How ‘Mild Bill’ Burns led a covert CIA campaign in Ukraine

No one would ever refer to CIA Director William J. Burns as “Wild Bill,” the nickname of William J. Donovan, who led the OSS, the agency’s swashbuckling predecessor, during World War II. But the self-effacing Burns has bravely commanded a CIA force in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago.

Burns had just returned from his 14th visit to Ukraine when I visited him in late December at CIA headquarters. Two days before, he had been with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. His trips are usually secret, but this time Zelensky posted a photo of the two shaking hands before a Ukrainian flag.

“Throughout this war, we’ve had many meetings, and I am deeply grateful for his assistance,” Zelensky wrote. “We don’t disclose secrets, but we keep in touch.”

Ukraine has been in many ways Burns’s war, more than for any other U.S. official. He warned Kyiv and the world in late 2021 that the Russians were coming by sharing highly sensitive U.S. intelligence. His CIA officers stayed on the ground after the Russian invasion began and after U.S. diplomats and military personnel had departed. They have been at the front for nearly three years, sharing intelligence to help Ukraine target Russian invaders.

Burns on a deeper level has been locked in an intelligence duel with Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s not exactly George Smiley vs. Karla in John Le Carré’s novels, but it’s close. Burns first met Putin about 20 years ago as U.S. ambassador to Moscow, and he has been listening to Putin’s threats and boasts ever since.

Putin is “an emperor who is not quite fully clothed,” Burns tartly cabled Washington in 2007. In his 2019 memoir, “The Back Channel,” he memorably described the Russian leader: “Putin’s intimidating aura is often belied by his controlled mannerisms, modulated tone, and steady gaze. He’ll slouch a bit and look bored by it all if not engaged by the subject … and be snarky or bullying if he’s feeling pressed.”

Burns was perhaps fated to meet Putin on the battlefield in Ukraine, in a war he has seen coming since 2008. But the conflict has become a brutal war of attrition beyond what even Burns could have imagined: The CIA estimates that Russia has suffered more than 700,000 casualties over the past three years, 10 times what it lost in Afghanistan over a decade. Burns sees little chance that Putin is ready for any deal that isn’t a Ukrainian capitulation.

Tall, silver-haired, implacably modest, Burns has been an extraordinary CIA director. He had been a career diplomat, often described as the finest State Department officer of his generation. But his combination of self-assurance and reticence suited him at Langley. He could make the phrase “gray man” seem glamorous — and, as I have often found, could seem disarmingly frank without saying anything newsworthy.

Burns focused on Ukraine in our conversation. He said he had visited there so often in part because he wanted to see his colleagues in the field. Each time, he would take the numbing 12-hour train ride from Poland and back. He would meet Zelensky and his generals and intelligence commanders in Kyiv — and then often journey to the front lines to see CIA officers there.

The closest Burns has come to a public description of what he encountered in his travels to the front came in testimony to Congress on March 12. He described how he was briefed on the battle of Avdiivka, a painful defeat for Ukrainian forces who were starved of supplies. He recalled how a Ukrainian commander told him: “Our men fought as long and hard as they could, but we ran out of ammunition. And the Russians just kept coming.” One Ukrainian brigade had just 15 artillery rounds a day for its 2,500 men before it was forced to withdraw.

“It is not that they didn’t fight with courage and tenacity. It is that they ran out of ammunition,” Burns told Congress, in what proved a successful Biden administration plea for more aid. When Burns is gone, nobody in the Trump administration will be able to make the case for Ukraine with the same experience or conviction.

The terrible thing about this war is that Burns has seen it coming in slow motion since he was ambassador to Moscow. When Burns presented his credentials, Putin warned: “You Americans need to listen more. You can’t have everything your way anymore.” He amplified that in a 2008 meeting: “No Russian leader could stand idly by in the face of steps toward NATO membership for Ukraine. That would be a hostile act toward Russia,” Putin said.

“Don’t you know that Ukraine is not even a real country?” Putin said in 2008. He repeated that denial of Ukrainian nationalism when Burns met him in 2014 — after the Maidan revolution had swept Russia’s ally from power in Kyiv and an enraged Putin had stealthily invaded Crimea.

“Don’t kid yourselves,” Putin admonished Burns, who was now deputy secretary of state. “And you shouldn’t kid yourselves,” Burns boldly replied. “You’ve managed to create an even stronger sense of Ukrainian nationalism than existed before.”

Burns summed it up in his congressional testimony last year: “I think Putin, and I have heard him say this many times in the past, believes that Ukraine isn’t a real country, that it is weak and divided. And what Ukrainians have done is demonstrate that real countries fight back.”

Spy novels often turn on the question of loyalty. Through his four years at the CIA, Burns has been the steadfast chief of America’s secret, on-the-ground assistance to Ukraine. He stood by Ukraine and his own officers at the front. The chapter of this tale that is about betrayal, if it happens, will come after Burns has left his office on the seventh floor.

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. His latest novel is “Phantom Orbit.”