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President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. | Credit: Alex Wong / Getty Images
What happened
President Donald Trump recently approved providing Ukraine with intelligence for missile strikes on energy infrastructure deep inside Russia, The Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported Wednesday, citing U.S. officials. Trump is also considering Kyiv’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles capable of hitting those power stations, refineries and pipelines providing oil and revenue to fuel Moscow’s war, Vice President J.D. Vance confirmed earlier this week.
Who said what
Trump signed off on allowing U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon to aid in Ukraine’s long-range energy strikes “shortly before” he “vented his frustration” with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week in a social media post that said Ukraine could win back all its territory, the Journal said. It was Trump’s “first known policy change” on the conflict since he began “hardening his rhetoric toward Russia in recent weeks,” Reuters said.
With Trump’s efforts to nudge Putin into peace talks going nowhere, he has been focusing on Russia’s oil and gas revenue, hitting India with steep tariffs for buying Moscow’s discounted oil and pressuring Europe and Turkey to stop purchasing Russian energy. Providing U.S. targeting intelligence, “combined with more powerful weapons, could have a far more potent effect” on degrading Russia’s energy infrastructure than Ukraine’s previous drone and missile strikes inside the country, the Journal said.
Inside Russia, where the Ukraine war “could soon outlast even the nation-molding Soviet struggle against Adolf Hitler,” there are “signs that the Russian public just want it to be over,” Politico said. In response, the Kremlin is “doubling down that Russia’s the victim, and that fragile Western nations are quivering in the face of Russian might.”
What next?
U.S. officials are “awaiting written guidance from the White House before sharing the necessary intelligence,” the Journal said, and “no decision” has been made on providing Ukraine with Tomahawk or Barracuda missiles. Kyiv has “developed its own long-range missile named the Flamingo,” Reuters said, “but quantities are unknown as the missile is in early production.”