The United States is actively sharing intelligence with Ukraine: thanks to this, the Russians are shelling empty fields

Ukrainian forces used certain coordinates shared by US intelligence to direct fire on Russian positions and aircraft, reports NBC.

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When Russia started the war, the U.S. passed detailed intelligence to Ukrainian forces about when and where Russian missiles and bombs were to strike, prompting Ukraine to remove air defenses and aircraft from the strike, current and former U.S. officials say.

This near-real-time intelligence sharing also allowed Ukraine to shoot down a Russian transport plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war, officials say, helping to repel a Russian attack on a key airport near Kyiv.

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It was part of what US officials are calling a massive and unprecedented intelligence-sharing operation with a non-NATO partner. This has played a critical role in Ukraine's success against the larger and better-equipped Russian military.

Officials say U.S. intelligence and Pentagon intelligence have been an important factor in helping Ukraine stop Russia from taking over much of the country.

“From the beginning, we have been committed to sharing both strategic and operational intelligence with Ukraine,” said one US official briefed on the matter. “It was effective at both the tactical and strategic levels. There are examples where you can tell a story quite clearly that this is a big deal.”

A White House National Security Council spokesman said in a statement: “We regularly provide detailed and timely information to Ukrainians on the battlefield to help them defend their country from Russian aggression, and we will continue to do so.”

“A lot of real-time intelligence was transmitted,” said a former senior intelligence official familiar with the situation. The information includes commercial satellite imagery, "as well as a lot of other intelligence information, such as where certain types of Russian units operate."

Ukraine continues to move air defenses and aircraft almost every day with the help of American intelligence, which is one of the reasons Russia has failed to establish air supremacy. In some cases, Ukraine moved targeted air defense systems and aircraft on time, officials said.

“The Russian military is literally setting up empty fields where an air defense system was once installed,” one US official said. “This has had a huge impact on the capabilities of the Russian military on the ground.”

While US-Ukrainian cooperation has been on the rise since Russia took over Crimea in 2014, the Biden administration stepped up in the weeks leading up to the Russian invasion when a US military team visited the country to assess the state of Ukraine's air defenses. The Americans provided Ukraine with detailed recommendations on how to disperse their air defense systems, which US officials say helped Ukraine prevent Russia from seizing control of the skies.

As soon as the invasion began, lawyers from the US Department of Defense and Intelligence introduced regulations that in some cases limited the sharing of targeting information that could allow Ukraine to deliver a deadly strike against the Russians. But as Russian aggression deepened and under pressure from Congress, all those obstacles were removed, officials say.

Earlier this month, the Director of National Intelligence withdrew and replaced a memorandum banning intelligence sharing to retake captured territory or assist Ukrainian strikes in Crimea or the Donbas, officials said.

US Intelligence Helped Ukraine Defend and Attack

Even before the change, the US provided Ukraine with timely information to better target Russian forces.

This early shelling helped disrupt a Russian air assault operation aimed at seizing the Gostomel airport near Kyiv, which would allow the Russians to move troops and equipment to the area around the capital. The Russians eventually took over the airport for a while, but they never had enough control to move the vast amount of equipment. According to US officials, this setback had a significant impact on the course of the battle for Kyiv.

The CIA is also devoting significant resources to intelligence gathering to protect Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whom the Russians want to kill, according to current and former officials.

“I would say that the position we are in is revolutionary in terms of what we have been able to do,” Lieutenant General Scott Berrier, director of the U.S. Department of Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress last month, describing the exchange of information and intelligence. between the US and Ukraine.

CIA Director William Burns told Congress last month that when he met with Zelensky in Kyiv in January, “We shared with him the intelligence we had at the time about some of the details of Russia’s plans for Kyiv, and we have since kept doing it every day."

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last month that the U.S. shared "a significant amount of detailed, timely intelligence about Russia's plans and actions with the Ukrainian government to help Ukrainians defend themselves," adding that the material "includes information that should help them develop their military response to the Russian invasion.”

The US military and the CIA began seeking to deepen their relationship with their Ukrainian counterparts after Russia seized Crimea in 2014. According to a former senior official, the CIA first helped Ukrainian services root out Russian spies and then provided training and guidance. The US military also trained Ukrainian soldiers.

“There has been a very strong relationship between the US intelligence agencies and the Ukrainians over the past eight years,” the official said, adding that by the time of the Russian invasion, the US trusted Ukraine enough to provide details about the deployment of Russian troops and their attack routes.

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“What we knew in advance about Russian plans and intentions shows that our intelligence community was very confident in the overall situation,” said John McLaughlin, a former acting CIA director who now teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “So logically, if we want them to win as earnestly as we have publicly stated, it follows that we will give them the intelligence: 'Here's what we know - no matter how we know it.'

One Western intelligence official noted that not only intelligence, but how Ukrainians use it is crucial. The source said the Ukrainians fought the Russians with dexterity and courage, and when they received the intelligence, they acted with astonishing speed.

McLaughlin said the Ukrainians were clever at using so-called open-source intelligence — commercial satellite imagery and wiretapping of Russian conversations over unencrypted radios.

“The fact that there are so many open sources of intelligence available means that those who collect classified intelligence can focus on things that are really complex and not publicly available,” he said.

The Ukrainian government believes intelligence sharing has improved, a source familiar with the government's view said.

“It got better,” he said.

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