How Ukraine has been managing without US intelligence
With the CIA's intel temporarily suspended, MI6 becomes Ukraine's closest partner, three sources tell me on the condition of anonymity.
I wish the English language had a word to express a certain kind of sadness — a mourning for a person, place, or thing that has no bearing on your life. It’s not empathy, “the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions,” as defined by Merriam Webster. Or compassion, a “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” This is a deep ache that you just have to breathe into as the days go by.
Maybe you know what I mean. And if any of my readers want to create a clever word for this and share it with me, I will use it in my future writing and credit you. Because I need to acknowledge this feeling right now. In fact, I could have used this word when the Syrian government gassed its own people, ISIS enslaved the Yezidis in Iraq, and Afghanistan fell back into the hands of the Taliban.
It is how I feel again today when I think about Ukraine. After I learned that the CIA was temporarily pausing its intelligence sharing, I was too upset to do anything. I sat in a chair at a coffee shop just staring into space. Then I took a walk in the rain and saw that iconic blue and yellow Ukrainian flag — hanging from someone’s window, tattered from being exposed to the elements for the past three years. Torn… but hanging strong.
Don’t believe what isn’t convenient
In the middle of the night, I messaged with a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump who is also a staunch supporter of Ukraine. What happens when the two collide? The person simply rejected the premise that Trump suspended American intelligence and military support, instead believing that the Oval Office debacle was an information operation that Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky were in on together.
I have seen no evidence of that. Perhaps U.S. and Ukrainian officials will heal their diplomatic wounds in Saudi Arabia this week. Trump also said on Sunday that U.S. intelligence would flow soon again. But how many Ukrainians have died and could continue to die as a result of the military and intelligence draw back? To review:
The Trump administration banned Britain from sharing American military intel with Ukraine.
The Trump administration blocked Ukraine’s access to Maxar satellite images.
U.S. officials reportedly met with Zelensky’s opponents to secretly discuss holding an election in the event of a temporary ceasefire. (Trump called Zelensky “a dictator without elections,” but it is illegal to hold elections during wartime under Ukraine’s constitution. The American ice out has actually boosted Zelensky’s approval ratings.)
And don’t forget how the U.S. aligned with Moscow at the United Nations, refusing to condemn Russia on the three-year anniversary of its war on Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly, Russia took full advantage of the moment, aiming a flurry of missiles and drones at Ukraine’s already weakened energy infrastructure. And yet, according to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia starts to suffer deeply this year — in terms of troops, equipment, and economy. We can see it already on display. I am told that the Russians are showing up at the battlefront on horseback, Game of Thrones-style.
How Ukraine has been handling the American intel scarcity
Ukraine is turning to French satellite operator Eutelstat to potentially replace Elon Musk’s essential Starlink terminals, I’m told.
Musk has denied that Starlink is actually at stake. But Ukraine has “learned its lesson,” I was told, and it will strive to diversify its satellite operators to become less dependent on a single entity.
With the CIA’s intelligence officially frozen, the UK’s MI6 is providing the most support, three sources tell me on the condition of anonymity. Even though the Brits don’t have the extensive resources and budget of the U.S., what are they doing that’s working? That’s classified, of course.
Generally speaking, they have helped Ukraine with early warning systems, long-range strikes into enemy territory, surveillance and reconnaissance, cooperation in the Black and Azov Seas, and detection/deterrence/disruption of cyberattacks and espionage. Here’s their 100-year partnership, published in January, three days before Trump took office.
“There are hidden assets that are now more valuable than ever,” said a European who works in equipping Ukrainian forces. “Ukraine is pretty much doing the same thing they did with the U.S., the only thing that has happened is that [intelligence-sharing] slowed down a little… One of the biggest advantages of U.S. intel is that it’s fast.”
If the Ukrainians were cut off from U.S. intel a year ago, that would be a much worse situation, another person added.
The European Union’s member states also regularly share intelligence with each other, which benefits Ukraine. (Before 2000, the EU had virtually no intelligence cooperation, according to a book called The Politics of European Security.) It happens in a series of different ways: That includes Europol, the European Union's law enforcement agency. The secretive Club de Berne, which formed in the 1970s and operates outside of the EU framework, with heads of national security services reportedly meeting regularly. And the European Union Military Staff, especially its intelligence directorate.
Of course, there is also NATO. The alliance’s cooperation with Ukraine grew after Russia illegally seized the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Russia’s country-wide invasion of 2022 has seen levels of support reach new heights.
“NATO [is] still helping,” a Ukrainian with knowledge of the matter told me. “But they are limited. The U.S. prohibited NATO from sharing their intel with third countries,” meaning Ukraine.
This war is ‘good and evil’
Last week, I went to the Pentagon. I walked up the very same steps that Zelensky took in September 2023. That day, I watched him from a few feet away instead of on TV and laptop and cell phone screens. He walked up the stairs bruskly with then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. He was making the rounds in Washington, trying to drum up more military support. It was already getting harder and harder with Republicans in Congress, the supplemental coming so many months later.
The words of Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, the CIA’s former chief of the Europe Division in the Directorate of Operations, keep coming back to me. I was in his home earlier that same year, doing a video shoot about his unusual cooperation with ex-spies in Russia. Their many years of writing, meeting in foreign countries, negotiating and sharing meals in unofficial, track two talks were stopped once Russia’s invasion began. “This war is black and white,” Rolf told me back then. “This war is good and evil. It's that simple.”
Has the moral sheen worn off? To many Ukrainians, Trump is blurring the lines in a quest for peace that is starting to feel ruthless.
Hmm Germans call it Weltschmerz (“world pain”)… melancholy is also a general symptom, but the cause in this case is known.
Maybe "Soul Pain" but that traditionally centers on personal suffering. I think it could work, though. "Souls' pain" could mean a collective response to the suffering of another or others. I will have to think some more about this. I understand what you are saying. My first reaction when I hear about a new atrocity being committed by The Felon and his minions is Horror.