In mid-January, US President Joe Biden instructed the head of the CIA, William Burns, to find out whether Ukraine and Russia are ready for negotiations. The reaction of Kyiv and Moscow influenced the decision to supply tanks to Ukraine, reports the Swiss publication Neue Zurcher Zeitung, which is quoted by Meduza.

According to two senior German government sources, Burns visited Kyiv and Moscow in January and offered the two camps to resolve the conflict.

The head of the CIA offered “peace for land” to Kyiv, and “land for peace” to Moscow. The size of the territory that Burns had in mind would be 20% of the surface of Ukraine, which is comparable to Donbas, sources said.

Both sides rejected the offers. Ukraine refused to share its territories, and Russia rejected the offer because it believed it would eventually win the war.

According to Neue Zurcher Zeitung sources, after Burns’ mission to Kyiv and Moscow “failed,” Biden decided to approve the supply of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, which in turn unblocked the supply of German Leopard tanks.

An anonymous CIA official told Newsweek that the information published by the Neue Zurcher Zeitung about Burns’ secret trip to Russia and the offer he made on behalf of the White House was “absolutely false.”

Shawn Davett, deputy spokesman for the US National Security Council, said that the Swiss publication’s information “does not correspond to reality.”

The Washington Post reported that Burns secretly visited Kyiv in mid-January. According to him, the director of the CIA informed the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky about his expectations regarding “Russia’s military plans in the coming weeks and months.”

Speaking at a foreign policy event at Georgetown University in Washington, CIA Director William Burns predicted Thursday that the next six months will be “critical” for Ukraine, where Moscow has made significant progress in recent weeks.

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