What's Going On In Ukraine?
Trump was expected to further outline his plans for Ukraine and Russia in the speech to Congress, but did not reveal any further details on how he plans to end Europe's biggest conflict since World War Two.
Trump said Ukraine was ready to sign a minerals deal with the U.S., which Washington says is crucial to secure continued U.S. backing for Ukraine's defense.
Four sources told Reuters that the Trump administration and Ukraine plan to sign the deal in return for military aid, which Trump has paused. But later on Tuesday U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News, "There is no signing planned," according to a post on X by a Fox reporter.
Trump gave no further details on the minerals deal, leaving its fate unclear.
And precisely what has been paused? CNN calls it "shipments", but what does that involve?
President Donald Trump is ordering a pause on shipments of US military aid to Ukraine after his heated Oval Office argument with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week, a White House official told CNN Monday.
The halt in aid, which came after Trump held a series of meetings with top national security officials at the White House, could have dire effect on Ukraine’s war-fighting abilities, officials and analysts said. It will remain in place until Trump determines Zelensky has made a commitment to seeking peace talks, one official said, essentially forcing Ukraine to a negotiating table by threatening further losses on the battlefield.
But it's not just "shipments". As of Wednesday,
The Trump administration appears to have ordered at least a partial halt to the crucial intelligence that the United States shares with Ukraine to defend against the Russian invasion, according to a US military official and public remarks made by top Trump administration officials.
Statements from national security adviser Mike Waltz and CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Wednesday morning indicated that a pause in intelligence sharing is in place but the extent of the limitations was not clear. Both officials also suggested that the pause may be short-lived if the president can be satisfied that Ukraine has taken steps towards negotiations to end the war – a controversial effort that appeared to be derailed after Friday’s fiery Oval Office meeting between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We are pausing, assessing, looking at everything across our security relationship,” national security adviser Mike Waltz told CBS News, asked directly about intelligence-sharing with Kyiv. The Trump administration had already announced a freeze in weapons deliveries to Ukraine, part of the White House effort to attempt to pressure Kyiv into a swift end to a war it didn’t start.
The UK Telegraph reported,
Ukraine’s most powerful missiles were left frozen on Wednesday after the US cut off intelligence-sharing and demanded fresh talks with Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kyiv was forced to agree to reopen negotiations with the White House, and Mr Zelensky said a new summit could begin next week, after he met European leaders on Thursday.
. . . Crucial intelligence for long-range missiles such as Himars, which have been key to holding back the Russian offensive, went dark at about 2pm on Wednesday.
White House officials said the US would only lift the ban on sharing the data if it could “nail down negotiations” with Ukraine, which are expected to cover the minerals deal that was put on ice after the clash in the Oval Office last Friday between Mr Zelensky and Donald Trump.
Diplomatic sources, however, suggested Mr Zelensky may have to offer additional concessions to get talks back on track.
Sundance at Conservative Treehouse is among the few analysts who are covering these developments.
When President Trump stopped “intelligence sharing” with Ukraine, what he technically did was stop allowing Ukraine to use exclusive USA targeting systems controlled by U.S Intelligence, the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
These terrain mapping systems, the missile and drone targeting systems, are what military forces inside Ukraine need to carry out offensive drone and missile attacks against Russian forces.
. . . In essence and material reality, the elements in Ukraine who are conducting war, and this includes U.K and U.S special forces, the CIA and various NATO allied military operators (not Ukraine military) can no longer effectively hit long-range Russian targets, without the U.S. targeting system that identifies it.
. . . Effective immediately without targeting system access, ATACMS, HIMARS, Storm Shadow and Taurus missile systems are no longer functional to those Ukraine operators (remember, those operators are not necessarily Ukranian).
. . . All of the intellectually honest researchers know that it is the USA (special forces) and to a lesser extent the collaborating U.K (special forces) who have been operating these systems.
. . . ♦ From the Russian Perspective – In the mind of Putin he now sees President Trump stopping NATO/EU/CIA/UK forces from being able to reach Russia with any attack system.
They don’t need to discuss it, and likely would not, but Putin’s people clearly can see that Trump’s people have stopped the West from their ability to hit Russia with anything.
An unspoken trust is being established through actions, not words. That’s a radical shift, and pretty cool all things considered.
Clearly some people are beginning to see what's going on, at least from the intelligence establishment's point of view:
President Donald Trump’s decision to pause American military aid to Ukraine is handing Russia’s Vladimir Putin the upper hand on the battlefield and in geopolitical negotiations, former officials and experts warned Tuesday.
. . . Michael McFaul, Washington’s ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, likened the move to President Franklin D. Roosevelt losing “the 1940 election to an America Firster who then had the U.S. switch sides in World War II. ... We’d all be speaking German now.”
“That’s why this current moment feels like,” he wrote on X. “Three years into a war between an imperialist dictatorship with autocratic allies and a democracy, Trump just switched sides.”
The problem continues to be that realistically, Ukraine has never been anything but a puppet of US intelligence, something Secretary Rubio acknowledged earlier this week:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Wednesday interview described the war in Ukraine as a proxy war between the United States and Russia, as he sought to explain on the Oval Office blowup last week between Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, President Trump and Vice President Vance.
“I think an important thing to understand about last Friday is not last Friday. It’s everything that led up to it,” Rubio said during an interview on Fox News’s “Hannity.”
“It’s been very clear from the beginning that President Trump views this as a protracted, stalemated conflict,” Rubio said. “And frankly, it’s a proxy war between nuclear powers, the United States helping Ukraine, and Russia.”
Ukraine has been a US pawn since the Maidan Revolution, which Russia always viewed as a provocation. A resolution of the conflict can only be achieved via a direct agreement between the US and Russia.