Ukrainians fear that US-Ukraine intelligence cooperation could diminish

It's not just U.S. military support that could get cut, say numerous former U.S. intelligence officials.

In December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with then-President-elect Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss peace. (President of Ukraine)

The intelligence cooperation between the United States and Ukraine is “unprecedentedly deep,” a Ukrainian official told me on the condition of anonymity. But just like U.S. military support, it too could diminish, numerous former senior, U.S. intelligence officers tell me.

“There is a direct chain of command,” one said. “If the president says, ‘Share nothing else and give nothing else,’ it has the effect of a military order. If someone were to disavail that order, they’d be going rogue, and I can’t even imagine.” The decision to start or stop intelligence liaisons is within the president’s purview, the former official said. “It’s not unprecedented… On issues large and small, the agency has changed course under many different administrations.”

Another former intel officer told me that President Donald Trump “has the ability to overrule [CIA Director John] Ratcliffe’s pro-Ukraine stance and tell him to end it, or just fire Ratcliffe and get someone more compliant.”

On this sunny Saturday morning in Washington, D.C., the possibility of severed intelligence ties looks less likely. Because now President Volodymyr Zelensky is backtracking on his words, saying Kyiv and Washington are getting close to a deal that will give the U.S. rights to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for military support.

Zelensky’s announcement in his Friday night video address follows days of deterioration between the two leaders: Zelensky refusing to sign Trump’s minerals deal because it did not include security guarantees for Ukraine. Trump speaking with his Russian counterpart, their envoys meeting in Riyadh without the Ukrainians. Zelensky saying Trump is living in a Russian “disinformation space,” and Trump accusing Ukraine of starting the war and calling Zelensky “a dictator without elections.”

Feel free to skip over this paragraph as I state the obvious: This war is not about NATO borders. Or Ukrainian expansionism. Or Nazis. This is about Putin wanting to control what Moscow used to think of as its “little brother,” as Ukrainians have decisively, since 2014, turned away from the East and toward the West. It would be highly inconvenient to Putin if democracy were thriving across the border. And what if he could pull Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit, restoring some of that Soviet Union greatness?

Preserving the intelligence relationship

When it comes to American intelligence, “so far everything is going on as usual,” the Ukrainian official told me. “But there are fears that it will stop. Then it will be a disaster.”

Though the intelligence cooperation is more than a decade old, Ukrainians have deeply relied on the CIA in the last three years as Russia began waging its full-scale invasion. CIA operatives can move about freely through Ukraine. Their most important areas of intelligence have included warnings of Russian assassination plots and other plans, real-time information on drone and missile launches, and cooperation on cybersecurity and cyberattacks.

The intelligence exchange is also based on personal connections that do not vanish overnight. Even when Gen. Kyrylo Budanov runs military intelligence operations that get him in trouble with Washington (and Kyiv).

But some Ukrainians also nurse a fear specific to a very prominent Trump administration official and his critical technology on the frontline. “The dependence of our operations on the functioning of Starlink, and therefore on [Elon] Musk, is critically high,” the Ukrainian official said. “I will not be surprised by anything in the context of the announced Pentagon spending cuts.”

As much as Ukraine has relied on the U.S. for intelligence and military support, the U.S. has also relied on Ukraine for its ability to gather intelligence on Russia. The CIA taught Ukraine how to build cover, infiltrate, and crack encrypted communications. But the Ukrainians made for ideal students, with superiority in language, cultural understanding, and proximity.

A lot of it has to do with access and compatible targets. As another example, in the 1980s, the CIA had a relationship with China — signals monitoring stations that quietly gathered intelligence on Russian missile tests. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

I am also told that the CIA knows it may very well need Ukraine’s help in the future, as it did in assessing that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Because despite Putin’s calls with Trump, Russia remains a major threat to the United States.

To agree or not to agree

Other points of friction still lie ahead, which could factor into U.S. support.

Trump and his envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Gen. Keith Kellogg, have now said that Ukraine should hold elections. And it may sound reasonable, being the cornerstone of democracy and all. I met Ukrainians in the summer who also wanted elections because the last presidential election was held there in 2019.

Unfortunately, the request also boosts Vladimir Putin’s stance which undermines Zelensky as a legitimate leader in the absence of a Ukrainian election. “We should sign those documents in such a crucial area with the legitimate authorities,” Putin said.

Under Ukrainian law, elections are not held during wartime when martial law is imposed. And both U.S. and Ukrainian officials have told me that Russia would try to influence any election, carried out under the steady drum of missile and drone attacks. Can there be any surprise there?

And then there is precedent when it comes to deals between Ukraine and Russia. Look to the Minsk Agreements, which were meant to end the fighting between the Russians, Russian-backed separatists, and Ukrainian forces in the Donbas, Ukraine’s east, back in 2014. Or as the UN described it, “prevent further bloodshed and establish a political pathway to peace in Ukraine.” Russia and Ukraine interpreted the agreements differently and thousands continued to die.

To be the clear, it is a good thing that the Trump administration is looking for ways to end this brutal war. The question is, under what conditions? What will Ukraine and Russia be forced to concede? And would Putin honor his end? Many Ukrainians and their supporters fear an agreement would give Russia time to fortify its military before waging another assault.

“So far, the soldiers will keep fighting until their bones break,” a person who trains Ukrainian troops told me this week. “Soldiers, translators, and civilians say they'd rather keep fighting than deal with another puppet of the Kremlin, like Hungary and Slovakia’s prime ministers which are nicknamed ‘Russian prostitutes’ by the Ukrainians.” And the trainer underscored the hostility toward Trump in the last few days. “Trump has been officially added to that list.”

Time and time again in the Biden years, U.S. officials would say, “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” Zelensky repeated the phrase again in recent days, as the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti asserted this “sacred cow” was dead.

For readers who have recently subscribed, I’d like to highlight a conversation that took place in my first hours in Ukraine last July because it shows how Ukrainians will not be ignored. I had just walked across the Polish border with a former U.S. official who I called “Alex,” to protect his identity because of his military and intelligence background. As I wrote here:

At the cafe that first day in Lviv, known as “little Paris,” Alex told the Ukrainian law enforcement official that if Trump were elected, munitions were reduced, and Russia took more territory, he could teach the police insurgent and guerrilla operations behind enemy lines next year. The armed police were an ideal group to start training, he said.

“Hopefully we won’t get to that point,” the official said.

Ukraine needed to be thinking about partisan tactics months in advance, not in the moment when it would be too late, Alex told him. U.S. special forces understood this. A slow smile crept across the Ukrainian’s face as he said, “We can smell something burning in the kitchen.”

The exchange made me believe that if Ukraine were pressured into a deal that Ukrainians did not like, there is every reason to believe that the fighting would continue. Be it through conventional warfare or insurgency tactics.

For now, as Europe tries to figure out its own responsibilities and capacities, Zelensky is trying to get back on track with Trump. Too much hangs in the balance.