On Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the US is providing Ukraine with intelligence to carry out attacks against Russia in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
“We are providing them intelligence to conduct operations in the Donbas, that’s correct,” Austin said in response to a question from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
Cotton asked Austin if the US was giving Ukraine intelligence for attacks against Russia in the Donbas and Crimea. In his reply, Austin made no mention of Crimea, which has been under Russia’s control since 2014.
Austin’s comments mark the first time a US official publicly commented on the US’s role in the fighting in the Donbas since Russia shifted its focus to the region and withdrew from areas in the north near Kyiv.
“We continue to provide useful information and intelligence to the Ukrainian Armed Forces in their fight,” a senior Pentagon official told CNN after Austin’s comments. “As that fight migrates more to the Donbas region, we will adjust our information content and flow as required.”
The official said that some of the intelligence the US is providing Ukraine is “near real time.” Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration modified rules to expand intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
The White House also acknowledged in March that the US has been giving Ukraine intelligence that “includes information the Ukrainians can use to inform and develop their military response to Russia’s invasion.”
The intelligence sharing on top of the billions in weapons the US is pouring into Ukraine raises questions about at what point Russia would consider Washington a co-belligerent in the war.
LOL – Yep sure looks like it. Keep up the ‘intel’ spooky.
And here, Putin thought he could minimize Ukrainian casualties.
“ Putin thought he could minimize Ukrainian casualties.”
Minimise by invading and order his troops to fire on civilians if necessary?
Yeah, we all know he’s high as a kite, but still, that statement takes the cake!
They did that for 8 years killing 14.000 Russians in villages in the Donbass and finally got the war they wished for. Now wait til your MANPADS and whatnot starts showing up in places you aren’t comfortable with and eventually, should you bring this to Russia proper, wait til Russia ends this war on your soil.
Proof of the 14,000 dead CIVILIANS please!
You can’t just pull numbers out of your rear orifice, Olga.
The same source of intelligence that lead to the death of an innocent family in Kabul last year.
The intelligence that forced the Russians to retreat from Kyiv…
Congratulations to the Neocon team. A nuclear WWIII is inevitable at this point. Your work to ratchet up the hate against Russia has thoroughly turned the US public opinion to support our own death by nuclear suicide. A quick question: when the nuclear bombs arrive, is hiding under our desks still an option?
So you mean if Putin loses the war in Ukraine, he’s such a sore loser that he will try to blow up the earth?
Don’t worry comrade, the people around him will never allow that to happen.
Interesting that you are admitting that Russia is losing though 😀
You’re correct but only partially and for the totally wrong reason. War is not a zero-sum game. We’re all losers in this war.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-12/zero-sum-thinking-makes-our-fights-much-nastier
No, that whole desk idea was juvenile… Drop your trousers, bend over and kiss your a– good-bye…
😉 donna
I’m still trying to figure out where to build our bomb shelter…
line of credit at the Weapon Mart
Russia can play that game too