WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin still wants to seize most of Ukraine, but his forces are so degraded by combat that they likely can only achieve incremental gains in the near term, the top U.S. intelligence officer said Wednesday.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, outlining the current U.S. intelligence assessment of the more than four-month war, said that the consensus of U.S. spy agencies is that it will grind on “for an extended period of time.”

“In short, the picture remains pretty grim and Russia’s attitude toward the West is hardening,” Haines told a Commerce Department conference.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy this week told U.S. President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders that he wants the war over by the end of the year.

But Haines’ comments suggested that the billions of dollars in modern arms being supplied by the United States and other countries to Zelinskiy’s forces may not give them the ability to turn the tide against Russia any time soon.

She said that Putin remains intent on overruning most of Ukraine even though Ukrainian forces beat back Russia’s attempt to capture the capital Kyiv in February, forcing Moscow to reduce its target to seizing the entire eastern Donbas region.

“We think he has effectively the same political goals that we had previously, which is to say that he wants to take most of Ukraine,” Haines said.

Russian forces, however, have been so degraded by more than four months of combat that it is unlikely they can achieve Putin’s goal any time soon, Haines said in her first public assessment of the war since May.

“We perceive a disconnect between Putin’s near-term military objectives in this area and his military’s capacity, a kind of mismatch between his ambitions and what the military is able to accomplish,” she said.

Haines said U.S. intelligence agencies see three possible scenarios, the most likely being a grinding conflict in which Russian forces “make incremental gains, with no breathrough.”

The other scenarios include a major Russian breakthrough and Ukraine succeeding in stabilizing the frontlines while achieving small gains, perhaps near the Russian-held city of Kherson and other areas of southern Ukraine.

It will take years for Russia to rebuild its forces, she said.

“During this period, we anticipate that they’re going to be more reliant on assymetric tools that they have, such as cyber attacks, efforts to control energy, even nuclear weapons in order to try to manage and project power and influence globally,” Haines said.

“In the interim, Russian troops are unlikely to be able to conduct multiple simultaneous operations,” Haines continued.

Putin’s priority now, she said, is making gains in the Donbas region and collapsing Ukrainian forces, a development that Russia assesses will “cause the resistance from within to slump.”

Haines’ comments came after a summit of NATO leaders on Wednesday branded Russia the most “direct threat” to alliance security and vowed to modernize Kyiv’s forces, saying it stood behind their “heroic defense of their country.” read more

Russia launched what it calls a “special military operation” against Ukraine on Feb. 24 to eliminate what it deemed a fascist government that threatened its security.

Ukraine, the United States and other countries say Russia is conducting an unjustified war of aggression against its neighbor.

Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; editing by Alistair Bell and Deepa Babington

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A newly released FBI document helps flesh out the contours of an investigation into classified material at former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate. But plenty of questions remain, especially because half the affidavit, which spelled out the FBI’s rationale for searching the property, was blacked out.

That document, which the FBI submitted so it could get a warrant to search Trump’s winter home, provides new details about the volume and top secret nature of what was retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January. It shows how Justice Department officials had raised concerns months before the search that closely held government secrets were being illegally stored and before they returned in August with a court-approved warrant and located even more classified records at the property.

It all raises questions whether a crime was committed and, if so, by whom. Answers may not come quickly.

A department official this month described the investigation as in its early stages, suggesting more work is ahead as investigators review the documents they removed and continue interviewing witnesses. Intelligence officials will simultaneously conduct an assessment of any risk to national security potentially created by the documents being disclosed.

At a minimum, the investigation presents a political distraction for Trump as he lays the groundwork for a potential presidential run.

Then there’s the obvious legal peril.

A look at what’s next:

WHAT IS THE FBI INVESTIGATING?

None of the government’s legal filings released so far singles out Trump — or anyone else — as a potential target of the investigation. But the warrant and accompanying affidavit make clear the investigation is active and criminal in nature.

The department is investigating potential violations of multiple laws, including an Espionage Act statute that governs gathering, transmitting or losing national defense information. The other laws deal with the mutilation and removal of records as well as well as the destruction, alteration or falsification of records in federal investigations.

The inquiry began quietly with a referral from the National Archives and Records Administration, which retrieved 15 boxes of records from Mar-a-Lago in January — 14 of which were found to contain classified information. All told, the FBI affidavit said, officials found 184 documents bearing classification markings, including some suggesting they contained information from highly sensitive human sources. Several had what appeared to be Trump’s handwritten notes, the affidavit says.

The FBI has spent months investigating how the documents made their way from the White House to Mar-a-Lago, whether any other classified records might exist at the property. The bureau also has tried to identify the person or people “who may have removed or retained classified information without authorization and/or in an unauthorized space,” the affidavit states.

So far the FBI has interviewed a “significant number of civilian witnesses,” according to a Justice Department brief unsealed Friday, and is seeking “further information” from them. The FBI has not identified all “potential criminal confederates nor located all evidence related to its investigation.”

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WILL ANYONE BE CHARGED?

It’s hard to say at this point. To get a search warrant, federal agents must persuade a judge that probable cause exists to believe there’s evidence of a crime at the location they want to search.

But search warrants aren’t automatic precursors to a criminal prosecution and they certainly don’t signal that charges are imminent.

The laws at issue are felonies that carry prison sentences.

One law, involving the mishandling of national defense information, has been used in recent years in the prosecution of a government contractor who stowed reams of sensitive records at his Maryland home (he was sentenced to nine years in prison) and a National Security Agency employee who transmitted classified information to someone who was not authorized to receive it (the case is pending).

Attorney General Merrick Garland hasn’t revealed his thinking on the matter. Asked last month about Trump in the context of a separate investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, he responded that “no person is above the law.”

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WHAT HAS TRUMP ARGUED?

Trump, irate over the records investigation, issued a statement Friday saying that he and his team have cooperated with the Justice Department and that his representatives “GAVE THEM MUCH.”

That’s at odds with the portrayal of the Trump team in the affidavit and the fact that the FBI search occurred despite warnings months earlier that the documents were not being properly stored and that there was no safe location for them anywhere in Mar-a-Lago.

A letter made public as part of the affidavit forecasts the arguments the Trump legal team intends to advance as the investigation proceeds. The May 25 letter from lawyer M. Evan Corcoran to Jay Bratt, the head of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence, articulates a robust, expansive view of executive power.

Corcoran asserted that it was a “bedrock principle” that a president has absolute authority to declassify documents — though he doesn’t actually say that Trump did so. He also said the primary law governing the mishandling of classified information doesn’t apply to the president.

The statute that he cited in the letter was not among the ones the affidavit suggests that Justice Department is basing its investigation on. And in a footnote in the affidavit, an FBI agent observed that the law about national defense information does not use the term classified information.

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WHAT HAS THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SAID?

The White House has been notably circumspect about the investigation, with officials repeatedly saying they will let the Justice Department do its job.

The director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, notified Congress on Friday that her office would lead a classification review of the documents recovered during the search. Intelligence officials will also conduct an assessment of any potential risk to national security, Haines wrote the leaders of two House committees who had requested it.

In the letter, Haines said any intelligence assessment will be “conducted in a manner that does not unduly interfere with” the criminal investigation.

President Joe Biden appeared Friday to mock the idea that Trump could have simply declassified all the documents in his possession, telling reporters, “I just want you to know I’ve declassified everything in the world. I’m president I can do — c’mon!”

He then said he would “let the Justice Department take care of it.”

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Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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Find more on Donald Trump-related investigations: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump

Published: 19:42 BST, 26 August 2022 | Updated: 02:12 BST, 27 August 2022

A Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty successfully infiltrated the inner circle of Mar-a-Lago and former President Donald Trump and is now under investigation by the FBI and Canadian authorities.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project were out Friday with a report on 33-year-old Inna Yashchyshyn, who told Florida socialites she was heiress Anna de Rothschild, and was “pelted everywhere” by guests at Trump’s private club.

The story comes out as the intrigue surrounding the Aug. 8 Mar-a-Lago raid over the presence of classified documents in the ex-president’s home and private club continues to swirl — highlighting whether those materials were safe as a fraud. could infiltrate Trump’s social circle.

The Secret Service declined to say whether they were investigating Yashchyshyn, and neither did the FBI — but several sources said they had been questioned by FBI officials about Yashchyshyn’s behavior.

Canadian law enforcement officials have confirmed that Yashchyshyn has been the subject of a large-scale investigation by a unit in Quebec since February, the Post-Gazette reported.

Yashchyshyn appeared at Mar-a-Lago last spring, with guest John LeFevre, a former investment banker, who recalls meeting her at the club’s pool on May 1, 2021 after arriving in a Mercedes-Benz SUV.

“It wasn’t just dropping the family name. She talked about vineyards and family estates and growing up in Monaco,” LeFevre recalls. “It was an almost perfect ruse and she played the part.”

He added that “everyone ate it” and Mar-a-Lago members “crawled all over her and because of the Rothschild mystique they never probed and instead tiptoed around her wearing velvet gloves.”

The next day, Yashchyshyn stood shoulder to shoulder with Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham at the president’s nearby West Palm Beach Golf Club.

The report included photos of Yashchyshyn, Trump and Graham, as well as her in a group photo with Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée, Kimberly Guilfoyle.

The Post-Gazette also shared images of Yashchyshyn’s various IDS – passports from the US and Canada, along with a driver’s license from Florida, in which she uses the Rothschild name – as well as Ukrainian and Russian passports she goes to by Inna Yashchyshyn and Anna Anisimova, respectively. .

Video of the day she met Trump proves the ruse was in play, as one man remarks, “Anna, you’re a Rothschild.”

“You can pay a million dollars for a picture with you and Trump. I’ll tell you you want. If you take the next shot and you hit that cart on the far left down there, I’ll give it to you for half a million,” he says as she hits golf balls.

However, when she spoke to the Post-Gazette, she said, “I think there’s a misunderstanding.”

Yashchyshyn said any passports or driver’s licenses bearing the Rothschild name were manufactured by her former business partner, 44-year-old Valeriy Tarasenko.

“It’s all fake and nothing happened,” Yashchyshyn said.

The various IDs have been turned over to the FBI, according to the Post-Gazette.

Yashchyshyn also said she spoke to the FBI on August 19.

The Florida driver’s license shows the address of a mansion where Yashchyshyn never lived.

To add another layer of complexity, she and Tarasenko are in a legal dispute, accusing her of being a con man who abused older men and insulted his daughter — a claim she denies.

She claimed in court that Tarasenko was a violent criminal who had previously held her hostage.

Both had connections to a fraudulent charity, the paper found.

Their legal battle sheds more light on any investigation into Yashchyshyn.

Tarasenko told the Post-Gazette that he spoke to the FBI twice to discuss Yashchyshyn’s trips to Mar-a-Lago.

In court documents, Tarasenko said Yashchyshyn “used her false identity as Anna de Rothschild to access and build relationships with the American politician.”[s]including but not limited to Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham and Eric Greitens.”

Greitens, the disgraced former governor of Missouri, recently lost a Republican primary to the state’s open Senate seat.

Greitens held a fundraiser at a mansion near Trump-owned Mar-a-Lago, where Yashchyshyn was also invited, according to the Post-Gazette.

LeFevre also recalled Yashchyshyn hanging out with Giulfoyle and several other Trump donors after driving people back to Mar-a-Lago from the golf fundraiser where she met Trump and Graham.

“We hung out by the pool for about three or four hours, drinking rosé and having a great time,” LeFevre said.

Yashchyshyn’s ex-husband, 48-year-old Russian-born American citizen, Sergey Golubev, also said he had spoken to the FBI.

He said he married Yashchyshyn in 2011 so she could get a US residency permit, then divorced in 2016.

He told the Post-Gazette that the agents were looking for her in connection with something “illegal – cheating people and stealing money,” Golubev claimed.

Ultimately, members of Trump’s inner circle were told Yashchyshyn was an impostor by Dean Lawrence, a Florida-based music creative director, when he visited Mar-a-Lago.

He had met Yashchyshyn in her role as president of the Rothschild Media Label, which advertised the teenage daughter of her business partner Tarasenko, whose stage name is “Sofiya Rothschild.”

In photos, ‘Sofiya Rothschild’ never shows her face.

‘I want to clarify something with you. I want you to know that she has nothing to do with the Rothschilds. Don’t do business with her,” he told the Post-Gazette he had informed Trump campaign donor Richard Kofoed and Trump campaign official Caroline Wren.

Lawrence said of Kofoed ‘his eyes were wide open’.

“He said to me, ‘That’s exactly who I met. She came to my house,” Lawrence recalls.

Wren has “created a group chat” to warn others of the impostor.

“What I’m trying to understand is how they allowed this?” said Laurens. ‘How can anyone keep coming back – at that level? This is Mar-a-Lago.’

Published: 09:34 BST, 27 August 2022 | Updated: 09:34 BST, 27 August 2022

That’s according to Raphaël Glucksmann, a French MEP, who spoke at a press conference set up by Guildhall, Ukrinform reports.

“Ukrainians are showing us not only courage but also dignity (…). The worst thing on Earth today is Russian fascism and the crimes that have been conceived by the regime that Russia’s had for the past 20 years. And in fact, what the Ukrainians are doing is crucial for yourself, but it is also crucial for the whole of Europe, because if Putin is not defeated, if the Russian fascists are not defeated in Ukraine, Europe will not know peace anymore,” said the MEP.

Read also: Zelensky, Macron discuss situation at front, Russia’s nuclear terrorism at ZNPP

“The problem we’re having now is much deeper than just a problem with Putin plus some hundred people around him. It’s a problem with the (Russian – ed.) society, which has become fascist and there’s support for the war. Those who don’t support it actively, have an illusion that their country can invade Ukraine, rape children, kill people, destroy cities, and at the same time they can live a normal life. We should break this illusion. If you want a normal life, you should stop the war,” concluded Raphaël Glucksmann.

Earlier, the MEP called for recognizing Russia a terrorist state, saying that the Russian Federation finances terrorism, carries out terrorist acts in Ukraine and around the world, and therefore should be recognized as a terrorist state. The European Parliament, he said, would support such move.