Ukraine 'changes counteroffensive plans' after Pentagon leak

The Armed Forces of Ukraine are receiving Western weapons and training. Credit: Yan Dorbronosov/Reuters

Ukraine has reportedly been forced to change plans for its upcoming counteroffensive due to a leak of highly classified US intelligence.

An unnamed official close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN on Monday that Kiev had to revise some of its plans after the publication of many secret Pentagon documents on the Internet. They did not specify how.

Ukraine's Defense Ministry teased the offensive over the weekend with a video showing soldiers receiving Western weapons and training. “What most army men take months to do, our army mastered in weeks,” it read with the slogan “Spring is coming.”

Yevgeny Prigozin, head of the Wagner mercenary group, warned Moscow not to underestimate the counterattack, saying that Kiev only waited for the mud to dry before sending 200,000 to 400,000 men. His claims were not confirmed.

The training sessions included testing the guns of the M113 armored personnel carrier. Photo: Yan Dorbronosov/Reuters

The leaked U.S. documents included estimates of Russian and Ukrainian battlefield casualties, details of surveillance operations against the Zelenskiy administration, as well as international allies and the Wagner group.

On Sunday, the Pentagon said it was evaluating the impact of the leak information about national security. Two Defense Department officials told Reuters that the Pentagon is currently investigating the extent to which the intelligence was shared with the US government.

Some of the documents photographed were made available to thousands of people with US secret service clearances and security clearances, one official said. Union government.

The most pressing problem in Kyiv, identified in the documents, is the lack of air. defensive munitions that could render parts of the country defenseless against Russian missiles for weeks.

One of the February 28 documents warns that air defense systems protecting frontline troops will be «completely reduced» by May 23.< /p>

The same document estimates that the stocks of missiles for the Soviet S300 and Buk air defense systems, which together provide about 90% of Ukraine's defense against fighters and missiles, will run out by May 3 and April 13, respectively.

«We need a lot»

A spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force on Monday did not deny reports that Kiev was facing a critical shortage.

“It's a matter of quantity,” Yuriy Ignat said in a commentary to Ukrainian public television. .

“We need a lot of [Western-made] air defense systems to replace [Soviet] ones, but I wouldn’t say how many,” he added.

Ignat said Kiev was hoping for US-made F-16 fighters and British Typhoons, but acknowledged that «the wait will be very long.»

He said: «We need fighters here and now.»

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His comments come after UK Defense Department sources questioned another claim in leaked documents, suggesting that Moscow nearly shot down a British spy plane over the Black Sea.

< p>Ben Wallace, Secretary of Defense, was thought to be firmly supporting his statement to MPs that a Russian fighter jet had simply fired a missile «in close proximity» to an RAF aircraft.

In October, Mr Wallace told MPs that the «potentially dangerous collision» was attributed by his Moscow colleague to a «technical malfunction.»

Leaked documents indicate that the Pentagon classified the collision as «almost downed.»

However, sources in The defense warned against «sensational» coverage of the incident, insisting that it was not «an escalation in any way.»