‘Left to Fight Alone’ – Deadly Consequences of Trump’s Ukraine Intel Freeze

The White House decision to halt the transfer of military intelligence to Ukraine has allowed Russian forces to advance on a critical section of the front line, leading to significant losses among Ukrainian troops, and weakening President Volodymyr Zelensky’s position in negotiations, according to reports.

“As a result of this pause, there are hundreds of dead Ukrainians,” one Ukrainian officer said.

“The biggest problem is morale,” he added, as Ukraine’s armed forces (AFU) are being left to fight without some of their most effective weapon systems – not due to Russian attacks, but because of the American pullback. “It’s really causing an advantage for the enemy on the front line.”

Time reported the fallout from US leader Donald Trump backing out of long-term US support for its war-torn ally, citing senior Western and Ukrainian officials and military officers familiar with the situation.

The most difficult situation is currently in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold onto territory captured during their August offensive. President Zelensky views this region as a crucial bargaining chip in future negotiations with Russia, particularly regarding prisoner exchanges, Time writes.

Sources in the President’s Office confirm that the loss of access to US intelligence has had the most significant impact on operations in this area. Without this data, Ukrainian troops can no longer detect approaching Russian bombers and other combat aircraft in time, making it much harder to warn both soldiers and civilians of impending strikes.

Other Topics of Interest

Ukraine’s Ceasefire Proposal Won’t Include Ground Combat, Kyiv Says

A Ukrainian official said Kyiv is ready to start implementing limited ceasefire, but not for ground combat as it would simply allow Russia to regroup and intensify its assaults on Ukraine.

Russian forces have made significant advances in the Kursk region, reclaiming 17% of the territory previously held by Ukrainian forces in just one week. As a result, nearly 10,000 Ukrainian troops are now at risk of encirclement. By March 7, Russian forces had effectively split Ukrainian units, cutting them off from their primary supply line.

According to Deep State, a project close to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense, this supply corridor has now been reduced to just one kilometer in length and less than 500 meters in width, putting Ukraine’s ability to hold its positions at serious risk.

The loss of US intelligence has also severely hampered Ukraine’s ability to conduct medium- and long-range strikes on Russian targets. Previously, such attacks were often carried out using US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

After Washington provided these weapons in 2022, the US also began supplying Ukraine with satellite intelligence, which allowed Ukrainian forces to identify and strike Russian command centers deep behind enemy lines with pinpoint accuracy. Now, without this data, the effectiveness of these strikes has significantly decreased.

“The satellites allow us to see what the enemy is hiding,” Oleksiy Reznikov, then Ukraine’s defense minister, said at the time. “The HIMARS allows us to destroy it.”

Ukrainian forces have frequently relied on satellite imagery from Maxar to plan long-range strikes against Russian targets.

In an emailed statement to TIME, Maxar Technologies confirmed the disruption of services in Ukraine.

“The US government has decided to temporarily suspend Ukrainian accounts” in the system used to provide access to commercial satellite imagery.

“Maxar has contracts with the US government and dozens of allied and partner nations around the world to provide satellite imagery and other geospatial data,” the company said. “Each customer makes their own decisions on how they use and share that data.”

A source close to Ukraine’s General Staff says that, deepening the sense of abandonment among Ukrainians, the group of Western partners who helped receive and process satellite intelligence at the military headquarters in Kyiv has left the country.

“There’s no one left,” he says.

On March 3, Trump ordered a halt to all military aid to Ukraine, including shipments that were already en route. On March 5, it became known that this decision also applied to intelligence-sharing and satellite imagery.