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Putin lashed out at what he called systemic errors committed by the “West’s globalist circles,” insisting that Russia posed no danger to European countries, which he said “seek to frighten their populations with a mythical Russian threat.”

He also insisted that the West was to blame for the war in Ukraine by seeking to expand NATO. “They directly supported separatism in the Caucasus and sought to break up Russia; this is a matter of fact. Furthermore, today’s crisis in Ukraine was likewise instigated by them.”

As if to put an exclamation point on Putin’s remarks, a Russian drone strike hit passenger rail infrastructure in western Ukraine as many Western diplomats, officials and experts, including former CIA director David Petraeus, former British prime minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt were leaving the country after attending the annual Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv.

Passengers on at least one train were evacuated, but no deaths or injuries were reported from the strike.

German Defense Minister Boris ​Pistorius called the drone strike a calculated escalation to fuel fear in Europe.

“It is ​all the more important that we ⁠remain levelheaded, that we do not ​allow ourselves to be provoked, but ​that at the same time we leave no doubt that we are capable of defending ​ourselves,” Pistorius told reporters. “What Vladimir Putin is doing is dangerous. He knows that, and that is ​why he ​is doing ⁠it.”

The rail line attack further alarmed European officials who have been warning that Russia could attack near Ukraine’s border crossings with NATO countries or could intensify sabotage operations inside Europe to discourage Western leaders from further aiding Ukraine.

“These coming weeks and months will be a time of very intensified actions on the Russian side, and unfortunately we cannot rule out that this escalation will also affect our territory,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Sunday following a government security briefing.

The Trump administration in recent days has renewed its efforts to jump-start peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, including with trips by presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Ukraine.

Following those talks, Kushner said that Washington had already drafted most of the peace agreement but that it was being held up by Ukraine’s reluctance to make territorial concessions to Russia, which now occupies about one-fifth of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

Putin has demanded that Ukraine surrender all of its eastern Donbas region, and Russia has claimed, illegally, to have annexed four Ukrainian regions, even though militarily it does not control all of that land.

“President Putin laid out his position regarding what he wants to achieve,” Kushner said at the YES conference. “If Ukraine wanted to retreat to that line, we would have already prepared and agreed on the remaining terms of the deal. Currently, Ukraine does not want to do this.”

Ukraine has repeatedly said that ceding land that Russia failed to capture militarily is a nonstarter, arguing that withdrawing from fortified cities in Donbas would only expose the country to future attacks.

Kushner and Witkoff said they were pushing for trilateral negotiations. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is willing to meet Putin at the Group of 20 summit scheduled for mid-December at Trump’s resort in Doral, Florida.

The Kremlin immediately ruled out such a meeting, calling it “impossible” and saying that Putin would only meet Zelensky in Moscow. Kyiv repeatedly has dismissed the offer of a meeting in Moscow as the Kremlin playing games.

Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the talks on Ukraine probably would resume in October, after Russia holds a key parliamentary election this weekend.

The potential deployment of a European peacekeeping force has been discussed as one potential way to provide Ukraine with “security guarantees.” But any such step would first require the signing of a durable truce between Kyiv and Moscow.

Britain and France previously had agreed to deploy forces in Ukraine if the country reaches a peace deal with Russia, with then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron signing a “declaration of intent.”

But as negotiations stalled, with Washington focused on its own war in Iran, the proposals to send European troops to Ukraine have also gone quiet.

Europe, because of its increasing role in Ukraine’s capability to launch strikes against Russian territory, is becoming “Moscow’s central strategic problem, overshadowing the United States, Ukraine and, to some extent, even NATO,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on X.

“This will shape the nature of negotiations with and about Ukraine, as well as the outcome of any settlement, far more than it did a year ago,” Stanovaya added. “It is likely to dominate European geopolitics for decades.”

Isolated wartime leader, withdrawn into his convictions, Vladimir Putin moves about in a traveling bunker. An armored limousine, a convoy of vehicles packed with weapons, offices replicated identically in his residences – these themselves transformed into cloned shelters across the country – ubiquitous air defense systems, heavily armed bodyguards and soldiers in camouflage: This is the world of the Russian president who, before the parliamentary elections held from Friday, September 18, to Sunday, September 20, resumed his travels across Russia this summer, after nearly six months without venturing into the country. Out of fear of Ukrainian drones, a fortress accompanies him on his journeys, both within Russia and during his rare trips to so-called "friendly countries," such as India, where he traveled from September 11 to 13 for the BRICS summit.

The more the "special military operation" in Ukraine has become bogged down, the more Putin, 73 years old, fixates on his own security. Four and a half years after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the stalemate of this endless war has become a dead end for the Kremlin and could threaten to shake its authority. Ukrainian drones are not the only danger Putin fears. "They will hang me," he confided to associates, according to a source quoted by the British weekly The Economist on September 1. He did not specify whether the enemy he feared was external or internal. "One thing is certain: Putin ties his fate to the outcome of the war in Ukraine. He fears what might happen to him if he fails," warned a political scientist, an expert on Putin's elites and clan rivalries. Reached by secure messaging in Moscow, she wished to remain anonymous.

A quarter of a century after Putin took power in Russia, the siloviki – members of the security apparatus, a neologism derived from the Russian word sila, meaning "force" – have seized control. At the top sits the FSB, successor to the KGB. At the same time, the Kremlin has steadily increased the ranks of the presidential guard, the Federal Protective Service (FSO). Since 2022, four decrees have raised the number of agents at the central headquarters to more than 800, including drone operators and even presidential food tasters. Overall, this guard is enormous: While the exact figure is classified, it is believed to number more than 50,000.

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No, there is no evidence from Western, Israeli, or international counterintelligence agencies that Vladimir Putin planned or orchestrated either the September 11, 2001, or the October 7, 2023, attacks.

The consensus among intelligence communities indicates that these attacks were conceived and executed by Al-Qaeda and Hamas, respectively. However, the nature of Russia’s relationship to both events differs significantly, moving from explicit cooperation in 2001 to opportunistic geopolitical exploitation in 2023.

The September 11, 2001 Attacks

The official 9/11 Commission Report and subsequent Western counterintelligence investigations explicitly established that Al-Qaeda planned and executed the 9/11 attacks independently.

• The Geopolitical Context: In 2001, Putin had only recently become President of Russia and was actively trying to integrate Russia into the global community and improve ties with the West.
• Putin's Reaction: Putin was the first foreign leader to call U.S. President George W. Bush on September 11 to express solidarity. He did not mastermind the attacks; rather, he used them to justify Russia’s brutal military campaigns in Chechnya, framing his own actions as part of the new global "War on Terror".
• Intelligence Sharing: Far from being behind the attacks, Russia provided tangible assistance to the U.S. military. According to Brookings Institution analyses, the Kremlin shared intelligence on Afghanistan's topography, opened Russian airspace for humanitarian flights, and acquiesced to U.S. bases in Central Asia to support the invasion of Afghanistan.

The October 7, 2023 Attacks

Counterintelligence assessments by Israel's Shin Bet, the CIA, and other allied agencies state that Hamas meticulously planned and executed the October 7 massacre, largely supported by funding, intelligence, and logistical backing from Iran. No intelligence agency has produced evidence that Russia had prior knowledge of or a direct hand in orchestrating the operation.

However, analysts often discuss Russia’s "fingerprints" in a geopolitical and circumstantial capacity, rather than a direct conspiratorial one:

1. Circumstantial Alignments and Training

• Wagner Group Claims: Ukrainian military intelligence claimed that members of the Russian private military company, the Wagner Group, had trained Hamas militants in Africa on drone drop tactics prior to the attacks. These reports remain difficult to verify independently through public counterintelligence reports.
• The "Birthday" Coincidence: Commentators frequently note that the October 7 attack took place on Vladimir Putin's 71st birthday. While a striking coincidence utilized in political commentary, intelligence agencies view this as symbolic rather than evidentiary proof of operational command.
• Cyber and Hacking: Pro-Russian hacktivist groups (such as Killnet) launched Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against Israeli government and media websites immediately following October 7. Counterintelligence analysts view this as a coordinated campaign to disrupt Israel rather than evidence that Russia engineered the physical invasion.

2. The Geopolitical Payoff (Cui Bono?)

While Putin did not order the attack, the Kremlin has heavily capitalized on its aftermath:

• Strategic Distraction: The war in Gaza successfully diverted Western media attention, political capital, and military aid (particularly artillery ammunition) away from the war in Ukraine.
• Diplomatic Realignment: Russia refused to directly condemn Hamas, hosted Hamas leadership delegations in Moscow, and used the conflict at the UN to attack U.S. foreign policy, currying favor with the Global South.

Summary Comparison

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