By John Irish
PARIS, Jan 15 (Reuters) – President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that France was now providing two-thirds of intelligence information to Ukraine, largely replacing the United States, which until last year had delivered the bulk of those services.
In March 2025, Washington made the decision to suspend intelligence sharing with Ukraine as part of efforts to crank up pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to cooperate with President Donald Trump’s bid to convene peace talks with Russia, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The relationship has had its ups and downs since, but there has been no indication that Washington has drastically cut its intelligence provision to Ukraine.
In a New Year’s speech to the French military, Macron praised Europe’s efforts over the last two years in taking over major strands of weapons support to Ukraine.
He said a coalition of some 35 countries was now providing all of the support, including financial, to Kyiv after Washington had decided to no longer fund or directly give weapons to Ukraine.
“Where Ukraine was extremely dependent on American intelligence capacity, huge majority (of it) a year ago, in (the space of) a year, two-thirds is today provided by France,” Macron said.
The comments are in contrast to Kyrylo Budanov, who was appointed head of Zelenskiy’s office and is the former chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, who said in December that Kyiv was critically dependent on Washington for intelligence ranging from satellite imagery to early warning systems after ballistic missile launches.
Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence agency declined to comment.
A French defence ministry official declined to comment specifically on the president’s assertions, but said much of the intelligence was of technical origin.
When Washington suspended intelligence in 2025, France’s then Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said the U.S. halt to intelligence sharing would have a significant operational impact on Ukraine, but that France’s own intelligence provided to Kyiv was not reliant on Washington.
(Reporting by John Irish, editing by Ed Osmond)
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