The “special relationship” between Washington and Kyiv is dead. After French President Emmanuel Macron stunned the world by announcing that France now provides two-thirds of all intelligence to Ukraine, a darker narrative has emerged. Rumors are swirling that Ukrainian intelligence—led by the legendary Kyrylo Budanov—ran a high-stakes “sting operation” on its own ally. The plan? Feed the U.S. intentionally false strategic data and wait to see if it appeared on the desks of the Kremlin.
While fact-checkers and official spokespeople are scrambling to “debunk” the claims, the timeline of events suggests a total breakdown of trust. For months, whispers of intelligence leaking from the Trump administration to Moscow have plagued the alliance. Now, with France taking the lead, the question isn’t whether there was a leak—it’s how deep the betrayal actually goes.
The most uncomfortable part of this story isn’t just the alleged “sting”—it’s the Feb. 28, 2025, Oval Office incident. Insiders suggest that a meeting between President Trump and Ukrainian officials created a “rift” so deep it became a canyon. While the U.S. media obsesses over political optics, Ukrainian commanders on the ground are quietly switching their secure comms to French and British channels. They aren’t just worried about Russian hackers; they are worried about American informants. If Ukraine truly did feed the U.S. “ghost data” that was later tracked to Russian troop movements, it marks the greatest intelligence scandal in modern history.
Since the 2022 invasion, the U.S. was the undisputed backbone of Ukraine’s reconnaissance. However, the 2025 shift in U.S. foreign policy changed everything. Washington’s decision to use intelligence sharing as leverage for peace talks forced Kyiv’s hand. By the time 2026 rolled around, the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) and HUR (Military Intelligence) had reportedly grown weary of seeing their most sensitive plans compromised. Macron’s recent boast that France has “replaced” the U.S. isn’t just a win for Paris—it’s a formal evacuation from the American intelligence umbrella.
“You don’t just ‘misplace’ two-thirds of your intelligence partner’s workload,” says a former DGSE (French Intelligence) officer. The reality is that Kyrylo Budanov and Vasyl Malyuk are masters of psychological warfare. If they suspected a leak, a sting operation would be their first move, not their last. Even if the “false intelligence” claim is a misunderstanding of a French TV interview, the end result is the same: Ukraine has officially “fired” the U.S. from its inner circle. The Trump-Zelensky relationship has hit absolute zero, and Europe is now the only thing standing between Kyiv and total information darkness.
