Ukraine did not share offensive plans with US due to fears of leaks, - AR
Ukraine did not share plans for a future counteroffensive with the US due to doubts about Washington’s ability to keep secrets. Therefore, the "leaking" of Pentagon documents is unlikely to harm the Ukrainian military on the battlefield.
This is stated in the Associated Press publication, Censor.NET reports with reference to RBC-Ukraine.
Ukrainian and American officials said this week that some battle plans and other operational information are known only to Kyiv, not Washington. So the leak of classified military documents is probably not enough to change the course of the war.
"If military actions are planned, then only a very narrow circle of people knows about the planning of the special operation," Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Malyar said. Yes, "the risk of a leak is very minimal" for the most important military issues.
Nevertheless, the publication notes that more harmful material may still "surface". The "leaks" of documents continue to appear online, and future revelations may be more damaging to Ukraine than those already made public.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that "secrecy in one vitally important area - Ukraine's plans for any future actions to repel Russian forces - remains intact."
"They have a great plan... but only President Zelensky and his leadership really know all the details of this plan," he said.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Oleksiy Reznikov, said that the disclosed details were "unpleasant to hear."
"There is a lot of information that does not correspond to reality. And the true information has already lost its relevance," added Reznikov.
He called the information leak a purposeful information operation in favor of Russia with the aim of "lowering the level of trust between allies."
In addition, former senior CIA official John Sifer said that while the leak of classified information is "despicable," he does not believe that it really harms Ukraine's military efforts. According to him, the most protected and sensitive secrets of the intelligence community are usually not contained in such documents of the Ministry of Defense.
It will be recalled that on April 13, journalists identified Teixeira as a possible culprit of the leaking of documents; he was detained on the same day.
It will be recalled that the military documents, which describe in detail the secret plans of the US and NATO to build up the Ukrainian army before the planned offensive against Russia, were published in Telegram and Twitter at the beginning of April.
Later, a new portion of classified documents appeared on social networks, which probably detail American national security secrets regarding Ukraine, the Middle East, and China.
The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the leak of a huge number of US intelligence documents.
According to Reuters, classified information about US and NATO plans to strengthen the armed forces before a counteroffensive "leaked" on the network may be a fake. In turn, as Politico writes, the leak of secret documents led to a crisis in relations between the United States and its allies.
Due to the leak of secret Pentagon documents, Ukraine has already changed some of its military plans.
The Ministry of Defense of Great Britain stressed that the published documents contain significant inaccuracies, so "readers should be careful and not take at face value statements that could potentially spread misinformation."
