The United States has temporarily cut off intelligence sharing with Ukraine, officials said on Wednesday, the latest blow to the relationship between the Trump administration and Kyiv.
Impact on Bilateral Relations
CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed the decision in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday morning. Three people familiar with the move told POLITICO that the freeze came down some time after the Trump administration paused weapons shipments on Monday night. The people were granted anonymity to talk about ongoing intelligence sharing between the two sides.
Both moves follow a heated Oval Office exchange on Friday, as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance attacked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to show enough gratitude for American support and saying that Kyiv was overplaying a weak diplomatic hand.
Ratcliffe indicated the pause could be temporary, but was an effort to put pressure on Ukraine to get to the negotiating table.
“I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that to happen, I think will go away, and I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, as we have, to push back on the aggression that’s there,” Ratcliffe said. “President Trump is going to hold everyone accountable to drive peace around the world.”
It was not immediately clear when the intelligence cutoff from the United States to Ukraine took effect. As of Monday night, after POLITICO reported that the Trump administration had ordered the U.S. to pause weapons shipments to Ukraine, intelligence and communications were still on, according to a European diplomat familiar with the matter.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s Concerns
Ukraine’s military intelligence unit did not respond to a request for comment. Zelenskyy’s office declined to comment.
The intelligence-sharing pause weakens Ukraine’s ability to target Russian positions, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “If President Trump gives away all of our leverage, then he’s basically handing Vladimir Putin whatever he wants,” she said.
The freeze also appeared to stop American allies from sharing U.S. intelligence products with Ukraine. Britain’s Daily Mail reported Wednesday that U.K. intelligence agencies and military outlets had now received an order explicitly banning them from sharing U.S.-generated intelligence previously badged as releasable to Ukraine. The move was branded “concerning” by British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, who warned against any U.S. shift to “disengage” on intelligence. When pressed by reporters Wednesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office cited a longstanding convention of not commenting on intelligence matters.
A person inside the Ukrainian military familiar with the matter said that the Ukrainian armed forces were still receiving some intelligence from Kyiv’s partners as of Wednesday, but declined to say which countries. The person, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive military information, said 80 percent of Ukraine’s intelligence comes from allied countries, largely the United States.
Experts’ Insights
“It’s inevitably going to be a huge setback for the Ukrainians, I don’t think there’s any way to deny that,” said Neil Barnett, the CEO of Istok Associates Limited, a London-based intelligence consultancy. “The British will try to fill the gap. We have our listening posts at RAF Akrotiri, which is sovereign, we have Rivet Joint flights in the area. But, we obviously don’t have all of the capabilities that the Americans have and there will be some things that just aren’t replaceable.”
Ukraine has become less dependent on American weapons systems than it was earlier in the conflict – officials in Kyiv say that as much as 40 percent of the weapons it uses on the frontlines are made in Ukraine — but still relies heavily on the U.S. for intelligence capabilities, long-range weapons and air defense. The pause in both weapons and intelligence-sharing could affect Ukraine’s effort to make gains on the battlefield after Kyiv had begun counterattacks in the Donbas and staged recent attacks against Russian oil and gas refineries.
“We see that intel sharing, long range precision fires, air defense munitions are key critical areas where U.S. support is essential. Those cannot be replaced by anyone else at this point,” said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chair of the National Security and Defense Committee in Lithuania’s parliament and a former NATO official.
European officials remained split on whether the weapons and intelligence pauses were a way of Trump to vent his frustration with Zelenskyy pending a minerals deal, or a longer term rupture. “In the longer term if intel sharing is not resumed this will have a negative effect on Ukrainian forces ability to fight,” Jeglinskas added.
Conclusion
Some European leaders see the momentum slowly shifting in Ukraine’s favor in the war in some respects, but stress that continuing support from Europe and the U.S. remains critical.
Russia has shifted its economy to a war footing, but has been “quite damaged, we know their economy is not doing well but their industrial capacity is quite good,” said Permanent Secretary of Finland’s Ministry of Defence Esa Pulkkinen.
“Ukraine’s industrial capacity has greatly improved for building things like drones but it’s still not enough,” and needs an influx of Western investment and support, Pulkkinen said.
Veronika Melkozerova and Mason Boycott-Owen contributed to this story.
