Filenews 7 March 2025 - by David Axe
Cynically demanding that Ukraine end a war it did not start itself, the United States this week severed a longstanding intelligence-sharing partnership with Ukraine.
The "schism" came in the aftermath of an eventful meeting in the Oval Office, where Donald Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance insulted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for not saying as many "thank yous" as they wanted for the Biden administration's U.S. support for Kiev.
By cutting off intelligence cooperation, Ukraine will find it difficult to defend its civilians from Russian missile attacks and strike Russian targets at long range. By isolating Ukraine from information that literally saves lives, the United States itself is isolated. Especially in space.
Ukraine did not have a large number of military satellites nor the necessary financial resources to rent commercial satellites. So it relied on the U.S. spacecraft fleet—hundreds of satellites for communication and surveillance—as well as commercial space services paid for by the U.S. or other Western allies.
The satellites helped Ukrainian troops and drones both in their movements and in their communication with each other. In addition, they tracked – through radar and cameras – the movements of Russian troops as well as Russian command networks by detecting their radios. "Ukraine deployed space information systems far beyond its capabilities before February 2022," Robin Dickey and Michael Gleason wrote in an article for Aether.
However, this week the Trump administration made a de facto alignment with Russian interests. "The situation is pretty bad," a source familiar with the type of intelligence the U.S. and Ukraine was exchanging told CNN. "Combined with the interruption of military aid to Kiev, all this more or less guarantees Russia's victory without a peace agreement."
What Europe can do
Ukraine's European allies share many space capabilities with the United States, albeit on a much smaller scale. Ukraine, which has previously built and launched its own spacecraft, leased a radar satellite from Finnish company Iceye in 2022 for $17 million.
Two years later, Germany compensated the German company Rheinmetall and Iceye for expanding Ukraine's space surveillance capabilities. In the meantime, the Netherlands has taken over the compensation of €13 million. Colorado-based aerospace company Maxar, whose satellites often photograph almost the entire surface of the Earth, in order for Ukraine to access visual material.
The Dutch are sharing information with the Ukrainians based on a memorandum of cooperation they signed in 2024. The Ukrainians can also count on Europe's major aerospace powers, such as the UK, Italy and France, to give them access to surveillance data.
Poland is compensating Starlink, the space communications company partly owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX, for providing Ukraine with vital services. The Polish government reaffirmed its commitment to the deal last month amid reports that Musk may block Ukrainian access to space communications. But Ukraine's European allies are not risking it. Eutelsat, a Franco-British space communications company, is in talks with the European Union to provide services to Ukraine.
The U.S. can make it harder for Ukraine to access space, but it can't cut it off completely. By cutting off intelligence sharing, the Trump administration may ultimately harm the U.S. while doing damage to Ukraine. After all, the U.S. military and intelligence agencies do not produce intelligence on their own. They need the exchange – particularly through the "Five Eyes" alliance with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
But Trump could dismantle "Five Eyes." In the midst of a trade war with Canada and with Trump a peculiar obsession with "integrating" Canada as the 51st U.S. state, U.S. presidential adviser Peter Navarro suggested expelling Canada from the "Five Eyes" alliance: a move that would hurt all five members. Essentially, by cutting off intelligence cooperation with Ukraine, Trump could hasten the collapse of the Five Eyes.
