The decision defies earlier warnings from US intelligence officials to the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington that further strikes on Russian energy sites would trigger an immediate halt to all intelligence sharing, according to the Washington Post. Semafor reported that the White House is actively discussing a full intelligence ban to stop Ukraine's long range strikes inside Russia, though CIA Director John Ratcliffe opposes the move. Separately, a senior Ukrainian official told AFP on Wednesday that Washington is "helping Russia" by failing to warn of incoming missile attacks and slowing the Starlink system used for battlefield communications and frontline logistics.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had refrained from hitting Russian energy targets following President Donald Trump's weekend announcement of an energy ceasefire, whose terms Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said had never been established. Instead, Russia launched 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 drones overnight Wednesday, hitting all three of Kyiv's combined heat and power plants, damaging 26 power facilities and four oil and gas sites, and leaving at least 600,000 people without electricity. While Trump publicly denied cutting off intelligence and US officials blamed "bad weather" for the lack of early launch alerts across two consecutive nights of strikes, sources told CBS News the warnings may have been intentionally withheld.