: Atlantic Council. Putin left, Trump right at the August 2025 summit in Alaska.
As a 2026 New Year’s Resolution, the President should resolve to listen to his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe and Defense Intelligence Agency Maj. Gen. Constantin Nicolet.
If Putin lied about the attack on his personal residence, and the capture of Kupiansk, what else is he lying about? What else will he lie about in the future?
The war ends when Putin stops attacking. That can’t happen – and will not happen – until Trump stops falling for Putin’s lies.
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ICYMI
Our latest weekly national security column on Thursdays at 7AM ET is out today at The Hill. You can read it here or by clicking on the picture below. Our piece focuses on the growing ISIS threat in Nigeria & the across the Sahel – and draws heavily from Jon’s time serving as the Senior Intelligence Office (CJ2) for Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa in Djibouti.
Photo credit: Tunde Omolehin / AP.
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Thanks for reading! May 2026 be a great year for you & your family. We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment & share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.