The publication states that this indicates a greater involvement of the Pentagon in the fighting in Ukraine than previously assumedUkrainian officials have acknowledged that when launching strikes with the help of missile systems received from the United States, in most cases they use data provided by Washington or its allies on the location of targets.
This was reported on Thursday by The Washington Post, citing Ukrainian and American officials.
As specified in the material, Ukrainian officials noted that they "require the provision of coordinates and confirmation by the United States and its allies for the vast majority of strikes using modern missile systems transferred to the United States." The publication states that this indicates a greater involvement of the Pentagon in the fighting in Ukraine than previously assumed.
"One high-ranking Ukrainian official said that Ukrainian forces almost never launch the latest weapons without providing specific coordinates by the US military from bases anywhere in Europe," the article notes. "Ukrainian officials say that these procedures should give Washington more confidence in the issue of supplying long-range weapons to Kiev." The publication clarifies that we are talking, in particular, about strikes using multiple rocket launchers HIMARS and M270.
As follows from the publication, the American official acknowledged that the United States plays a "key role" with regard to the launching of these missile strikes. According to him, "assistance in targeting targets is aimed at ensuring accuracy and saving limited ammunition stocks to achieve maximum efficiency." According to the version of the American official, "Ukraine does not request permission from the United States to launch strikes and regularly strikes Russian forces independently with the help of other types of weapons." According to a US official, the American side "provides coordinates and information for accurate targeting" as consulting support.
According to a source of the publication from among Ukrainian officials, the Ukrainian Armed Forces choose a target for the strike. Further, the Ukrainian side "requests more precise coordinates from the American partners." "The Americans, according to this official, do not always provide the requested coordinates. In this case, the Ukrainian military does not strike," the article says. It says that "Ukraine could strike without the help of the United States," but does not want to waste expensive ammunition. The APU "usually decides not to attack without confirmation from the United States," the source said.
The newspaper states that Kiev is seeking from the United States to provide operational and tactical ballistic missiles of the ATACMS family. The Ukrainian official, speaking about Washington's fears that this could lead to escalation, noted: "You control almost all launches anyway. So when you say you're afraid that we'll use them for some other purpose, we can't do it even if we wanted to." The American official did not agree with this assessment, the article says.
The Pentagon version
The article contains a comment by Pentagon Press Secretary Patrick Ryder. According to him, the United States "has long recognized that it provides intelligence data to Ukraine." As he added, the US has "over time optimized" the process of providing information to facilitate the "targeting process" with greater speed and on a large scale.
According to Ryder, "Ukrainians are responsible for finding targets, prioritizing them and further making final decisions about which ones to hit." "The US does not approve targets, and we do not participate in the selection and defeat of targets," Ryder argued.
