Kyiv, Ukraine – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukraine’s partners had not provided intelligence data from NATO’s early-warning satellites, as tensions between Washington and Kyiv grow. He did not name the United States, and President Donald Trump has denied that Washington has stopped sharing intelligence.
The disclosure comes as nightly Russian missile and drone attacks killed at least 15 people and wounded dozens across Ukraine this week. Air raid sirens sounded seconds before or after each wave of missiles struck apartment buildings, power plants and warehouses.
Satellite warnings and the missing intelligence
The military satellites detect Russian ballistic missile launches by the heat of the rockets’ thermal flames, seconds after lift-off. According to the source, these warnings give Ukrainians up to 10 minutes to sound air raid sirens, send emergency text messages and move people to bomb shelters.
“That’s what helps prevent the killings,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine’s ground radars can only pick up the incoming missiles once they are close, because they travel at speeds of 6,000 to 12,000 kilometres per hour.
Retired Lieutenant-General Ihor Romanenko, a former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff, said the lack of data “significantly affects the effectiveness of air defence, we don’t have time to respond.” He also said that without satellite data, Ukrainian drones and missiles “lose precision when striking targets deep in Russia.”
Trump’s energy ceasefire and the oil price claim
On Sunday, Trump announced an energy ceasefire that would bar strikes on energy infrastructure on both sides, including Russian oil refineries and fuel depots and Ukrainian power and heating stations. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on social media.
Kyiv said the announcement came as a surprise. Moscow declined to say whether it backed the idea and continued to hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian observers, the source says, offer a simpler explanation for the pressure. They argue that Trump wants to help Republicans win more seats in the upcoming congressional midterm elections, and that a ceasefire would push global oil prices down. Trump has denied any such intent.
Romanenko said Trump “pressures our president, pressures Ukraine” and was trying to “get advantage by any means necessary in the election campaign.” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych said Trump needs peace talks to succeed, and that the process could be unblocked if Kyiv showed more willingness to accept Russia’s demands.
Tyshkevych said the pressure would continue until “Kyiv shows readiness for a compromise and concessions towards Russia.” He added that Moscow “simply abuses” the pressure and the suspension of air raid warnings to escalate attacks.
Refinery strikes and the Starlink dispute
The source notes that Kyiv had stopped hitting Russian refineries for three days before the data suspension, which made the timing especially shocking to Ukrainian observers. Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Aleksander Novak, said Ukrainian drones attacked refineries in the Saratov and Ryazan regions on Wednesday.
Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University, who has written hundreds of analyses of the hostilities, said Kyiv’s focus on refineries was ineffective and counterproductive. “Kyiv’s strategic priority is still the destruction of oil refineries,” he said, adding that Russia had recovered from the initial shock by moving gas from refineries in Siberia and importing it from neighbouring Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Mitrokhin said no economic collapse, mass unemployment or public protests followed the strikes. He argued that Ukrainian attacks on data centres, bridges and drone assembly factories were far more effective. Recent strikes on data centres of the Russian online giant Yandex and the state-run Sberbank disrupted services in Russia and in former Soviet republics where Yandex operates.
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s drone czar, Serhiy Beskrestnov, accused Elon Musk’s SpaceX of throttling Starlink terminals used on drones flying above 160 kilometres per hour. He said the limit was imposed abruptly and without warning, and that it hit interceptor drones that are crucial to Ukraine’s defence. Presidential adviser Serhii Sternenko said the limit followed a request from Trump.
Musk said the White House owns and controls the Starshield systems and that Trump decides any speed limits. Some military analysts warned that the limit could be followed by a full Starlink shutdown for Ukraine, which could damage the quality of all military communications. Andriy Pronin said Ukraine was “ready for any turn of events.”
