What Will Ukraine Do Without U.S. Intelligence?
Their military position will suffer, and civilians will pay a price.
PRESIDENT TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN PROMISE to end Russia’s war against Ukraine was always vague—probably deliberately so. His special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, admitted as much last week when he pointed out that Trump “said he was gonna end the war in 24 hours,” but “didn’t say what day or what year.” He might have added that any reference to a war “ending” obscures the most important information: the end state, or who wins and who loses. So far, the president’s actions have tipped the scale decidedly in one direction.
First, Trump paused all military assistance to Ukraine, even though it was already mandated by Congress. A Department of Defense official even implied that planes carrying weapons and supplies had turned around midair. (Recall that interrupting military aid to Ukraine in defiance of Congress was a central part of the scandal that led to Trump’s first impeachment.)
But even more significant than the pause in aid might be the interruption of American intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians. This abrupt policy change has left Ukrainian forces without critical battlefield information, and will radically change battlefield conditions. (Trump said Sunday that he was “just about” ready to lift the pause, but didn’t elaborate on when or under what circumstances he would.)
On the first night after the announcement, Russia ramped up long-range missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. The implications were obvious: Not just Ukrainian troops but Ukrainian civilians will bear the cost of American abandonment while Russia will potentially suffer fewer losses, gain more ground, be better able to defend its bases and supplies, and gain an advantage at any upcoming peace talks. In the infamous Oval Office meeting, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that he didn’t have “the cards,” then he began to stack the deck in favor of Vladimir Putin.
Since the earliest days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s battlefield successes have largely depended on its ability to gather and leverage Western intelligence to anticipate and counter Russian maneuvers. The U.S. Army’s definition of reconnaissance is information that allows “commanders to understand the situation, visualize the battle, and make decisions.” Western intelligence has provided critical reconnaissance and the resultant intelligence to the Ukrainian military. Later, as they obtained advanced Western weapons that allow for geolocation of Russian units as well as precision ammunition for targeting of Russian forces and critical nodes, Ukrainian forces generated a distinct advantage against the Russian military, which was still using “massed” formations and artillery as their doctrinal approach to warfighting dictates. The combination of Western intelligence and precision meant that, for example, even when the Ukrainians could only fire a fraction of the number of artillery rounds that the Russians forces were firing daily, they weren’t at a battlefield disadvantage because more of their rounds hit their targets. What Ukraine lacked in quantity, they made up for with quality. This is the technological and doctrinal basis on which Western militaries have been based since the 1970s.
For years the United States and other NATO militaries have trained Ukrainian forces in intelligence-based operations based on the ability of a commander and his forces to gain greater situational awareness before striking a target. Before the time of ubiquitous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, units would conduct missions such as “movement to contact,” which in effect meant locating the enemy by prompting them to shoot at you; “reconnaissance by force,” which blurred the lines between information-gathering and attacking; or “hasty attacks,” in which a unit surprised by an enemy’s action would react with an unplanned assault.
The advent of advanced intelligence platforms—satellites, signals intelligence, aircraft imagery, and other means—has made those methods largely obsolete. Now a force can avoid direct contact with an enemy until it has at least rudimentary information about the opposing force’s size and location. Ukrainian military units trained in gaining and leveraging this distinct advantage prior to serving alongside U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they understand how useful pre-battle intelligence can be, especially to a small force. The ability to maneuver forces while avoiding ambushes and artillery barrages is key for the Ukrainians, and U.S. intelligence has provided Ukraine with real-time satellite data and electronic surveillance of Russian troop movements, allowing Ukrainian units to reposition rapidly and strike where the enemy is weakest.
By cutting off this intelligence, the United States is effectively blinding Ukrainian commanders, forcing them to operate in the dark while Russia—fully aware that the United States has ceased intelligence-sharing—can maneuver unchallenged and with greater confidence.
But the significance of intel-based operations extends beyond providing mere tactical advantage for maneuvering units. In the last three years Ukraine has learned how technologically advanced intelligence also helps large forces gain successful operational and strategic outcomes with information that contributes to targeting faraway forces.
For years, U.S. and Western forces have used and polished a targeting methodology for long-range fires—the “deep battle”—and as with everything in the military, it has an acronym: DDDA (decide, detect, deliver, assess). The approach has been adapted repeatedly for new scenarios and environments, but remains essentially sound. Put simply, the objective is for the commander to decide, based on his planning, what targets are the most important to eliminate based on which are most important for the enemy’s capability to fight, today and tomorrow. Then, using intelligence resources and capabilities, the commander attempts to find where those targets are located. Then, modern weapons and ammunitions deliver the ordnance, executing precise strikes against those targets (which is why HIMARS, ATACMS, and long-range air and sea drones are important to Ukraine). After striking the target, the commander assesses the effects, determining whether to strike again, move on to the next target set, or adjust the plan. Ukraine’s advances in precise targeting, compared to Russia’s continued use of mass area attacks, gives them an advantage in more efficient and effective use of forces and ammunition. And that’s critical to overcoming the constraints Ukraine has as a smaller force.
Canada and the European NATO nations, together or separately, face challenges in replacing or even replicating much of the sophisticated intelligence support the United States provides. While European countries are enhancing their defense efforts, they lack the comprehensive and massive intelligence infrastructure the U.S. possesses. While NATO nations have all agreed to a substantial increase in defense spending, the development and integration of advanced intelligence systems within Europe are still in progress and will not compensate for the immediate loss of U.S. intelligence. This is one reason why alliances are so important: The combined force is always greater than the sum of the individual members.
As a former commander of a large force in combat, I know firsthand the advantages gained from intelligence systems in “seeing the battlefield” and effectively using the targeting process. As he asks Ukraine and Russia to come to the peace table, President Trump’s deliberate restriction of intelligence-sharing is hindering Ukraine’s ability to sustain its bargaining position. But even beyond that, he is advantaging Russia’s battlefield success while hindering Ukraine’s current momentum and the defense of its civilian population. This decision blunts Ukraine’s military effectiveness, puts more Ukrainian civilians at risk, and grants Russian forces a distinct operational advantage.
The ramifications of Trump’s decision extend beyond the battlefield. Given Putin’s well-documented war crimes and Russia’s continued attacks on civilians, restricting Ukraine’s access to intelligence raises serious ethical concerns about American complicity. In limiting Ukraine’s access to intelligence, the United States risks not just strategic miscalculation but moral failure—becoming an enabler of the very war crimes it once sought to prevent.
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