Leaks of American intelligence documents revealed Thursday, April 6 by the New York Times have already forced Ukraine to modify its war plans in view of the counter-offensive it intends to carry out in the weeks and months to come in order to retake the occupied territories. This is what a source in the entourage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the American television channel CNN.
Ukraine has been announcing for several months its intention to carry out a counter-offensive in order to retake the territories invaded by Russia. The Ukrainian authorities maintain complete secrecy around this operation, although the region of Zaporizhya is seen as the most likely location of this attack, because of the opportunity it would offer to cut the Russian military in two. in Ukraine. Other plausible objectives: the region of Luhansk, or that of Donetsk, where there are weaknesses in the Russian line around the city of Bakhmout in particular.
US assesses risks
Since the announcement of these leaks, the Ukrainian authorities have tried to reassure by asserting that the plans for the counter-offensive have not been fanned and by questioning the authenticity of the documents. Mikhaïlo Podolyak, influential adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, declared on Friday 7 April that the documents did not “nothing to do with the real plans of Ukraine” and would be based on “a significant amount of false information” spread by Russia. The day before, Oleksii Danilov, secretary of the Council of Defense and National Security of Ukraine, ensured that no more than five people were aware of the details of these plans.
The CNN revelations, however, suggest that Ukraine would take these leaks very seriously. In the absence of more information on the origin of these, nothing, in fact, makes it possible to ensure that Russia would not have more confidential information than that contained in the documents which appeared on the Internet. over the past few weeks. And all the more so since one of these documents reveals that the United States allegedly spied on Volodymyr Zelensky himself, and therefore potentially accessed intelligence at the highest level.
Washington, which also takes this leak of documents seriously, is now trying to assess the risks associated with it, which relate in particular to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, in terms of national security. «An interagency cooperation has been launched to assess the impact that these photographed documents could have on national security and on our allies and partners.», Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.
Danger for informants
The Ministry of Justice, which opened an investigation on Saturday, is trying to identify the source of the leaks and is still examining the validity of the documents released. According to Washington Post, citing US officials, some appear to have been doctored. But most correspond to CIA reports circulating at the White House, the Pentagon or the State Department, says the same source.
These documents, which have been circulated on social media, could prove invaluable to Moscow by revealing the extent to which US intelligence services have penetrated parts of the Russian military apparatus, and thus potentially exposing their informants, analyze the American media. Some documents also contain information relating to countries allied with the United States. One of them, reports the New York Timesthus highlighted the governmental discussions in South Korea on the possibility of supplying American artillery shells to Ukraine.
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