Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Oct. 19 that Kyiv received no advance alert before the first wave of an overnight Russian ballistic missile attack, renewing questions about warnings from Ukraine’s partners.
Zelenskyy made the statement during an online meeting with U.S. lawmakers from both parties. He called it the third missing ballistic missile warning in a short period and said Washington had given Ukraine no clear explanation. His office did not provide dates for the other two gaps.
The account followed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s denial that Washington had paused intelligence sharing. “There’s been no pause,” Rubio told reporters in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, Reuters reported.
Zelenskyy had described a temporary interruption in intelligence sharing in an NBC News interview published Oct. 18. He said the information helps Ukraine detect Russian ballistic missile launches and was flowing again. Rubio’s denial and Zelenskyy’s account remain at odds.
Asked about the latest missing alert, Rubio said he could not account for what happened that night. A State Department transcript records Rubio saying that a software problem affected Ukraine’s early-warning system several nights earlier and that U.S. European Command (EUCOM) had examined the issue. He did not identify it as the cause of the latest gap.
Rubio said Washington would continue diplomatic efforts to end the war.
