CIA director John Ratcliffe has confirmed the Trump administration has paused its intelligence sharing operation with Ukraine, following a heated exchange between the two countries’ leaders on Friday.
In response to a question during an interview with Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday, Ratcliffe did not provide further details about the decision, but said President Trump had asked for a “pause” in sending weapons shipments and intelligence to Ukraine.
Ratcliffe said the pause came after President Trump questioned whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was “committed to the peace process” following a meeting in the Oval Office between the two leaders. The meeting ended abruptly before the leaders could go ahead with the planned signing of a minerals deal in exchange for U.S. commitments to Ukraine’s financial security.
The CIA director added that he thinks that the pause “will go away,” but did not specify when.
It’s not immediately clear how the pause of U.S. intelligence sharing will affect Ukraine’s ability to defend against attacks from Russia.
A spokesperson for the CIA did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. Representatives for the Ukrainian government in Kyiv and New York did not immediately reply to an email requesting comment.
Ukraine has relied heavily on U.S. intelligence since around the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including to counter and prevent Russian-launched cyberattacks. During the war, Russia also targeted Ukraine with destructive cyberattacks that caused power outages in the middle of winter and knocked out satellite communications used by Ukraine’s military.
Since the war escalated in 2022, the U.S. has deepened its diplomatic ties and collaboration with Ukraine.
In 2023, the FBI touted its intelligence sharing partnership with Ukraine, saying federal authorities provided “actionable intelligence” to its Ukrainian partners, such as notifications that helped mitigate distributed denial-of-service attacks and counter the spread of disinformation.
The U.S. also indicted several Russian government-backed hackers accused of launching a wave of destructive attacks at the Ukrainian government and beyond.
