Armed Conflict

Lawfare Daily: The Coming Winter and the Latest Betrayal of Ukraine

Benjamin Wittes, Anastasiia Lapatina, Jimmy Rushton, Jen Patja
Tuesday, October 20, 2026, 7:00 AM

Discussing the reported breaks in intelligence sharing and in Ukrainian access to Starlink.

Jimmy Rushton of the Kyiv Independent and Anastasiia Lapatina, Lawfare’s Ukraine fellow, join Editor in Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the latest news from Kyiv: the grave rupture in U.S.-Ukrainian relations, reported breaks in intelligence sharing and in Ukrainian access to Starlink, the Russian assault on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and the impending arrival of winter. 

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Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Anastasiia Lapatina is a Ukraine Fellow at Lawfare. She previously worked as a national reporter at Kyiv Independent, writing about social and political issues. She also hosted and produced podcasts “This Week in Ukraine” and “Power Lines: From Ukraine to the World.” For her work, she was featured in the “25 Under 25” list of top young journalists by Ukraine’s Media Development Foundation, as well as “Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe” class of 2022 in the category Media and Marketing.
Jimmy Rushton is a British journalist and security and foreign policy analyst based in Kyiv. He has covered Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine since February 2022, writing about every aspect of the conflict. His work has appeared in Yahoo News, New Lines Magazine, and The Telegraph, amongst others.
Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.

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