It's reasonable to assume that usg has very advanced capabilities in this field, possibly space-based. Also reasonable to wonder if those capabilities have been used recently.
USA shares their intelligence with significant delay. Moreover, language barrier (Russian to English, English to Ukrainian) doesn't help. An Ukrainian woman can report more and faster directly to Ukrainian army.
This information can be deducted. It's an easy job for a former intelligence officer. For example, in my battalion no one knows English language except me, so any intelligence in English language must be translated and reviewed first by a native Ukrainian. Together with time shift and night time, this creates 12-18 hour lag.
Moreover, Ukrainians know Russian tactics, language, technical capabilities, or even know them in person. We also have relatives in RF, which can text us when rockets are launched, for example.
USA intelligence is not important at this stage of war, when everything changes every few hours.
> in my battalion no one knows English language except me, so any intelligence in English language must be translated and reviewed first by a native Ukrainian. Together with time shift and night time, this creates 12-18 hour lag
First off, thank you for your service.
To your point, yes, one can anticipate that mean lag for that intel stream to your battalion. But that doesn't describe all intelligence streams. Translating every troop-movement report into Ukranian so it can be read faster would be a waste. But messaging e.g. the coordinates and description of the specific tank a general happens to be in to a nearby battalion with a few Javelins handy?
More broadly: while there may be intentional and unintentional delays in various intelligence streams, nobody can credibly make a blanket statement about what is being shared with whom. The circumstances in which U.S. intelligence shines are closely-guarded state secrets.
It's probably safe to say a multitude of Western countries are passing all kinds of information to Ukraine through various back channels. As long as it's all plausibly deniable.
With operations in the Middle East now basically "over" and a nuclear threat looming, I'd imagine it's all hands on deck for most Western intelligence agencies wrt to Russia. And rightly so.
They're sharing intelligence directly with the Ukrainian military, and are very open about doing it, just as they are about sending high tech missiles to them. Thy won't say what intelligence they're giving them obviously.
You US definitely has space based ELINT satellites and has been using them for a very long time. TRUMPET the ELINT satellite used in the 1990s has been declassified. I have no access to classified information but the US has been fighting a Global War of Terror (2003-2022+), in such a fight one would imagine rapidly geolocating satellite phones and mobile phone would be high on the wish list of US capabilities.
