By Andrew Stuttaford
Thursday, March 06, 2025
The latest move by the administration to “encourage”
Ukraine to accept some sort of peace deal with its Russian invaders is a brutal
and low blow.
The US has cut off intelligence
sharing with Kyiv in a move that could seriously hamper the Ukrainian
military’s ability to target Russian forces.
The ban on intelligence sharing
also extended to Washington prohibiting America’s allies from sharing any
Ukraine-related intelligence they have received from the U.S. with Kyiv.
The step follows the decision on
Monday by Donald Trump’s administration to suspend military aid deliveries to
Ukraine and comes after a dramatic breakdown in relations between the US
president and Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. US intelligence co-operation
has been essential for Ukraine’s ability to identify and strike Russian
military targets.
This has meant that Ukraine’s powerful American-made
wheeled HIMARS rocket launchers are not getting the coordinates they need to
hit Russian targets more than 40 miles away, cutting their maximum effective range by about a third.
On top of that, American intelligence has played an
important part in Ukraine’s efforts to protect its cities from missile and
drone attacks.
According to some officials, the ban on
intelligence-sharing is temporary, and the information flow will resume once
Trump is satisfied that Ukraine’s President Zelensky is serious about entering
into peace negotiations, something that CIA Director John Ratcliffe has
appeared to back up.
CNN:
CIA Director John Ratcliffe in an
interview on Fox Business on Wednesday also suggested that the pause on
intelligence sharing may soon be ended.
“You saw the response that
President Zelensky put out,” Ratcliffe said, referring to recent statements
from the Ukrainian president that the country was ready to negotiate. “So I
think on the military front and the intelligence front, the pause that allowed
that to happen, I think will go away.”
Let’s hope. Nevertheless, the extent to which the
termination of this “pause” is contingent on Zelensky showing his willingness
to talk gives Moscow a good reason to make such a demonstration of intent more
difficult: Every day that Ukraine is deprived of U.S. intelligence support
hands Moscow an extra advantage, particularly on the ground. Every mile
Russia’s army can take now is, in all probability, a mile that it will not
return to Kyiv in the event of a peace. It also would not be a surprise if the Russians
made maintaining the ban on intelligence-sharing a condition of starting talks.
But even if the flow of intelligence is restored quickly,
its absence will almost certainly have led to Ukrainian losses on the front and
in its battered cities.
And for what?
Meanwhile other countries, perhaps some of those
undecided between the U.S. and the Beijing/Moscow bloc, may watch this move and
decide to lean a little closer to that nice, reliable Mr. Putin. And it’s not
hard to see how actions such as this erode the confidence in the U.S. felt by
other NATO allies, who must be wondering how much they can depend on the
American guarantee still supposedly underwriting the mutual defense obligations
contained in Article 5 of the NATO treaty. And if NATO allies ask that question,
so will the alliance’s enemies. A deterrent must be credible to deter.
Treating Ukraine in the way that Washington is now doing
inevitably weakens the broader credibility of the American deterrent — and not
just in Europe — with possible consequences that no one — not least Americans —
should want to see
No comments:
Post a Comment