U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is blocking America’s closest intelligence allies from receiving updates on Russia-Ukraine peace talks in a shock move that upends decades of tight cooperation.
That effectively cuts America’s Five Eyes partners — the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand — out of the loop, stunning the intelligence community that has relied on the network since the end of World War II.
In a July 20 directive signed by Gabbard, reported by CBS, the U.S. intelligence community was given orders to classify all analysis and information related to the Russia-Ukraine peace negotiations as “NOFORN,” or no foreign dissemination, meaning the information cannot be shared with any other country or foreign nationals.
While it carved out exceptions for diplomatic channels and battlefield intelligence for Ukraine, it strikingly excludes sharing from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, one of the closest spy networks in the world.
“When you talk about Five Eyes, you’re talking about a lot of integrated systems and capabilities,” said Philip Davies, director of the Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies in London.
Davies added that there has been a lot of speculation that sharing with the U.S. is being dialed down by the other four members because of “the vagaries of the Trump administration.”
The move by Gabbard is the second major curb on intelligence-sharing by President Donald Trump’s administration this year. In March, the U.S. abruptly cut Kyiv off in a bid to pressure Ukraine into talks with Russia. That move rattled Europe’s spy chiefs, who quickly convened in Paris to ramp up their own support to Ukraine — including beefing up intelligence from European satellites.
Meanwhile, earlier this week The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. could once again use intelligence-sharing as a pressure mechanism to encourage Kyiv to agree to a potentially disadvantageous deal with Moscow.
“It is quite a sad read,” one European intelligence official said of the latest Gabbard decision, after being granted anonymity to speak candidly. “We don’t feel it yet, but it is not a good direction. It is said [Gabbard] is strongly pro-Russian.”
Trump’s behavior has added momentum to intelligence being part of Europe’s push for strategic autonomy and reducing reliance on the U.S. This spring’s suspension of battlefield information — crucial for Ukrainian soldiers — was the final push many in Europe’s services needed to begin to shed decades of siloed thinking and start working toward joint intelligence that not only informs national governments but feeds directly into policy debates in Brussels.
One sign of this shifting climate came on April 11 at the annual Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity meeting in Brussels chaired by the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas. While in the past the event was often skipped by national intelligence heads, this year’s meeting was attended by senior European spy chiefs.
On Wednesday, Gabbard separately announced plans to overhaul her office, cutting hundreds of staff and consolidating teams focused on countering malign influence and cyber threats.
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