The United States has suspended intelligence sharing with Kyiv in a move that could severely restrict the Ukrainian military’s ability to strike Russian forces.
The cut-off comes after the US suspended military aid to Ukraine amid a dramatic collapse in relations between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Since the start of the war in 2022, the US has provided Ukraine with significant intelligence, including critical information its military needs for targeting purposes.
It was not immediately clear to what extent the US had cut off the sharing.
In an interview with Fox Business broadcast on Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed the US “pause” in support.
“I think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause [that prompted Ukraine’s president to respond] I think will go away,” Ratcliffe said.
“I think we’ll work shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine as we have to push back on the aggression that’s there, but to put the world in a better place for these peace negotiations to move forward,” he said.
But Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the White House, says the move to withdraw intelligence cooperation is “just a tool to try and get Ukraine back to the table”.
“They [the US] also talked about stopping military aid to Ukraine, which the Ukrainians admit would hit their war efforts, not end it completely,” Fisher explained.
“Clearly, just the threat of those things has worked. So when you hear from the national security adviser saying things could be resumed in short order, it seems to suggest that any impact on Ukraine would be limited, to say the least, as long as peace talks certainly seem to be on the horizon sooner rather than later,” he said.
