CIA Director John Ratcliffe has confirmed that the Trump administration has stopped the exchange of information with Ukraine after a warm exchange between the leaders of the two countries on Friday.
By answering a question During an interview With Fox’s Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday, Ratcliffe did not provide further details on the decision, but President Trump called for a “cessation” to send weapons and intelligence missions to Ukraine.
Ratcliffe said the pause came after President Trump questioned whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “pledged the peace process” after a meeting at the Oval Office between the two leaders. The meeting ended sharply before leaders could proceed with the scheduled signing of a mineral agreement in exchange for US commitments on Ukraine’s financial security.
The CIA manager added that he believes that the pause “will go away”, but did not specify when.
It is not immediately clear how the cessation of sharing US information will affect Ukraine’s ability to defend attacks by Russia.
A CIA spokesman did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comments. Representatives for the Ukrainian government in Kiev and New York did not immediately respond to an email seeking comments.
Ukraine has been largely based on American intelligence since the onset of Russia’s full -scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including the treatment and prevention of Russian cyberattacks. During the war, Russia is also aimed at Ukraine with destructive cyberattacks that caused power outages in the middle of winter and hit the satellite communications used by the Ukraine army.
Since the war escalated in 2022, the US has deepened its diplomatic ties and its cooperation with Ukraine.
In 2023, the fbi did Cooperation with Ukrainesaying that federal authorities provided “active information” to its Ukrainian partners, such as alerts that helped alleviate the distributed attacks of denying services and deal with the spread of misinformation.
The US also accused several Russian hackers supported by the government who are accused of launching a wave of destructive attacks on the Ukraine government and beyond.
