WASHINGTON – The United States has provided intelligence that helped Ukrainian forces locate and strike the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet last month, another sign that the administration is easing its self-imposed restrictions on how far it can go to help Ukraine fight Ukraine. Russia, American officials said.
The targeting assistance, which contributed to the possible sinking of the flagship Moscow, is part of the Biden administration’s ongoing secret efforts to provide real-time intelligence to Ukraine’s battlefield. The intelligence also includes sharing expected movements of Russian troops, derived from a recent US assessment of Moscow’s battle plan for fighting in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, officials said.
The administration is seeking to keep much of the battlefield and naval intelligence it shares with Ukrainians secret, fearing it will be seen as an escalation and provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin into a wider war. But in recent weeks, the United States has sent heavier weapons to Ukraine and requested an extraordinary $ 33 billion in additional military, economic and humanitarian aid from Congress, demonstrating how rapidly US support restrictions for Ukraine are changing.
Two senior US officials said Ukraine had already received information about targeting Moscow on its own and that the United States had only provided confirmation. However, other officials said US intelligence was crucial to the sinking of the ship from Ukraine.
Earlier, NBC News reported that US intelligence had helped strike Moscow.
On April 13, Ukrainian forces on Earth fired two Neptune rockets, hitting Moscow and setting fire to the ship, which eventually sank. Attention was also focused on whether the radar systems of the obsolete ship were working properly. Ukrainian and US officials said Moscow was likely distracted by Ukraine’s deployment of a Turkish Bayraktar drone nearby.
Immediately after the strike, Biden administration officials remained strictly silent, refusing to confirm even that Moscow had been hit. But in recent days, US officials have confirmed that Ukraine has been provided with targeting data from US intelligence sources in the hours leading up to the launch of the Neptune missiles.
Officials declined to say what specific information had been passed on, but one official said the information simply went beyond a report on the ship’s location in the Black Sea, 65 nautical miles south of Odessa.
The Biden administration has refused to confirm publicly that US intelligence has provided targeting information that allowed Ukraine to strike Moscow. Credit … Al Drago for the New York Times
The sinking of the ship was a serious blow to Russia and the most significant loss for any fleet in 40 years.
Russia has denied that Ukrainian missiles played any role in Moscow’s demise, instead claiming that a fire on board caused an explosion of ammunition that doomed the ship. Independent Russian news outlets based outside the country reported that about 40 people were killed and another 100 injured when the warship was damaged and sunk.
Biden officials have refused to confirm publicly that US intelligence has provided targeting information that allowed Ukraine to strike Moscow.
Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby asked for a report in The Times of London that a P-8 spy plane from Sigonella Air Base in Italy was tracking Moscow before being hit by Ukraine, talking about air police missions in the Black Sea as part of a carefully worded response: “There was no provision of guidance information from any P-8 of the United States Navy flying in these air police missions,” he said.
A US official said the Ukrainians had asked the Americans about a ship sailing in the Black Sea south of Odessa. The United States identified it as Moscow and confirmed its location. Then the Ukrainians headed for the ship. The Ukrainians carried out the strike without the prior knowledge of the United States. The official said the United States had provided confirmation to the Ukrainian military, but other officials said it was uncertain that Ukraine could strike the ship without US help.
Following the publication of this article, Mr Kirby added in a statement: “Ukrainians have their own intelligence capabilities for tracking and targeting Russian naval ships, as they did in this case.”
US officials have publicly acknowledged that Ukrainians were provided with current intelligence on the eve of the Russian invasion on February 24 and that the practice continued in the coming weeks. But those officials withdrew to confirm US involvement in Ukrainian operations, which led to the deaths of Russian soldiers.
The US assessment of Russia’s military plan for the Donbass region allowed a senior Pentagon official to say last week that Russia appears to be “several days behind schedule” in its offensive there due to strong Ukrainian resistance and ongoing supply line problems. .
Residential complex damaged by Russian shelling in Chernihiv, Ukraine. As American and Allied support for Ukraine grows, Russia threatens revenge, which could spark a wider war. Credit … Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times
Russian forces can always deviate from their plans, but US officials said intelligence allowed Ukrainian forces to avoid attack in some places and to position themselves to strike at Russians in others.
Although the administration remains cautious in provoking Mr Putin to the point that he is further escalating his attacks – President Biden has said he will not send US troops to Ukraine or create a “no-fly zone” there, current and former officials said. that the administration found some value in Russia’s warning that Ukraine has the weight of the United States and NATO behind it.
Officials said Moscow had its own calculations to judge, including whether it could handle a bigger war, especially one that would allow NATO to invoke its mutual defense charter or enter the war. -direct.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that US intelligence on Russian movements provided to Ukraine has allowed Kyiv to direct and kill a number of Russian generals. On Thursday, a Pentagon spokesman, Kirby, acknowledged the sharing of intelligence with Ukrainians, but provided little detail.
But Mr Kirby said Ukrainians have their own sources of intelligence that combine with others and choose what targets to strike. “They make their own decisions,” Mr Kirby said. “And they take action of their own.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, spokesman Adam B. Schiff, a California Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said the Biden administration was not averse to discussing sharing intelligence for fear of saying anything. “Which will escalate the conflict.”
“We are providing real-time intelligence to Ukraine to help it defend itself,” Mr Schiff said. “I do not think the administration wants to go into detail about the circumstances, but we want to make sure that Ukraine is successful.
For decades, “Moscow”, a powerful embodiment of Russian naval power in the Black Sea, bristled with missiles and loomed eerily on the horizon, awe-inspiring those who saw it.
But U.S. Navy officials who toured Russian cruisers when there was military cooperation between the United States and Russia in the late 1990s and early 2000s said Moscow had problems. There was little visible damage control equipment on board the warship to quickly put out fires on board.
Officials said they could not see fire extinguishers or fire hoses in the aisles of the ships. On American ships, such equipment is kept on hand to allow the crew to quickly put out fires that are critical at sea.
Russian media reported that a fire on board ignited a cartridge for ammunition, causing serious damage to “Moscow”. U.S. officials say the Neptune missiles most likely caused the fire, which the crew could not contain before the obsolete ship eventually sank while being towed to port.
“The Russian military has long debated whether to retire Moscow,” said Michael Coffman, director of Russian research at CNA, a research institute in Arlington County, Virginia. “It was an old Soviet cruiser that needed modernization.”
But due to a shortage of cruisers and destroyers, Moscow eventually decided to expand its service. In fact, Moscow’s cannons were the ones firing on Ukraine’s Snake Island in the early days of the war.
A satellite image published by Maxar Technologies shows that the warship Moscow docked at a port in Sevastopol, Crimea, last month. Credit … Maxar Technologies, through the Associated Press
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