Washington on Wednesday confirmed it had temporarily paused the flow of intelligence to Kyiv on Wednesday, just days after suspending military aid.
France will keep providing Ukraine with military intelligence after US officials said they had paused intelligence sharing between Washington and Kyiv.
French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu told France Inter on Thursday that the country would continue its intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
“Our intelligence is sovereign,” Lecornu said. “We have intelligence that we allow Ukraine to benefit from.”
Washington on Wednesday said it had suspended the sharing of intelligence with Ukraine, cutting off the flow of vital information that has helped the country to target Russian forces. The suspension comes after US President Donald Trump’s administration paused military aid to Kyiv after a spat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
However, senior US officials have stressed that the intelligence sharing freeze was temporary and CIA Director John Ratcliffe expressed optimism that it would be lifted if Zelenskyy engaged positively with the US in peace talks.
US intelligence is understood to be critical in allowing Ukraine’s military to track Russian movements and select targets, slowing the advance of Moscow’s forces without unnecessarily expending its supplies.
Ukraine also uses the information when operating US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and US Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACAMS).
France accelerating aid packages
It is unclear how the US decision to pause the flow of intelligence between Washington and Kyiv will impact sharing ties between Ukraine and other Western powers.
“I think that for our British friends, who are in an intelligence community with the US, it’s more complicated,” Lecornu said, referring to the Five Eyes intelligence group that also includes Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday evaded a question on reports suggesting the US had instructed the UK to suspend intelligence sharing, saying that London’s stance of putting Ukraine in the “strongest possible position” had not changed.
“I’ve always been clear that we need to ensure that the US, the UK, Europe and Ukraine are working together, but we must not choose between the US and Europe — we never have historically, and we’re not going to do so now,” Starmer said.
France’s Lecornu said he was asked by President Emmanuel Macron to “accelerate the various French aid packages” to compensate for the lack of US military assistance.
He added that shipments of Ukraine-bound aid departing from Poland had been suspended after the US announcement. However, Lecornu said that: “Ukrainians … have learned to fight this war for three years now and know how to stockpile”.
Zelenskyy on Tuesday said he was ready to negotiate a peace deal “as soon as possible” and outlined stages on how the war could end.
Yet his conditions are opposed by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his officials. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rejected the idea of using European peacekeeping forces, an idea floated by the UK and France as part of a ceasefire deal.
