LONDON — British Prime Minister Andy Burnham insisted on Tuesday he handled a message back-and-forth with someone impersonating Donald Trump’s chief of staff in the “right way.”

He told broadcasters he is not embarrassed by the incident, reiterating that “nothing of consequence” was discussed.

POLITICO first reported Monday that the U.K. prime minister had engaged with messages from somebody pretending to be Susie Wiles, a top adviser to the U.S. president. The key aide has previously been the victim of a phone hack, although the White House said the two incidents were not connected.

“All politicians are, you know, receiving these pressures and these challenges, but I did everything right,” Burnham said during a visit to Wolverhampton. “There was a minimal exchange of information of zero consequence, and it was quickly reported,” he added.

“I realized that this needed to be reported, and I did so. So I handled it in the right way,” he also said.

The incident has raised questions about potential national security vulnerabilities when it comes to the communications of senior politicians.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting was among three Cabinet ministers whose numbers were found online by POLITICO on Monday.

Liberal Democrat MP James MacCleary on Tuesday called for an inquiry into the Burnham message exchange, which he described as a “dangerous security breach.”

In a letter to the chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, he wrote: “This is an unacceptable breach. The security of the Prime Ministers’ communications ought to be absolute priority — and yet it appears, in this case, that routine measures to guard against these kinds of breaches were not followed.”

Burnham would not say whether the government planned to change procedures in response to the dupe, but insisted that “the correct action has been taken here and in the U.S.”

The first thing I noticed when I gave up American technology was the silence.

My phone usually starts up before I get out of bed, buzzing every few minutes throughout the day with calls, messages, headlines, calendar reminders and social media alerts. It’s a constant pulse that averages nearly 200 iPhone notifications on weekends and twice as many Monday-to-Friday.

But on this warm mid-summer Sunday, my life was on an unlikely version of mute. After years of reporting on Europe’s push to wean itself off U.S. tech giants and cultivate homegrown alternatives, I had decided to test my own daily habit by cutting myself off from using any American technology for 72 hours.

No iPhone. No Mac. No Slack or Teams. No Google Search or Maps. No ChatGPT. No WhatsApp or Signal. No Facebook or Instagram feeds. No credit card payments.

I wondered if I would turn into a digital monk.

For three days, I set out to live and work in Brussels as if U.S. tech had suddenly become unavailable to me overnight. It was a purposefully fictional scenario rooted in a very real European anxiety: what happens if Washington weaponizes our continent’s Silicon Valley dependence and reaches for the tech “kill switch?”

Limited versions of that scenario have already surfaced. When U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration cut off French-born International Criminal Court judge Nicolas Guillou from U.S.-linked financial and technology services, he called it a form of “civil death.”

Meanwhile, U.S. export controls in June forced Anthropic to block foreign nationals from accessing two of its most advanced AI models, offering a glimpse of what government bans on access to cutting-edge technology can look like.

Such episodes feed into mounting fears that the Trump administration could use Europe’s overreliance on U.S. tech as leverage in trade fights or disputes over EU regulations. A Proton survey released earlier this month found that 74 percent of European business leaders worry such a cutoff could disrupt their operations.

In my own little experiment, the stakes were much lower. Yet I was about to find out that replacing American tools with those built here in Europe was going to make almost everything harder — and lonelier.

Trying to live without U.S. tech, I would find out, essentially amounts to trying to live without tech at all. That was partly because, like virtually all of my fellow Europeans, I had locked myself into those consumer choices.

Dumbphones and FOMO

The early symptoms of going cold turkey looked suspiciously like withdrawal.

On that first morning, with my iPhone shut off, I reached for a Nokia brick from Finland. The so-called dumbphone is the type of device now enjoying a second life among people detoxing from screen time and is also a favorite of drug dealers seeking to avoid getting busted by any tracking and data collection.

Several hours in, I realized there were no notifications on the Nokia. Nobody calls or texts anymore. Then came the shameful part: a sense of helplessness, followed by FOMO-fueled restlessness. The world had surely kept spinning at full speed, and I was missing it. For the next few days, I would still catch myself checking the phone compulsively like an addict.

“The phone aged you instantly,” my best friend joked later that day as we traded our now-standard FaceTime video calls for a regular one. It was unclear whether he meant the muffled audio or me struggling with a new-but-actually-old device, or both.

I did notice that I was pacing up and down my flat because my usually overstimulated brain apparently couldn’t handle focusing on a voice-only call.

One instant benefit from my dumbphone: no doomscrolling in bed.

It all took me back to my first cellphone at 13, when texting meant tapping the same tiny key several times for a single letter, every SMS cost money and abbreviations and emojis were not just stylistic choices but ways to squeeze more into a message.

I knew my social media life would be at risk in my experiment. European alternatives such as Mastodon have gained traction since Elon Musk turned Twitter into X. But who joins a social network when none of their friends are there?

That was fine. I was actually eager to disappear for a while, well aware of the anxiety social media induces in me and the insecurities created by constantly watching other people’s supposedly perfect lives.

Online shopping was out — but so too was paying by card in stores and restaurants. The payment networks I rely on are American: Visa and Mastercard dominate card payments across Europe, meaning that even a purchase made with a European bank card often still runs over U.S.-controlled rails.

It meant I had to buy everything using cash, which I hadn’t done regularly in ages. Fortunately, unlike in some other European countries, Belgian legislation requires merchants to accept banknotes. The hard part was finding some of those stores without the help of Google Maps, which I’d come to rely on almost as much as my credit cards.

The invisible grip

Swearing off Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and YouTube was also part of the deal — already eliminating a sizable chunk of my leisure time. But it turned out I could barely watch anything at all, or even properly test European streaming platforms, because my television and tablet both ran on Google software.

Thankfully, an offline Nintendo Switch from Japan, good old books and the legendary Snake game kept me company.

These invisible dependencies run deep. Beyond the products we use every day, U.S. systems often serve as gateways to European companies trying to take on Big Tech.

Take Sweden’s Spotify or the Estonia-based rival to Uber, Bolt. Both still heavily rely on U.S.-controlled app stores, operating systems, payment networks and other digital infrastructure.

And then there is the cloud: the data centers and servers that host websites, process data and route traffic. The vast majority of that market is dominated by Amazon, Microsoft and Google, whose infrastructure supports large parts of Europe’s digital economy.

Many corners of Europe would go dark if those services were shut down, with its economy, public administration and communications infrastructure struggling to function normally.

Working outside the stack

On Monday morning, I walked into the office with the slightly misplaced confidence that I had prepared for everything. My efficiency at work, admittedly during a very quiet summer week, took less of a hit than I expected.

I was still working from the office. I used an open-source, Linux-powered computer. I communicated by email through a Switzerland-based Proton address, browsed the web using the Norwegian browser Vivaldi and French search engine Qwant, wrote everything in LibreOffice and even tried Mistral’s generative AI assistant. And there was always a good old notebook.

I felt productive. But the workflow around me was not. The tools themselves worked perfectly well once I accepted that breaking years of habits would take time. The disruption ultimately came from stunted collaboration: meetings, messages, shared documents and the constant stream of small exchanges that keep a newsroom moving.

“It was like you disappeared,” one colleague would tell me later.

European alternatives do exist in that space. The problem is, just like for social media, they only work properly when everyone else uses them too or when competing systems are interoperable — something the EU has long tried to legislate and enforce, often against resistance from large technology platforms.

For this little while, despite technically being able to continue working, I became an outsider within my own team. I had to skip our routine video meetings on Slack and Teams, while missing messages sent over WhatsApp and Signal.

In a trade, a city and an era built around instant messaging, sending a good old SMS felt almost prehistoric — a reminder of the longstanding complaints from the European telecom industry about losing messaging and calling revenues to U.S. tech firms.

Ultimately, this underscored one of the major pinch points in Europe’s push for greater tech independence: digital sovereignty is not an individual project. It only works if people, companies and institutions move together.

On their own, individual efforts are more likely to leave people feeling digitally isolated rather than digitally sovereign.

Relax and relapse

And yet, there was something blissful about these three days.

The initial anxiety slowly gave way to a kind of peace. Of course, that feeling may only reflect that the experiment was temporary and my digital life had not been erased.

The experience nevertheless highlighted how much I had taken these tools for granted. I have placed all my eggs in the same digital basket: my communication channels, the tools I use to authenticate myself and access the digital world, my polished digital self and years of accumulated knowledge, all stored inside one sprawling digital safe.

The concern is no longer simply whether that safe could be broken into from the outside. It is also whether somebody could lock it — or empty it — from within.

Now, as you might wonder how I’ll act on what I’ve learned, I am strangely reminded of Covid.

Many of us emerged from that temporary era of lockdowns and involuntary limits full of healthy new habits and grand ideas about how our lifestyles should change, only to return remarkably quickly to our old routines.

Sadly, the same thing happened here. My iPhone came straight back into my pocket. Messages began flowing through again. My bank card returned to its usual place. Within hours, I had fallen comfortably back into the U.S. technology stack.

As I switched my smartphone back on, my screen lit up with incoming texts inquiring whether my little experiment was over. After 72 hours of old-school SMS exchanges, two different friends were both clearly eager to return to reality, sending me the same final text: “Back to WhatsApp?”

LONDON — The personal mobile phone numbers of three U.K. Cabinet ministers — including Defense Secretary Wes Streeting — have been found published online alongside their names.

The discovery comes after POLITICO reported that Prime Minister Andy Burnham fell victim to a texting scam — engaging with messages from someone impersonating Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, before becoming suspicious the contact was illegitimate and ending the conversation.

After checking through a list of Cabinet members, POLITICO found three published on the web, for Streeting, Justice Secretary Alex Norris and Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Bryant. POLITICO is not pointing to where the numbers can be found to avoid further risking security.

All three ministers declined to comment on the record. The reference to Streeting’s number online has since been deleted, and officials are working to remove the other two.

Ministers are given secure government devices to conduct business for their briefs, in particular for high-risk roles like defense, and are expected to use those for non-personal comms.

A government spokesperson said: “The government has robust procedures in place to ensure the security of sensitive information.”

But Prerana Joshi, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, said that having direct numbers for Cabinet ministers in the public domain is a risk, warning that numbers could be spoofed and used to call others at a time when the U.K. is “in a high threat situation” globally.

“In any civil space, if your number is exposed, a whole host of malign, nefarious or even opportunistic cyber criminals or cyber actors could get hold of it, and they have tactics,” Joshi said.

‘No significance’

Downing Street would not comment on the revelation that Burnham exchanged messages with the impersonator, citing “national security.”

One person briefed on the communications said a “few messages” were exchanged after the PM entered No. 10 but insisted they were “of no significance.”

It is unclear how the fraudster obtained Burnham’s number. POLITICO could not find it published online.

British officials initially feared Wiles’ phone had been hacked again. But a White House official said: “This incident had nothing to do with the Chief of Staff’s devices being hacked.”

It is not clear whether Burnham will change his phone number, as Boris Johnson did after the Popbitch newsletter revealed in 2021 that the then-prime minister’s details had been sitting online for years.

‘Full of traps’

The episode has sharpened questions over whether Burnham — who built his political brand on his informal style and being more approachable than other prime ministers — can carry on that way in No. 10.

A former national security adviser, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said the prime minister needs to “get into the habit” of having his security staff verify that messages reaching him are authentic.

National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell “could have phoned the White House in five minutes and checked whether Susie Wiles genuinely was texting the prime minister,” they said.

“Being a domestic politician and going on listening tours around the U.K. is one thing, but when you engage in the international world, it’s full of traps and full of risks,” the former adviser added.

“What starts off as a very informal chat can quickly get into some kind of business, and you could give away key details of an upcoming trip or the movements of Donald Trump,” they said.

Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace — himself targeted by imposters posing as Ukraine’s prime minister in 2022 — said the incident “demonstrates our adversaries are always looking for weak points in our communications.”

While Downing Street has said nothing significant was discussed in the exchanges between Burnham and the imposter, Wallace said “there is always a risk of kompromat” being obtained by hostile actors.

As technology, such as AI voice cloning, improves, these sort of incidents are going to “happen more and more,” Wallace added.

Others have urged Burnham not to change tack.

Guto Harri, Johnson’s former director of communications, said: “It’s only a threat and it’s only an embarrassment if they give something away — and it doesn’t seem that he’s done anything like that.”

Harri said it was “good to have someone big enough not to have his calls screened from everyone” as prime minister.

“I don’t think it’s healthy that the civil service wants to control all access to the principal. If they had their way, nobody would be able to talk to a prime minister without going through them,” he said.

“We can’t say that politicians are not living in the same world as us … and then moan about them speaking to people like a normal human being.”

Harri conceded a new number might be a “good idea,” giving the prime minister a “clean slate.”

Dan Bloom contributed to this report.

A new survey quantifies the financial and emotional toll of flight disruptions, pointing to a widening gap between passenger rights on paper and passenger experience in practice.

Nearly eight in 10 travelers experienced a flight disruption in the past year, and for most the damage went well beyond the inconvenience itself. A new survey from AirHelp, a company dedicated to supporting travelers throughout their journey, puts a number on what disruption actually costs passengers: an average of €514 out of pocket, plus a real toll on their time, plans and well-being.

These figures reflect an industry operating under sustained pressure, with disruption continuing to shape the everyday experience of millions of travelers.

Air travel has largely recovered from its pandemic-era lows, but disruption remains a persistent feature of modern flying, driven by everything from air traffic control constraints to weather, staffing and aging infrastructure. Globally, 79 percent of respondents had a flight canceled, delayed by more than two hours or otherwise disrupted in the past 12 months. Of those disruptions, 50 percent were delays over two hours, 15 percent were cancellations, and 14 percent involved delayed, lost or damaged luggage. These figures reflect an industry operating under sustained pressure, with disruption continuing to shape the everyday experience of millions of travelers.

The financial toll

Globally, nearly three-quarters of passengers (73 percent) incurred additional expenses due to disruptions, with costs averaging €514 per person, although that figure masks wide differences. It also marks a clear increase from previous surveys, which found average costs of just €362.50 per passenger.

UK and German travelers report the highest average costs, at roughly €708 and €619 respectively. Portuguese and Spanish travelers report the lowest, at approximately €277 and €340. The United States and Brazil sit in the mid-to-high range, at around €577 and €529. The spread likely reflects differing living and wage levels, but it also means the highest-cost markets can see disrupted trips cost nearly three times what they would in the cheapest.

Money isn’t the only thing that weighs on passengers during disruptions.

Fifty-seven percent of passengers had to spend extra out of pocket during a disruption. Another 20 percent lost money that couldn’t be recovered, a non-refundable hotel stay, for instance, while 5 percent lost income they’d expected to earn. Just over a quarter, 27 percent, said the disruption cost them nothing.

Emotional toll

Money isn’t the only thing that weighs on passengers during disruptions. Sixty-eight percent of all respondents globally cited stress or frustration as a consequence of their disruption. That finding holds up when you look at what passengers rated as a major problem. Globally, waiting around for long periods ranked as the most common major complaint, cited by 50 percent of passengers, followed closely by stress itself at 43 percent.

The knock-on effects extended well beyond the airport. Thirty percent said the disruption derailed specific plans during their trip, such as sightseeing or connecting activities. Twenty-nine percent reported negative health or well-being effects like fatigue, missed sleep or illness. Twenty-two percent missed work or professional obligations, and 20 percent missed personal events like family gatherings or celebrations. Only 8 percent said they experienced no impacts beyond the disruption itself.

A pattern of inconsistent support

Much of the toll passengers describe traces back to communication. Many report not knowing what support or compensation they were entitled to during a disruption.
Globally, in-the-moment support was inconsistent: 47 percent of passengers said they never received vouchers, air miles or future discounts, and 44 percent said they never received cash compensation or money back for their costs. Basic support fared a little better but was still patchy- 38 percent never received food and drink, while adequate information about the disruption was more reliably provided, with just 25 percent saying they never got it.

These findings vary by market. On cash compensation, American passengers were the least likely to receive money back, with 52 percent receiving none, while German passengers were the most likely, with only 34 percent reporting none.

The regulatory question

Over a third of travelers (35 percent) said they didn’t know that regulations protecting passenger rights exist when flying in Europe. Among those who might have been eligible for compensation, 31 percent globally never filed a claim simply because they didn’t know they could, while another 22 percent held back because the process seemed too complicated.

Travellers are paying a very high price for flight disruptions, and the damage goes well beyond the bank balance.

Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp

These findings come from a global survey commissioned by AirHelp and launched in February, polling 1,996 passengers across the UK, Europe, the United States and Brazil about their experiences with flight disruptions over the past 12 months.

“Travellers are paying a very high price for flight disruptions, and the damage goes well beyond the bank balance,” says Tomasz Pawliszyn, CEO of AirHelp. He points to the gap between the protections that exist on paper, air passenger rights laws and what passengers actually experience.

“Passengers are entitled to care and, in many cases, compensation when their flight is disrupted,” Pawliszyn said. “But when the majority of travelers remain uninformed, that protection isn’t reaching the people it’s meant for.”

The findings point to a narrower and more tractable question than airline performance itself: whether existing consumer-protection rules are being communicated clearly enough to function as intended. As aviation authorities in the UK, EU and elsewhere continue reviewing passenger rights frameworks, this data suggests the more urgent gap may not be the rules themselves, but how well travelers understand them.

Hundreds of thousands of Europeans dream of landing one of the European Commission’s coveted civil service jobs, with around 170,000 people applying for just 1,500 entry-level positions at the EU institutions earlier this year.

Yet for many who make it inside the EU executive, the reality falls well short of the dream.

POLITICO spoke to a dozen officials from different commissioners’ cabinets and Directorates-General, varying in age, nationality and seniority, who described an institution where long hours, cumbersome bureaucracy and, in some cases, toxic management have left them exhausted, alienated and questioning whether the money and prestige are worth it.

Their experiences varied widely across the Commission’s 30,000-strong workforce — but the same complaints surfaced again and again. Some were granted anonymity to speak frankly about their workplace experiences.

“The conditions are more and more difficult,” said Nicolas Mavraganis, president of Union Syndicale Fédérale, an umbrella group linking roughly 20 staff unions across EU and international bodies. A Commission official since 1994, he has led the federation since 2019 and helps steer its representation of member unions in dealings with the institutions. “There is more and more workload, which means more and more pressure.”

As Brussels has taken on a more central geopolitical role — responding to Russia’s war against Ukraine, navigating tensions with China and managing an increasingly unpredictable United States — officials said there is a growing sense that every file matters.

Few of the complaints POLITICO heard — ranging from stressful projects and difficult bosses to endless bureaucracy and aging offices — are unique to the Commission, and similar stories can be found in ministries, law firms and consultancies across Europe. But officials said the combination of prestige, political pressure and the sheer scale of the institution makes the experience distinctive — and often difficult.

“It’s the EU’s executive so people have this weird God complex,” one official said.

A Commission spokesperson said the institution was “committed to being a modern, respectful and attractive place to work,” pointing to a review launched by President Ursula von der Leyen into the Commission’s operations. An internal survey found 74 percent of staff rated the Commission an attractive employer, up six percentage points from 2023.

Comparable public data is scarce. A 2025 staff survey at the European Central Bank found that 85 percent of employees were proud to work there, even as fewer than half considered their workload manageable. The figures point to a broader paradox: loyalty to an institution can remain strong even when day-to-day working conditions frustrate its staff. At the Commission, that gap helps explain why disillusionment does not necessarily lead people to leave.

Pressure cooker

Openings at the Commission, where employees shape policies affecting more than 450 million Europeans, remain some of the most sought-after public sector jobs. Brussels also remains relatively affordable compared to many Western European capitals, especially on a Commission salary.

The financial incentives are considerable too. Successful candidates for AD-5 jobs — the graduate-entry administrator role — earn roughly €6,000 to €7,000 a month before allowances, while Commission officials pay EU tax rather than national income tax, generally resulting in a lighter tax burden and more take-home pay. Family allowances, diplomatic discounts on cars and strong job security only add to the appeal. Some officials POLITICO spoke to even rent an apartment in Brussels while keeping their families in another country, flying home most weekends.

But several officials said the prestige of working at the Commission also creates its own pressures.

That atmosphere, officials said, filters down into daily life. Every briefing note, policy paper or press release attracts multiple layers of approval. Decisions move through sprawling email chains and successive rounds of revisions, while officials feel pressure to treat even routine work with the urgency of a geopolitical crisis.

One official in a commissioner’s cabinet said their days often begin at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. and end around 7 p.m., with little time away from the office except to accompany their commissioner on missions. Another, working in communications, recalled crying late into the evening because of an overwhelming workload.

Several officials blamed the bureaucracy itself. Cabinet teams and the Commission’s policy departments, known as Directorates-General, often struggle to communicate effectively, leaving staff chasing approvals and information from one another.

“The DGs are waiting for scraps of information from the cabinets, who are so overworked that they don’t have the capacity to provide them that information,” another official working for a commissioner said. “It’s a structural problem. Everyone is trying to get information out of each other.”

Another official agreed. “I want to shoot myself sometimes.”

The institution’s sheer size can also leave people feeling anonymous. “There are thousands of people at the Commission, so even if you work there for 20 years, most people have never seen you,” a different official not working for a commissioner said. “You’re just this tiny little molecule in this huge organism.”

Mixed bag

Whether someone enjoys working at the Commission often comes down to luck.

First, there’s the boss.

Officials stressed that experiences can differ dramatically depending on which commissioner you work for. Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra’s cabinet is widely regarded internally as supportive, several officials said, while other commissioners have reputations internally for allowing toxic working cultures to develop, with infighting and power grabs.

One senior official in a commissioner’s cabinet has become notorious inside the Berlaymont for “screaming” at staff, according to two officials. An employee at DG ECHO, which coordinates the EU’s humanitarian program, said shouting was routine in their unit.

Another former official recalled watching a senior colleague berated over a leaked document in front of other managers. One official said their boss punched them during an argument after work in a bar near the Berlaymont.

Several said they felt they had little confidence complaints would be acted upon.

The Commission hired a chief confidential counsellor in 2024 to handle harassment complaints and has a team of 40 counsellors across the Commission and executive agencies as part of an “informal” approach to resolving workplace conflict, an official said.

Since September 2024, the chief counsellor, who reports to Budget Commissioner Piotr Serafin, has received 960 reports from “colleagues feeling harassed, alleged harassers, witnesses, managers and HR Correspondents,” according to a Commission spokesperson.

The Commission said 14,000 staff have attended presentations on anti-harassment policy while 2,400 managers have attended mandatory training sessions in the last two years. This increased awareness about how to seek support in dealing with harassment has “generated a relatively high number” of reports to the chief confidential counsellor, the spokesperson said.

The chief counsellor, however, “has no mandate to investigate and is not entitled legally to qualify the conduct as harassment as defined in the Staff Regulations,” the spokesperson explained. To make a formal complaint, staff have to go to the Investigation and Disciplinary Office (IDOC) or to the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF). The Commission receives around 20 to 25 of those per year, a spokesperson said.

Aging offices

Then there’s the building.

While the Berlaymont has benefited from extensive renovation, other Commission offices are showing their age. During June’s heatwave, staff at the DG AGRI building complained they were working without adequate air conditioning, according to internal communications seen by POLITICO.

At DG COMP’s headquarters in Madou Tower, meanwhile, officials were advised not to drink from certain water fountains because of possible contamination, while heating and sanitation systems were “not functioning to the level we should expect,” the acting director-general acknowledged in an email seen by POLITICO.

At the Berlaymont, staff on lower levels were left fuming after air conditioning was switched off in the middle of a heat wave but kept on for floors eight and above, which house commissioners and senior officials. An official told POLITICO at the time it was reminiscent of feudalism.

Experiences varied sharply across the institution, but many officials described the same tension: they remained drawn to the substance of their roles, even as their working conditions proved more frustrating and draining than expected.

Over cold pasta in a Commission cafeteria, one official was asked whether they were happy.

They shrugged. “It’s interesting work.”

For many inside the Commission, that is reason enough to stay.

If you have experienced harassment in the EU institutions, please WhatsApp us on +32 491 050629

The intelligence-sharing relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine has bounced back to previous highs, according to long-time Ukraine watchers — a welcome boost during a critical window of opportunity for the Ukrainian war effort.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the intelligence committee’s ranking member and a longtime proponent of more U.S. assistance to Ukraine, told POLITICO he sees evidence of an improved intel-sharing agreement — and believes it’s helped Kyiv gain an advantage in Moscow’s four-year-long war.

“I don’t want to get into any specifics, but it has improved,” he said, adding that Ukraine’s use of long-range drones and missiles has allowed it to strike deep within Russian territory and strengthen its position.

In recent months, Kyiv has carried out more aggressive strikes across Russia, enabling it to take back territory and stabilize the front line. This has afforded the country more leverage as Ukraine looks to parlay battlefield wins to pressure Russia to the negotiating table.

Ukraine’s stronger footing also comes as U.S.-mediated talks to strike a peace deal with Moscow have stalled. Trump’s negotiating team, which includes Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, has been preoccupied with the Iran war, bumping Ukraine down its priority list.

But in that time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appears to have risen in President Donald Trump’s estimation as Kyiv has made gains against Russia.

In early July, a barrage of Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure forced Moscow — one of the world’s top fuel exporters — to halt its exports of diesel. The increased frequency of those kinds of targeted attacks has put the Kremlin in a tighter spot, creating what Kyiv has argued is a window of opportunity for Ukraine to leverage its current advantage to end the war.

Republican Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas), another member of the intel committee, and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed that intel-sharing between the U.S. and Ukraine has increased at a moment of strategic importance.

“It sure seems like that,” Cornyn said. “Everybody loves a winner and looks like Ukraine has turned the tide.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a Democratic armed services committee member, told POLITICO he’s also seen signs of greater communication between Ukraine and the U.S.

“I was in Ukraine in April 2025 and I was there again in July 2026. 
And I detect more confidence in the communication,” Kaine said.

Cooperation from the U.S. has been key to Ukraine’s positive turn in fortune, said George Barros, the director of innovation and open source tradecraft at the hawkish Institute for the Study of War. Trump reportedly approved intelligence sharing for Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure last year, which have been essential to creating a “proper incentive structure” to push Moscow to the negotiating table, Barros noted.

The strikes, he said, were “supercharged,” and became significantly more effective when imbued with intelligence from the Americans, part of a “larger, more coherent strategy for how to actually create real costs.”

And American early warning systems, Barros added, have been alerting Ukrainians to incoming Russian missile attacks since the early days of the war.

The White House did not provide details on whether its intelligence-sharing relationship with Ukraine has expanded, though it stressed that Trump is focused on facilitating an end to the war.

“The President wants this war settled so the senseless killing ends,” said the White House spokesperson in a statement. “The President and his team remain committed to continuing to play a constructive role in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, and he remains optimistic that we’ll ultimately get a peace deal done.”

The CIA and ODNI did not respond to a request for comment.

Washington also stands to benefit from Kyiv’s intelligence, said John Herbst, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2003-2006 and still maintains contact with officials in the country.

“There’s no doubt of the following: Ukraine has outstanding intelligence on Russia,” he said.

Zelenskyy has sought to put that intelligence to use. With Washington locked in a five-month war against Iran, the Ukrainian president prefaced his July visit to the Oval Office by claiming Kyiv planned to provide Trump with evidence that Russia was aiding Tehran.

“When you talk to Ukrainian intelligence officials, you hear confident insights into what is going on in Moscow, and not just in the Kremlin,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Insights of a sort that justify a truly cooperative and reciprocal sharing arrangement.”

BRUSSELS — EU interior ministers sought to draw a line under five days of bitter recriminations over the arrival of 72,000 migrants in Ceuta, closing ranks behind Spain and accusing smugglers and foreign actors of exploiting the crisis to divide the bloc.

The show of solidarity marked a sharp shift after EU leaders publicly blamed Madrid’s migration policies for creating a crisis they warned could spill across Europe, prompting Italy to suspend air and sea links with Spain.

Following a three-hour emergency meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, ministers praised Spain’s response, stressed that the passport-free Schengen zone had never been at risk and called for tighter coordination among capitals during future migration emergencies.

The meeting followed days of unusually public anger at Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. In a letter signed by 22 EU leaders, governments demanded tougher action to stop irregular arrivals, while Italy suspended air and sea transit with Spain over fears that migrants could move onward through the Schengen area. Sánchez hit back by urging his counterparts to show “understanding” rather than turn Spain into a scapegoat for a crisis on the EU’s external border.

By Tuesday, ministers were keen to close ranks. The EU’s Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner said the influx had been “instrumentalized” by smugglers and human traffickers, while French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said ministers had condemned efforts to use images of the crossings to divide the bloc.

“The divisions that we have heard over the weekend were not welcome and they were exploited by foreign countries,” Nuñez told reporters. “But what I heard this morning reassured me.”

EU countries that had publicly called out Spain over its migration policies took a more conciliatory tone in the meeting, apparently appeased by the speed and effectiveness of Madrid’s response to the crisis, three EU diplomats with knowledge of the meeting said. They were granted anonymity to discuss the confidential talks.

Matteo Piantedosi, Italy’s interior minister, praised Spain’s efforts to control the unrest, the diplomats said. Rome clashed with Madrid on Friday, calling for Spain to be kicked out of the Schengen zone.

Another diplomat referred to the past 24 hours of diplomacy as EU “couples counseling.”

Brunner declined to speculate about whether Morocco had played a role in the influx. The question is sensitive because Spain relies heavily on Rabat to police departures toward Ceuta, and the episode revived memories of 2021, when thousands entered the exclave after Moroccan forces relaxed controls during a diplomatic dispute with Madrid.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska instead praised Morocco’s cooperation in bringing the latest crisis under control and described Tuesday’s meeting as “entirely constructive.”

He said 70,000 of the 72,000 people who entered Ceuta had since returned to Morocco and insisted the Schengen area had never been at risk. Ceuta has special arrangements requiring travelers to show documentation before continuing to mainland Europe.

Grande-Marlaska also called Italy’s transport restrictions unjustified and said he expected them to be lifted. He rejected suggestions that the crisis had made Spain look weak.

“Spain has come out looking like a strong, reliable partner,” he said. “This isn’t a matter that depends on testosterone.”

Ministers also called for better early-warning systems, closer coordination between capitals and stronger cooperation with non-EU countries to prevent departures.

Several pressed for faster work on so-called return hubs outside the bloc. Greece proposed an EU mechanism allowing asylum procedures to be suspended and migrants returned immediately in extreme circumstances, according to a Greek government official.

“The EU’s external borders are our shared responsibility, and migration requires a united European response,” said Ireland’s Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan, who chaired the meeting.

The Commission is expected to consider further measures in September after examining what caused the influx and whether social media helped organize or amplify it. Strengthening the role of the EU border agency Frontex is among the options under discussion.

Max Griera and Nektaria Stamouli contributed to this report. This article has been updated.

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