Pentagon reports leaked this year reveal in detail confidential proposals by the Ukrainian presidency to step up attacks on Russian soil. They are the most compromising documents for Ukraine in its defense against the invasion, since they would confirm that its president, Volodímir Zelenski, is willing to cross the red lines marked by his international allies. Zelenski, according to information published Sunday by The Washington Post, has proposed occupying Russian municipalities on the other side of the border and even destroying the pipeline that supplies crude oil to Hungary.
These documents would be part of the massive leak of US intelligence information discovered last April. The suspect behind the revelation of this secret material is a 21-year-old US soldier who was arrested a month ago.
The United States, France and Germany have made it clear that the war cannot spread to Russian territory. Both Zelenskiy and his foreign and defense ministers have reiterated that the weapons provided by their NATO allies will not be used to attack the enemy beyond their borders, but the documents released by The Washington Post indicate that, behind closed doors, the Ukrainian political and military leadership may have other ideas. In a meeting last February with Valeri Zaluzhni, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Zelenskiy regretted not having long-range missiles to destroy military assets of the enemy hundreds of kilometers from the front. The president has replied, in statements to the American newspaper, that these are only private conversations with his generals.
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Ukraine regularly bombards military and energy targets in Russian provinces bordering its territory using artillery and drones. It has also managed to strike drone strikes hundreds of kilometers within the limits of Russia, such as those that occurred last December at the Engels and Dyagilevo air bases. On Saturday, two fighter jets and two helicopter gunships were shot down in Russia's Bryansk province, which borders northern Ukraine. As usual, the Ukrainian authorities do not acknowledge responsibility for these attacks.
Sergei Melnik, general in command of the province of Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, defended last April in an interview with EL PAÍS the need to destroy enemy positions in the Russian province of Belgorod, bordering that of Kharkiv, because from there they are firing on Ukrainian territory. Melnik also added that it was imperative to be able to attack Russian air bases from which bombers take off that, without leaving Russian soil, fire cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine, both military and civilian.
The leak of the Pentagon Papers may curb the supply of long-range missiles from Ukraine's NATO allies. The UK announced on 11th May that it has delivered the British-French made Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Kiev. This armament has a range of about 250 kilometers. The United States agreed last February to supply the GLSDB long-range missiles. These are tactical rockets designed to eliminate very precise targets, but without the ability to destroy large infrastructure. Zelenskiy's government insists that the White House give the green light to provide the ATACMS, missiles with a range of about 300 kilometers, but the Americans have refused for fear that they will be used in Russian territory. For similar reasons, U.S. President Joe Biden has refused to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Occupy Russian villages
The information published by The Washington Post includes a meeting of Zelenskiy last January in which the president proposed that his troops cross the border to take Russian municipalities, with the aim of "giving Kiev an advantage in negotiations with Moscow." Ukrainian special forces units have already operated inside Russia, but the proposal to invade municipalities would put Ukraine's allies in a diplomatic situation of maximum tension. Russia has been erecting defense fortifications on its border with Ukraine for months. The Kremlin has accused Kiev and its NATO partners of wanting to invade part of Russia. Speaking to The Washington Post, Zelenskiy said his army has no intention of entering Russian territory. The Ukrainian leader added that no one has given orders to attack on the soil of the invading country.
The documents show that the United States is infiltrating the powers of the Ukrainian state. They offer details of great precision, such as the proposal that Zelenskiy launched in a mid-February meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yuliya Svrydenko to sabotage the Druzhba pipeline, which supplies oil to Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is the EU's main leader in favor of understanding with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The New York Times reported last March that U.S. intelligence has indications that Ukrainian groups sabotaged the Nordstream offshore gas pipeline connecting Russia to Germany in 2022.
The Pentagon also has to its credit a 2022 plan, which was not carried out, by the intelligence services of the Ukrainian army to attack Russian positions in Syria, in covert operations together with Kurdish groups opposed to the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. Russia is the main military support that Assad has had to stay in power.
Zelenskiy argues in The Washington Post the need to use "any trick" to defend himself from an invasion "in which so many people have died, in which mass graves have been discovered and in which there has been torture." Last night, Russian forces again fired dozens of Iranian-made Shahed drones and cruise missiles across Ukraine, damaging residential neighborhoods in Kharkov, Ternopil and Kherson, wounding six people.
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