Zelenskyy says US missile warnings are reaching Ukraine again

Ukraine is again receiving early warnings of incoming ballistic missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Oslo on Tuesday. The alerts matter because they give civilians time to take shelter and air defences time to respond. Zelenskyy thanked the United States, but specified that he was talking about early warnings rather than all intelligence sharing. [2]

His statement followed a phone call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier that day. On Monday, Zelenskyy had told American senators that Ukraine had received no US warning of Russian ballistic missile attacks on three occasions in the preceding week, according to an account obtained by Axios from Ukrainian officials. He cited the missed warnings among his concerns that US support was slowing. [2] [6]

Rubio told reporters in Mumbai that President Donald Trump had ordered no change to intelligence sharing. According to a State Department account reproduced by Forth, Rubio said apparent problems involving attacks on 13 and 18 October were thought to be technical. He raised the possibility of a problem in processing information that had been supplied and said it was being examined. [4]

A missed alert does not, by itself, establish a decision to withhold intelligence. Ukraine’s foreign minister said on 13 October that there was no general intelligence halt, while an air force spokesperson said such information sometimes failed to get through, NOS reported. Those earlier remarks do not explain the subsequent missed warnings. Zelenskyy says the alerts are working again; what caused the failures remains unresolved. [7]