[News] Ukraine war: In Kyiv, top officials shrug off US documents leak

[BirSaNN]

Ukraine is front and centre of a number of classified Pentagon documents which a 21-year-old US National Guard airman is suspected of leaking online.

The leaks include details about the West's military assistance to Ukraine, such as weapons deliveries and training, and perhaps more revealing, dire assessments of the war by US officials, making public concerns that for some time had been discussed in private.

The timing of the leaks is sensitive for Kyiv. The military is expected to launch a counter-offensive within weeks, in what is likely to be a crucial phase in the nearly 14-month-long war that is believed to have killed tens of thousands of people. Such is the anxiety here that, last month, the defence ministry urged people to stop discussing potential plans.

One leaked document, quoted by the Washington Post, said the Ukrainian army faced challenges in massing troops, equipment and ammunition, and could fall well short of its original goals for an expected counter-offensive. The document warned that only modest territorial gains could be achieved in Russian-occupied areas.

It is grim but hardly surprising.

One senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the BBC that the problems faced by the army were already known, and that the revelations would not affect relations between the two countries.

"[The leaks] aren't the main problem. The problem is what's happening on the front line," the official said.

"The decision to provide weapons doesn't mean they get to the front lines immediately. It takes weeks, sometimes months."

For months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has talked openly about ammunition and weapons shortages; others have repeatedly complained of delays in the delivery of aid promised by Western countries, while the Ukrainian army grapples with difficulties in mobilising fresh troops.

Major territorial gains for Ukraine would undoubtedly boost morale and could also help efforts to secure additional military support. But the opposite could result in pressure on Kyiv to consider negotiating with Moscow.

Few Ukrainian officials have reacted in public to the leaks, and the revelations have not attracted significant media coverage.

Oleksiy Danilov, head of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, said the leaks did not affect the military's plans as "everything will be decided at the last moment".

"All the speculation about the plans of the Ukrainian military," he said, "in particular regarding the counter-offensive, are utterly baseless".

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65277838