Trump criticises Zelensky, while the CIA gives Kyiv data for strikes deep inside Russia

Donald Trump recently said Volodymyr Zelensky is harder to work with than Vladimir Putin. While Trump publicly attacks the Ukrainian president, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), according to the American magazine The Atlantic, keeps supplying Ukraine with data for attacks on targets in Russia, as well as warnings about incoming missiles and drones.

According to the magazine, the CIA plays the leading role among the American structures operating in Ukraine - that is how a former senior US official described it. A statement from an intelligence official in the Baltic states sounds sharper still: CIA operations in Ukraine have become "significantly more aggressive" than under Joe Biden's administration. And that is despite all of Trump's public rhetoric.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, according to The Atlantic, supports intelligence sharing with Kyiv. But there is a key caveat: if Trump ordered a halt, Ratcliffe, according to the magazine's sources, would not try to talk him out of it. In other words, the bridge between Washington and Kyiv stands until the president decides otherwise - and the decision belongs to none other than Trump, who considers Zelensky a harder partner than Putin.

This isn't the first time. In March 2025 The Washington Post reported that Washington had temporarily cut off much of its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, including data for planning strikes in Russia. Later reports in 2026 spoke of renewed and stepped-up cooperation, and back in August The Atlantic wrote that the US was supplying Ukraine with data for strikes on Russian military positions and energy infrastructure. So the support isn't a constant - it gets switched on and off depending on politics.

For Kyiv this is not an abstraction. American data is used to plan military operations, to choose targets and to give timely warning ahead of missile and drone attacks. When that kind of support depends on the mood in the White House, Kyiv can't plan a single night ahead.

The Balkans know this pattern well: great powers say one thing in public while their agencies do another. Who suffers when the two part ways? And if Washington treats a country at war like this, what is a promise to the smaller states of the Balkans worth?