Former CIA Director Brennan: Trump’s decision to stop intelligence sharing with Ukraine is tactic of pressure and extortion
Former CIA Director John Brennan said that the decision of the Donald Trump administration to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine is "unprecedented" and could have "devastating consequences" for Kyiv.
This is reported by The Huffington Post, Censor.NET informs.
"I’ve never seen anything like this in my nearly 35 years of experience ... whereby US intelligence was stopped for a political purpose and to try to coerce a partner like Ukraine to accede to the wishes of an administration," he said.
In his opinion, if this decision remains in force, it could have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine on the battlefield, as the US provided Kyiv with intelligence that European partners cannot fully replace.
"The Europeans do not have the capability to provide the type of intelligence that the US intelligence community has been providing - all different types of intelligence that again feeds and fuels the Ukrainian government, military, security, intelligence services. You take away that, you really do enfeeble the Ukrainian services," Brennan stressed.
He also added that he considered the decision to be more akin to "pressure and extortion tactics".
As a reminder, CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed that the United States had suspended arms supplies and intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
Suspension of US aid
On the morning of March 4, it became known that US President Donald Trump had ordered the suspension of all US military aid to Ukraine in order to force Kyiv to demonstrate a "good faith commitment" to peace.
One U.S. official told CNN that the consequences of the suspension of U.S. military aid will be felt in some time. Perhaps a few days or weeks. However, as soon as the stockpiles of weapons and armaments begin to run out, the country will face serious consequences.
According to journalist Ostap Yarysh, the US decision to suspend assistance to Ukraine will primarily affect the supply of missiles to air defense and ammunition for HIMARS and artillery.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna emphasized that the US decision to temporarily suspend military aid to Ukraine means that Europe must help Ukraine more and faster than before to fill this gap.
The Economist article says that the US decision to suspend aid to Ukraine will lead to more casualties and destruction. The critical elements, the newspaper writes, are weapons, their repair, air defense missiles, the Starlink system, and, perhaps most importantly, intelligence sharing.
Chief National Security Advisor to Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, Marius Česnulevičius, said that Washington's decision to suspend military aid to Ukraine was not a surprise. However, Europe is preparing a response.
Later, The Economist wrote that there is currently no official order from Donald Trump to suspend military aid to Ukraine.
