Someone is choosing not to warn Ukraine, Michael Clarke tells Sky News
The defense analyst says US satellites can see Russian launches, and links the missing alerts to pressure on Kyiv over Trump's peace plan.
Sky News
Story of Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 430,618 views a day, 16 times a normal first day on this channel (26,312).
Has Trump stopped supporting Ukraine? | Michael Clarke analysis
Things we can learn from the video
Press to jump
- 0:00Gareth Barlow reports Russian strikes across Ukraine and Zelenskyy's complaint that allies gave no early warning.
- 1:07Clarke notes three warning failures in a week and the Starlink and Starshield blame between Musk, the White House and the Pentagon.
- 2:18He explains that US satellites and sensors detect launches, so someone is choosing not to pass the data on.
- 3:20Ballistic missiles fired near the border may allow only two or three minutes' warning, he estimates, but some warning is still possible.
- 5:00Clarke links withholding intelligence to pressure on Ukraine to accept Trump's peace plan, saying Trump has "changed sides."
- 7:09A review of US policy shifts toward Ukraine in 2025 and 2026, ending with Clarke quoting Thomas Paine.
Michael Clarke's starting point is a count. "And now it's happened three times inside a week," the security and defense analyst tells presenter Gareth Barlow, after Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine's partners had again failed to warn it of Russia's overnight strikes.
Clarke first walks through the confusion around the Starlink and Starshield communications problems, with blame passing between Elon Musk, the White House and the Pentagon. Then he turns to how missile warnings are made. American satellites and sensors pick up launches, he explains, so the information exists. "And so somebody is choosing not to tell them, even though they know it's happening."
Barlow asks about ballistic missiles fired from near the border. Clarke puts the warning window at as little as two or three minutes, but adds that a short warning is still a warning, because the Americans can see the launch.
His bluntest line comes when he ties the missing alerts to White House pressure on Ukraine to accept Donald Trump's peace plan: "President Trump himself, he's changed sides in the war, no question about that, at the moment." The pair then trace Washington's shifting approach through 2025 and 2026, and Clarke closes by borrowing Thomas Paine: "These are times which try men's souls."
The segment drew close to 300,000 views in its first 12 hours, far above a usual first day for the channel's regular videos. Ukraine has long drawn this audience: drone footage of a Russian convoy ambush from 2022 is still among Sky News' most watched videos. Only last week, Clarke was working through the arithmetic of Trump's Russia diesel deal, as we reported here.
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- Channel
- Sky News
- Subscribers
- 9,380,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 20,164,389
- Channel views, pace per day
- 2,427,205 (on a normal day: 2,611,858)
- Video published
- October 19, 2026
- Video views so far
- 291,096 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 430,618
The numbers
Sky News is having an ordinary day overall, but this one analysis segment started far faster than the channel's regular videos usually do.
💡 Test your knowledge
Before entering politics, Volodymyr Zelenskyy starred as a schoolteacher who becomes president in which TV series?
Zelenskyy played Vasyl Holoborodko, a teacher elected president, in the Ukrainian comedy Servant of the People, which first aired in 2015.