Washington — The US will provide Ukraine with intelligence on long-range energy infrastructure targets in Russia, two officials said Wednesday, as the Pentagon considers whether to send Kyiv missiles that could be used in such strikes.
The US is also asking Nato allies to provide similar support, the US officials said, confirming details first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
The decision represents the first known policy change that President Donald Trump has signed off on since hardening his rhetoric towards Russia in recent weeks in an attempt to end Moscow’s more than three-year war on its neighbour.
Trump, who had previously said Ukraine would have to give up territory to end the war, said last week he believed it was possible for Kyiv to win back all land that Moscow has captured.
Sights on Russian revenue
Washington has long been sharing intelligence with Kyiv, but the Wall Street Journal said the new data would make it easier for Ukraine to hit infrastructure such as refineries, pipelines and power plants with the aim of depriving the Kremlin of revenue and oil.
Responding to the reports on Thursday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that the “supply and use of the entire infrastructure of Nato and the US to collect and transfer intelligence to the Ukrainians is obvious”.
Trump has been pressing European countries to stop buying Russian oil in exchange for his agreement to impose tough sanctions in a bid to try to deplete funding for Russia’s invasion.
Neither the White House nor Ukraine’s mission to the UN immediately responded to requests for comment. Russia’s UN mission in New York declined to comment.
The move comes as the US considers a Ukrainian request to provide Tomahawk cruise missiles, which have a range of 2,500km — easily enough to reach Moscow and most of European Russia if fired from Ukraine.
Ukraine also has its own long-range missile, Flamingo, in early production but quantities are unknown.
According to US officials cited by the Wall Street Journal, the approval for additional intelligence came shortly before Trump posted on social media last Tuesday suggesting that Ukraine could retake all its occupied land.
Russian President Vladimir Putin fired back at US President Donald Trump for calling Russia a "paper tiger", suggesting Nato might better fit that label. Speaking in Sochi, Putin warned that supplying Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine could dangerously escalate the war.
He claimed Russia is advancing across the Ukrainian front lines and facing off against almost the entire Nato alliance. Putin mocked Western accusations of Russian drones violating Nato airspace, joking he didn't have drones that could reach Lisbon.
Russia's war in Ukraine, Europe's deadliest since World War 2, has sparked the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and Russian officials say they are now in a "hot" conflict with the West. Reuters
“After seeing the Economic trouble (the war) is causing Russia, I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and WIN all of Ukraine back in its original form,” Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
No quick fix
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, calling it a “special military operation” to halt Kyiv’s geopolitical drift to the West and what it considers to be a dangerous eastward Nato expansion.
Kyiv and European allies consider the invasion to be an imperial-style land grab.
Trump started his second term as president in January vowing to end the war in Ukraine rapidly.
“President Trump is a special kind of politician. He likes quick fixes and this is a situation where quick fixes do not work,” Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said on Wednesday at a press conference to mark the start of Russia's month-long presidency of the UN Security Council.
Nebenzia also cited his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as saying that if the US supplied Ukraine with Tomahawks, “it will not change the situation on the battlefield”.
Energy duties remain the Kremlin’s single most important source of cash to finance the war effort, making oil and gas exports a central target of Western sanctions.
Trump has taken steps to impose an additional tariff on imports from India to it to halt purchases of discounted Russian crude oil, and also lobbied the likes of Turkey to stop buying Russian oil.
Several major European importers of Russian oil and gas have moved to diversify supplies in recent weeks. Turkey signed long-term deals to buy US liquefied natural gas after Trump met President Tayyip Erdogan.
On Thursday, Hungary, one of the biggest remaining buyers of Russian gas, signed a deal to import LNG from France’s Engie.
On Wednesday, G7 finance ministers said they would jointly increase pressure on Russia by targeting those who were continuing to increase their purchases of Russian oil.
Reuters
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