The U.S. Is Providing Kyiv with Data for Strikes on Russia's Energy Sector — The Atlantic
The U.S. continues to provide Ukraine with intelligence that can be used to carry out strikes against Russia’s energy infrastructure. The Atlantic reports this, noting that Washington continues to support Kyiv, particularly with intelligence.
“The only thing the U.S. continues to provide free of charge is intelligence, including data packages for strikes against Russian military positions in the occupied part of Ukraine and against energy infrastructure within Russia,” the publication writes.
According to American and Ukrainian sources, the credit for ensuring that this assistance continues goes to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
It is claimed that while on the golf course, he impresses U.S. President Donald Trump with data on Russian battlefield losses, which exceed 40,000 per month.
Ratcliffe’s success, as one Western intelligence official explained, lies in the fact that “Trump doesn’t like losers.” In particular, Ukraine now appears to be the victor and is disproving the view of those who insist that Kyiv is incapable of winning.
In addition, *The Atlantic* noted Ukraine’s strikes against Russia’s energy sector and the benefits for the U.S. In particular, a reduction in oil exports from Russia could make India and China more vulnerable to the tariffs imposed by Trump.
The publication points out that during his first presidential term, Trump “urged Europeans to end their dependence on Russian oil and gas, going so far as to impose sanctions against the Nord Stream gas pipeline.”
“This is an escalation, but it is also an escalation that could help bring an end to the conflict,” the U.S. president said regarding the strikes on Ukraine at the NATO summit in Ankara last month.
The Atlantic speculates that Trump may view these Ukrainian strikes as a prelude to negotiations, as he did with Iran.
As a reminder, the U.S. Senate supported a bill providing temporary funding for the federal government but did not agree to the Trump administration’s demand to allocate approximately $70 billion for military spending related to Iran.
Despite large-scale U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, its nuclear program has likely not been completely destroyed. According to The New York Times, Tehran may have retained stockpiles of highly enriched uranium that would potentially be sufficient to quickly produce up to ten nuclear warheads.
