Unilaterally demanding Ukraine end a war it did not start, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump ended a longstanding intelligence-sharing arrangement with Ukraine this week. The schism had an immediate effect on the Ukrainian army’s U.S.-made High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems.
According to The Washington Post, some of the Ukrainian batteries that operate the country’s 40 or so wheeled HIMARS rocket launchers, each of which lobs a six-pack of 660-pound precision-guided rockets as far as 57 miles, are no longer getting coordinates for the most distant Russian targets, 40 miles away or farther.
“America cut a key intel link for alerts at 2pm Kyiv [time],” The Economist’s Oliver Carroll wrote Wednesday. “Before that: targeting data for HIMARS. Ukraine also isn’t receiving realtime information for long-range strikes.”
HIMARS, like other artillery systems, just needs map grid coordinates—manually calculated or aided by GPS—to accurately strike a target. Those coordinates can come from any intelligence source: a satellite, a drone, radio eavesdropping or even a human spotter with a pair of binoculars.
Which is why, around the same time the Americans began blocking intel, a Ukrainian HIMARS blasted a concentration of Russian troops around Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian-held fortress city in eastern Ukraine. The nearest Russian regiments are just a few miles from Pokrovsk, well within reach of even smaller drones.
Intel strata
Ukraine’s own intel assets—in particular, its drones—are concentrated directly over or near the front line. Beyond 40 miles or so, U.S. assets such as satellites tend to be more abundant. It’s not that Ukraine can’t spot targets for its HIMARS with its own intel or intel provided by its European allies. It’s just that it’s harder now that the Americans have ended intel sharing.
It might prove painful, but Ukraine can compensate for the sudden American intransigence. Ukraine’s European allies possess many of the same space capabilities as the U.S., albeit on a smaller scale. Commercial providers possess others—and can be paid to provide them.
Unless and until Trump reverses his anti-Ukraine positions or the Ukrainians secure other sources of intel on distant targets, Ukraine’s HIMARS might not fire as far or as accurately.
But they can still fire. At least until their rockets, most of which have been donated by the U.S., run out.
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