Trump Is Blinding Ukrainian Defenses

U.S. President withdraws intelligence info, deterrence to please Putin.

US President Donald Trump, in line with his sudden moves to ease hostile relations with Russia and steer Ukraine’s post-war destiny, has taken steps to weaken Kyiv’s ability to defend itself against Moscow’s slow drive for conquest.

After announcing a “pause” in the delivery of US$1 billion worth of US weaponry, top administration officials announced the suspension of a pair of military-related programs, namely the supply of intelligence information to Ukraine’s besieged army and another designed to limit the impact of Russian cyberattacks.

The moves have left frontline troops and cities increasingly vulnerable to Russian rocket, drone and ground attacks. With the absence high-tech, high-altitude monitoring, the warning times afforded by respond to Russian aerial weaponry and movements of Moscow’s ground forces is greatly reduced.

On Wednesday, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, John Ratcliff, said the cut-off of intelligence sharing was part of the “pause” in US aid to Ukraine’s military.

“I think on the military front, and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed that (suspension) to happen, I think will go away,” he said. “And I think we’ll work shoulder-to-shoulder with Ukraine, as we have, to push back on the aggression that’s there.”

“We are pausing, assessing, looking at everything across our security relationship,” added National Security Adviser Mike Waltz when asked directly about intelligence-sharing with Kyiv.

Meanwhile, leaks from the Pentagon reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had ordered US forces to stop a program meant to deter Russian cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and retaliate against Russian computer-controlled facilities.

Both decisions will inevitably harm Ukraine’s defensive capabilities, which have been under pressure from a relentless, if slow, Russian offensive. Ending intelligence sharing will blind Ukraine’s army to Russian air and ground maneuvers. The most sophisticated intelligence information comes from the United States, meaning Europe cannot fill the gap.

Only Russian leader Vladimir Putin seems to have come out a winner. Soon after news broke about the military intelligence cutoff, Russia launched a heavy rocket and drone attacks on the Black Sea port of Odessa.

Suddenly, Trump moved from taking Moscow’s side in the war and seeming to abandon Ukraine to threatening Putin with a nee round of economic sanctions, "Based on the fact that Russia is absolutely 'pounding' Ukraine on the battlefield,” Trump said, ignoring that Odessa formally on a battlefield but is a city full of civilians. “I am strongly considering large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia.”

“It’s inevitably going to be a huge setback for the Ukrainians, I don’t think there’s any way to deny that,” Neil Barnett, the CEO of Istok Associates Ltd, a UK-based intelligence consulting firm, told the Associated Press.

“The British will try to fill the gap,” he added. “We have our listening posts. But, we obviously don’t have all of the capabilities that the Americans have,” he added.

Ukraine has also suffered frequent attacks on its electricity, energy and communications networks. US cybersecurity operations, which include the ability to cripple Russian infrastructure, are partly designed to deter further Russian attacks, observers say.

“If the US is pulling back on cyber-offensive operations targeting Russia, then that will likely give more openings (for Russia) to focus on attacks. I expect more attacks and greater risks as a result of this policy,” said Rob Hughes, an officer at RSA, an American computer and network security company.

These gestures seemed designed to entice both sides into negotiations each has so far been unwilling to enter: Ukraine, because it wants Russian troops to leave the country first; Russia, because its war aims so far—a demilitarized Ukraine under its control—are non-negotiable.

Last week, Trump sent his Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia—a first step in arranging these negotiations. It is not clear that Rubio informed Lavrov of Trump’s plan to cut intelligence sharing and cyberwarfare protection with Ukraine.

In public, Trump has played into Putin’s war narrative by removing blame for the war from Moscow and placing it on Kyiv. This idea upended the previous, unanimous position of the West that Russia was solely to blame for the conflict.

In addition, Trump dramatically altered his view of the war not only by faulting Ukraine, but also by calling Volodymyr Zelensky, the country’s elected president, a “dictator.” This presaged their by now historic blowup at the Oval Office.

Trump dressed down Zelensky during televised talks after the Ukrainian leader noted Russia’s past breaking of diplomatically reached commitments. Trump said Zelensky should jump at the chance of peace talks and not stall. “You’re gambling with millions of lives,” Trump literally yelled.

Significantly, Trump has launched no such personal attacks at Putin, whose dictatorial rule has been characterized by mass arrests, tight media control and the not-so-mysterious deaths of critics and political rivals, including Alexei Navalny, who died in a Siberian jail last year.

According to reports from Washington, both the decision to withhold intelligence and stop cyber operations against Russia were made before Trump’s speech on Tuesday to the US Congress, when he listed what he considered his domestic and foreign policy triumphs after six weeks in office.

Trump made no mention of the intelligence freeze and unilateral cyberwar hiatus, perhaps for good political reason. Once each move became public, criticism rained down, not only from the opposition Democratic Party members but also from members of Trump’s own ruling Republican Party.

Carlos Gimenez, a Republican Congressman representing the state of Florida, said, “I really don’t understand where that’s coming from. We cannot show Russian weakness.”

Chuck Schumer, a senator from New York and the chamber’s Democratic minority leader, said that Trump is making “a critical strategic mistake” solely to “earn the affection of a thug like Vladimir Putin.”

Europeans allies reacted with dismay, especially to the intelligence cutoff. “We see that intel-sharing, long-range precision fires, air defense munitions are key critical areas where US support is essential. Those cannot be replaced by anyone else at this point,” said Giedrimas Jeglinskas, chairman of the National Security and Defense Committee in the parliament of Lithuania.

“If intel-sharing is not resumed, it will have a negative effect on Ukrainian forces ability to fight,” he added.

Predictably, Russia has reacted favorably to Trump’s change of heart. Since the war began three years ago, Western countries all regarded Ukraine a victim of an unprovoked Russian assault. Now, Trump simply wants to end the war, and tipping the public relations scorecard toward Putin seems a small price to pay.

Significantly, Putin has not yet offered what could be deemed as reciprocal measures. Despite Trump’s charm offensive and substance, Russian government-controlled media continues to complain that he had not lifted tough economic sanctions put in place by the US and allies over the past decade.

As with many of Trump’s early foreign policy moves, confusion reigned. Last week, when Secretary of State Rubio tried to walk back Trump’s proposal to move two million Palestinians from the war-ravaged Gaza Strip into Egypt and Jordan, Trump immediately insisted he was serious about expelling the Palestinians and constructing a new “Riviera” on the ravaged coastal site.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon tried to tidy up the Ukraine announcements via on X. “TO BE CLEAR: SecDef has neither canceled nor delayed any cyber operations directed against malicious Russian targets and there has been no stand-down order whatsoever from that priority,” the tweet said.

Yet, on Monday, Hegseth himself retweeted a post from a TV network reporting he had ordered a temporary “pause” on “some provocative offensive actions” against Russia. Trump has been silent on the issue.

Trump, who has frequently commented on what he considers “fake news” on media outlets he considers oppositional, has said nothing about the mess.

In the end, Trump’s verbal assaults on Zelensky and concrete threats to its war defense capabilities wore down the Ukrainian leader. He sent a letter to Trump Tuesday that both expressed a willingness to support peace talks, and also to provide the US access to a potentially lucrative share of his country’s bounty of critical minerals.

Trump read Zelensky’s bending to his will to a cheering crowd of Republican legislators during his Tuesday speech to Congress.