Is Reuters pushing War Propaganda?

Opinion by Dan Fournier, published Wednesday, December 31, 2025 at 9:50 ICT.

“If my sons did not want wars, there would be none.” - Gutle Schnapper Rothschild, the mother of Mayer Amschel Rothschild

I recently came across a post which pointed to a December 21, 2025 Reuters article titled US intelligence indicates Putin’s war aims in Ukraine are unchanged.

As an independent journalist, I sought to scrutinise it more thoroughly, as it initially wreaked of disinformation and pro-war posturing [on behalf of the European establishment].

My intuition was right.

While deciphering the piece, written by authors Jonathan Landay, Erin Banco and John Irish, it didn’t take long to realise that this was either a planted work by the intelligence community itself, or simply a propaganda piece intended to demonise one party in a war while siding with the other. Needless to say, that is not what a legitimate news organisation – especially one with a global reach like Reuters – ought to be promoting.

The markings on this are obvious to anyone with a modicum of critical thinking skills.

The bias found therein is overtly blatant, almost as if its authors – assuming the piece wasn’t written by AI – were purposely trying to convey their allegiance to the Ukraine side of this conflict.

The convenient use of anonymous and vague sources

The Reuters article is plagued and cloaked by the use of anonymous sources and unspecified reports.

Throughout the piece, the authors refer to members of the intelligence community and intelligence reports without specifically naming them.

This is a common problem with such mainstream news media outlets, as I’ve reported on in the past, and specifically with Reuters.

It is a well known fact that using anonymous sources is actually commonplace for such type of mainstream media outlets – which I more aptly refer to as the “gatekeeper media.”

Such a practice enables them to convey false narratives which are undoubtedly sometimes brought about by the intelligence community itself, particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), as has been documented for decades already.

The Reuters article commences “U.S. intelligence reports continue to warn that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not abandoned his aims of capturing all of Ukraine and reclaiming parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet empire...”

That statement is certainly a bold one, as it conveys to readers that [Russian President] Vladimir Putin seeks to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim other countries which were previously part of the Soviet Union.

Moreover, it can instill fear among Europeans who rely on this outlet as their news source.

In my opinion, such kind of reporting is irresponsible particularly given the fact that the piece uses unspecified, anonymous, thus unverifiable sources.

Furthermore, the Reuters piece is not labelled as an opinion one. As such, it is to be taken as a news article. CBC News in Canada is also guilty of this practice.

Yet despite the authors citing this non-specified or non-specific “U.S. intelligence report,” evidence supporting that assertion is totally missing.

They doubled-down by saying the six sources familiar with U.S. intelligence had said so. Again, these sources of supposed members of U.S. intelligence are not named.

How convenient.

Not only is their anti-Putin bias on full display, but the same goes for their anti-Trump bias:

“The reports present a starkly different picture from that painted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his Ukraine peace negotiators, who have said Putin wants to end the conflict.”

Here is an example of vague sources [with emphasis added]:

“The U.S. findings have been consistent since Putin launched his full-scale invasion in 2022. They largely align with the views of European leaders and spy agencies that he covets all of Ukraine and territories of former Soviet bloc states, including members of the NATO alliance, according to the sources.”

This is very sloppy folks. Not a single “European leader” is specified, nor is any specific spy agency named.

The only specific spy agencies they mentioned were the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence for which they stated they had not responded to their requests for comment.

It’s rather embarrassing don’t you think?

And this reporting is supposedly from some of Reuters top journalists such as with Erin Banco who is their national security correspondent focusing on the intelligence community.

An important member of the Intelligence Community itself criticises Reuters

Even Tulsi Gabbard, the current Director of National Intelligence in the U.S. publicly called Banco out on her reporting, condemning the piece as a “lie” to undermine Trump’s peace efforts:

She called the reporting “dangerous,” and that it was promoting a false narrative and added that the piece is “fomenting hysteria and fear among the people to get them to support the escalation of war, which is what NATO and the EU really want in order to pull the United States military directly into war with Russia.”

Objectively, it’s hard to disagree with Mrs. Gabbard’s statement given that that the Reuters article is rather shallow in its supports.

Giving the Reuters journalists a chance to respond

I understand that, on occasion, anonymous sources can be used for legitimate news reporting. But its overuse in this particular piece was too much.

I, therefore (and to be fair) sought to provide an opportunity for its authors to respond to these concerns.

Though I sent each author an official media inquiry (see hereunder for the full inquiry) back on December 24^th (and considering the possibility that the holiday may impede my request), I have yet to receive a response. Should one be forthcoming, I will add it as an addendum to this post.

My December 24, media inquiry:

To conclude this post, I would just like to add that I find it a very sad state of affairs that these media outlets are serving as “presstitutes” (to employ the moniker used by Gerald Celente and German journalist Udo Ulfkotte) to push pro-war narratives. Sadly, the vast majority of the global masses rely on such outlets to get their news, even though their readership numbers are dwindling.

Hopefully, exposing their methods like I’ve done in this post will help awaken those who are tired of their constant propaganda and pro-war narratives.

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