Ukrainian parliamentary delegation visits US lawmakers amid Trump’s ongoing peace talks

Six members of Ukraine’s parliament met with U.S. lawmakers and stakeholders in Washington this week to spotlight the dire need for sustained military support and intelligence-sharing between the nations during the Trump administration’s ongoing negotiations with their government and Russia to end the war.

Their meetings come after President Donald Trump temporarily froze hundreds of millions in American security assistance and ended intel exchanges with Ukraine for more than a week in early March, which caused a major disruption to Kyiv’s defensive battlefield operations. During a briefing with reporters at the German Marshall Fund think tank on Thursday, the Ukrainian delegation shed new light on the frontline impacts of that intel pause and the messages they aimed to articulate to their U.S. counterparts.

“When the weapons supplies were stopped — and the intel-sharing, which was much worse — that was a disaster. Even though it was not a complete shutdown of sharing, it was something that we felt that we couldn’t [fully] replace with anything else that the Europeans have,” said Oleksandra “Sasha” Ustinova, chair of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Special Commission on Arms Control. 

For more than a decade, U.S. spy agencies and contractors have supplied sophisticated surveillance imagery and intelligence to Ukraine that’s proven instrumental in anticipating and responding to Russian attacks.

Oleksandr Zavitnevych, chair of the Parliament’s Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, (through his interpreter) explained that the Trump-ordered intelligence halt lasted between one and two weeks. He said that combat operations continued during that time and Ukraine’s military was still able to obtain some useful information from other international partners, including the U.K. and France. 

However, Zavitnevych told reporters that his message to leaders at 11 meetings in Washington this week was clear: “Please, while we make those [negotiation] efforts and work on those issues — please don’t shut down intelligence-sharing.”

“We think that would be a disaster if that happens again,” Ustinova also said.

The current state of play with Europe marked another key item the group sought to call attention to this week, she confirmed, noting that many countries in that region continue to step up significantly to support Ukraine in the fight. 

“Everybody’s willing to pay more. The biggest fear they have right now is that the United States might shut down, basically their third-party transfer, so that they cannot buy [weapons and assets] and give it to us. We’re totally dependent on all the missiles, especially missiles for the Patriots — you’re the only ones who do that,” Ustinova said, referring to a high-tech air defense system.

At the roundtable, the officials also emphasized that since Russia’s full-scale invasion three years ago, Ukraine’s production facilities have steadily operated under continuous air strikes and wartime threats. However, the nation’s production output has grown considerably for some in-demand items over that time period.

“Speaking of the newest technologies — like the drones, which became a true weapon, like a military and delivery device. This new type of weapon essentially emerged in 2022. And last year, Ukraine produced over a million such units. [Now, we’ll procure and produce] over 3 million such drones,” Zavitnevych said.

He told DefenseScoop that when the U.S. intel and weapons hold went into effect last month, Ukraine’s government launched a country-wide campaign called “make a drone in your home.”

“In fact, many people did assemble them from some kits at home. But then an additional step was once they shipped them to some facility, then others would have to test their quality assurance. The idea of this was not so much to actually get a great output of those drones, homemade drones — but rather to get people interested and involved in defense. This was an element of national resistance,” Zavitnevych said.

When the German Marshall Fund’s head of strategic democracy initiatives Josh Rudolph likened those DIY drones to improvised Molotov cocktail weapons used in World War II, Zavitnevych said it’s “exactly the same thing.” 

Drones and other uncrewed systems have been a central weapon in the Russia-Ukraine war, with recent reports that they are now killing more people and enabling more damage than any traditional weapons on that contemporary battlefield. Currently, Ukraine’s drone arsenal includes systems that can carry payloads ranging between 1 to 100 kilograms, or more than 200 pounds of explosives, according to Zavitnevych.

“I don’t believe any country in the world has the capability to have one person in charge of such a big number of drones that would destroy a whole division. But I will tell you honestly, this is a thing of the future, which will come quite soon,” he told DefenseScoop.

Today’s battles have led him to believe that future warriors won’t necessarily have to be in elite physical condition. Instead, he said they’ll more likely be “a man or woman controlling drones and the platforms that are deployed.”

“It is the weapon of the future. It’s important to point out, it is cheap — and I mean not inexpensive, but cheap,” Zavitnevych said. 

He noted that a first–person drone priced around $600 U.S. dollars could carry two-kilogram payloads that can “easily demolish two to three floors of this building.”

“Whereas a projectile of caliber 155 will cost several thousand euros. To shoot that projectile, you need a cannon that costs tens of millions of dollars and a factory that costs $100 million that manufactures those projectiles. But with an FPV [drone], you and me can do [an operation] together in two or three days,” Zavitnevych said.