Ukraine breaches US trust with operation in Russia's Kursk Oblast, NYT says
www.pravda.com.ua
Sun, 30 Mar 2025 13:33:33 +0300
The American side has viewed Ukraines operation in Russias Kursk Oblast as a breach of trust, yet they chose not to halt their support in order to prevent the deaths of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were already on Russian territory.
Source The New York Times, as reported by European Pravda Details The NYT says that Ukrainian forces were stretched dangerously thin on the northern and eastern fronts in the summer of 2024.
However, Oleksandr Syrskyi, CommanderinChief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, kept telling the Americans I need a win.
In March, the Americans discovered that Ukrainian military intelligence was secretly planning a ground operation in the southwest of Russia.
The CIAs chief in Kyiv then confronted Kyrylo Budanov, Head of Defence Intelligence of Ukraine DIU, with the fact that if Ukrainians crossed the border into Russia, they would have to do so without American weapons and intelligence support.
In early August, the Ukrainians made a cryptic suggestion that something was happening in the north.
It was then that General Syrskyi made his move sending troops across the southwestern Russian border into Kursk Oblast.
For the Americans, the incursions unfolding was a significant breach of trust.
It wasnt just that the Ukrainians had again kept them in the dark they had secretly crossed a mutually agreedupon line, taking coalitionsupplied equipment into Russian territory, the article states.
Earlier, Ukraine and the US had agreed on a zone in Russia where Ukrainians could fire American weapons, with the Wiesbaden command supporting their strikes with intelligence.
This was done, in part, to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Kharkiv Oblast.
It wasnt almost blackmail, it was blackmail, a Pentagon official said.
After the start of the Kursk operation, Americans could have halted their support, but they knew, as a US administration official explained, that this could lead to a catastrophe Ukrainian soldiers in Kursk Oblast would have died if they had not been protected by HIMARS rockets and American intelligence.
The Americans concluded that the Kursk operation was the victory the Ukrainian leadership had long been hinting at and seeking. One of the goals of the operation, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy explained to the Americans, was to gain leverage seizing and holding Russian land that could later be exchanged for Ukrainian territory in future negotiations.
Background In midMarch, Estonias intelligence reported that Ukraine was gradually withdrawing its military contingent from Russias Kursk Oblast.
Recently, Zelenskyy stated that the pause in US intelligence sharing did not contribute to the worsening position of Ukrainian troops in Russias Kursk Oblast.
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