Mark Polymeropoulos

Good to be here.

Well, Rachel, let me tell you, the order to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine, I think, hit the intelligence community like a seismic shockwave. And, you know, for 10 years, the IC, the intelligence community and members of my old outfit, the CIA, have been with the Ukrainians, not just since the invasion, but 10 years.

That's providing things such as resources, capacity building, certainly training. You know, it was it was we were in it in the fight and the struggle against Russia. And so this is seen as an incredible betrayal. I mean, members of my old outfit, remember, you know, have fought with them or been in the trenches with them, have mourned when they lost, you know, soldiers, celebrated in successes.

But to see, frankly, this not only kind of at one point a neutral stance by the United States, but now tilting towards Moscow, it's disorienting to members of the IC, the intelligence community, because again, we're now in essence on the side of an enemy.

Well, Rachel, you know, the U.S. has been an incredible ally of Ukraine in the past, providing so many different things, not only, as you said, military ordnance equipment, but also key intelligence. And when we stop providing these targeting packages to the Ukrainians, that means that they can't hit either Russian forces inside Russian-occupied Ukraine or in Russia itself.

And the result is the Russians will be able to then attack civilians in Ukrainian cities or, of course, Ukrainian military targets. But let's be very clear. Ukrainians are going to die because of this. And I think that's why this is absolutely so stunning. Again, an ally, you know, that we kind of we were with side by side for a decade, we have now abandoned.

And the Ukrainians who we were supporting, we were with against again in the trenches, are really going to suffer. So it's an incredible moral injury for the U.S. intelligence community. But of course, it's incredibly damaging for the Ukrainians who are going to suffer. And we saw that over the last several days with the results of these increased Russian drone and missile strikes.