Intelligence, energy targets and the moral limits of a war fought through infrastructure

A new report about American intelligence support for Ukraine raises a question that is technological on the surface but moral and legal at its core. The Atlantic says the United States continues to provide Ukraine, free of charge, with intelligence that includes targeting packages for Russian military positions and energy infrastructure inside Russia.

The policy is not entirely hidden from the public record. Reuters reported in October 2025 that two U.S. officials said Washington would provide intelligence on long-range energy targets in Russia, including infrastructure such as refineries, pipelines and power plants. In February 2026, Sen. Jerry Moran said publicly that the United States had expanded intelligence sharing the previous fall to assist Ukraine in targeting energy infrastructure deep inside Russia.

The Atlantic’s contribution is to describe that support as continuing today and to link its preservation to CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The magazine says Ratcliffe has used Russian battlefield-loss data to persuade President Donald Trump that Ukraine is imposing serious costs on Moscow. Its anecdote about those conversations taking place on the golf course is sourced but not independently verifiable; it should be read as a report about private political influence rather than as an established public record.

The underlying strategic logic is easy to understand. Russia’s war depends on fuel, electricity, transportation and revenue. Ukraine, facing repeated Russian attacks on its own cities and infrastructure, has built a long-range strike campaign that seeks to impose costs far from the front. The Associated Press reported this week that Ukrainian forces struck refineries in Bashkortostan and Yaroslavl, part of a continuing effort to pressure Russia’s wartime economy.

Yet the very usefulness of energy to a state is what makes the moral problem difficult. Electricity heats homes and runs hospitals, but it can also power barracks, military production and rail systems. Refineries supply civilian transport, but fuel can also sustain military operations. A single network may serve both sides of that divide at once.

International humanitarian law does not solve the dilemma by labeling all energy infrastructure either protected or targetable. The International Committee of the Red Cross says energy infrastructure is civilian in principle. A specific object may become a military objective only when it makes an effective contribution to military action and attacking it offers a definite military advantage in the circumstances. Dual-use does not mean unprotected by default; it requires an individual assessment.

The ICRC also draws a line that is especially relevant to public discussion of Ukraine’s campaign. Weakening an adversary’s economy, reducing its national revenue or pushing political leaders toward negotiations is not, by itself, enough to convert a civilian energy facility into a lawful military target. Even when a facility qualifies as a military objective, planners must consider foreseeable civilian harm, take feasible precautions and avoid disproportionate attacks.

Those principles are not theoretical abstractions for Ukrainians. A U.N. report released in June described systematic Russian attacks on Ukrainian power generation, transmission and heating throughout the 2025-26 winter. The consequences spread far beyond damaged equipment: electricity shortages disrupted water, health care and schools, while heating failures left civilians exposed during severe cold. The same U.N. report also recorded Ukrainian attacks on electricity and heating infrastructure in Russia’s Belgorod region.

The report’s broader finding — that energy attacks during the period appeared to violate fundamental principles of humanitarian law — is a reminder that reciprocity is not a legal defense. One side’s violations do not suspend the other side’s obligations. Nor does superior intelligence turn a prohibited target into a permissible one. Better intelligence should, in principle, make distinction more rigorous by clarifying how a facility is actually used and what civilian consequences an attack may produce.

That is where the role of American targeting support becomes ethically significant. Intelligence can reduce uncertainty. It can help identify a genuinely military function within a sprawling civilian system, improve timing, avoid unnecessary destruction or show that an intended target is not lawful or worthwhile. But it can also increase the destructive efficiency of a campaign if the strategic purpose is defined too broadly.

The debate therefore should not collapse into a binary choice between “supporting Ukraine” and “opposing strikes inside Russia.” The relevant questions are more exacting: What is the function of the object? What military advantage is expected? What civilian dependence will be disrupted? Are there less harmful alternatives? These are the tests that preserve a moral boundary in a war where both sides increasingly possess the ability to reach infrastructure far behind the front.

The Atlantic’s report shows that the United States may remain deeply involved in the informational side of that contest even as other forms of aid change. That involvement makes precision possible, but it also heightens the responsibility to ensure that precision serves lawful military objectives rather than becoming merely a more efficient way to attack the economic foundations of civilian life.