Donald Trump’s decision to suspend intelligence sharing with Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia is a devastating blow for Kyiv – and it puts America on Vladimir Putin’s side.
Combined with the US suspension of military aid to Ukraine, it is not an attempt to force Volodymyr Zelensky to peace talks.
It is an attempt to force the surrender of Ukraine to Russia.
The Ukrainian president is joining 27 European Union leaders for emergency talks on Thursday, on how to deal with the sudden emasculation of his country’s war effort.
Speaking on Wednesday night before the latest cut to Ukraine’s capacity to defend itself, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said the meeting was necessary because Europe had to be ready for the moment when “the US is no longer on our side”. That moment has come.
This intelligence is vital for Ukraine’s war effort and keeping troops alive. The US owns almost all satellite-based intelligence gathering, including imaging and communications by Russian commanders.
At a lower level, British and American spy planes are “soaking” Russian-controlled areas, and Russia itself, for intelligence signals and real-time targeting of Russian missiles. Cutting off this intelligence flow means that troops on the ground are immediately endangered.
Those in danger could also include Nato advisers and spies who, one should assume, are helping Ukraine with intelligence and planning.
Just before the White House announced its latest attack on Ukraine’s ability to fight, The Independent spoke with an intelligence agent who has worked with the CIA, and Ukrainian intelligence, since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
“My CIA handler called me to say that there should never be any mention of the US connection with me,” the source told The Independent. “They said that I was to scrub all my communications and that they were doing the same – they want to hide the fact that the US has been working to defend Ukraine.”
The source also claimed that he had been close to helping secure the defection of a senior Russian intelligence officer but that they had contacted him last week to say: “I feel safer in Russia right now.” The Independent has not been able to verify this claim.
But given that intelligence agencies in Nato, and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance that includes the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US, had concluded that the Trump administration cannot be trusted to keep secrets secret – according to multiple senior intelligence sources on two continents – the Russian defector’s alleged decision sounds sensible.
Europe and the UK will be able to plug some of the gaps left by the US suspension of intelligence sharing but it has nothing like the satellite capacity that the US has always provided to Nato free of charge.
It immediately blinds Kyiv to tactical and strategic threats which include large-scale drone and missile attacks against civilian targets all over the country. Stocks of Patriot missiles for air defence against incoming ballistic missiles are known to be dangerously low and resupply has already been cut by the Trump administration.
Ukraine’s cities are now even more vulnerable. Frontline operations on what has been the ferociously bloody battles around Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbas region have dropped significantly in the last two weeks, Ukrainian soldiers in the area told The Independent.
The drop in Russian tempo of attacks there and elsewhere could be a sign that Putin’s forces are exhausting their capacity, just at a time when the Trump administration stepping in has effectively given them a strategic edge.
But Ukrainian officers are also concerned that “another massive offensive from the Russians might be coming. We just don’t know.”
And now Ukraine will get no warning if or when it does.
