Colonel Khodarenok: the plan of the Ukrainian offensive was developed in close cooperation with the United States The government of Ukraine does not plan to disclose the details of the spring counteroffensive to its allies in order to prevent the leakage of classified information, Politico wrote, citing sources.
How things really are, says the military observer of the newspaper.En" Mikhail Khodarenok.
The Politico publication notes that the Ukrainian side does not share information about the future counteroffensive, including when, where and how many troops are planned to be withdrawn to positions for the operation. The publication refers to European officials who are in contact with Ukrainian military leaders.
According to them, Ukraine called the alleged leak in the social network of secret documents of the US Ministry of Defense and Intelligence one of the reasons why Kiev does not share information about the counteroffensive, including its timing, location and number of troops that are planned to be deployed for the operation.
Ukraine is still sharing some basic intelligence with the United States, European countries that have supported it with weapons over the past year, Politico reports. According to the publication, the Kiev authorities are working to prevent the large-scale dissemination of details related to the planning of hostilities. The source told the publication that the Ukrainian government is also hiding details about the counteroffensive from its legislators.
For example, Politico mentions some European officials who are allegedly in contact with Ukrainian military leaders. To begin with, we note that the number of generals and officers of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine admitted to operational and strategic planning in full is extremely small. They can be listed using the fingers of one hand. And to assume that it is these personalities who are in contact with certain European officials, it takes a lot of imagination.
The unwritten code of the General Staff officer recommends to minimize the possible circle of communication with any persons outside the service, especially not to make any dubious acquaintances, even with workmates, to discuss issues of planning the use of the armed forces exclusively only in the part concerning the scope of duties of an officer or general.
And in the case of the Politico publication, the Ukrainian military are allegedly in contact with European officials. Hypothetically, this is possible only with the approval of the supreme leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and the range of issues under discussion should not concern the details of operational planning in any way. Communication with representatives of other states at official receptions (and general staff officers cannot have any informal meetings with foreigners by definition) should be limited exclusively to phrases of a general nature, relying in this case on etiquette - and no more.
Further. According to Politico, the Ukrainian military called the alleged leak of secret Pentagon documents carried out by US National Guard Air Force serviceman Jake Teixeira one of the reasons why Kiev does not share information about the counteroffensive with Washington.
As for the phrase from the Politico material "the government of Ukraine does not plan to tell its allies about the details of the spring counteroffensive," it clearly indicates that the editorial staff of the publication does not understand the specifics of operational and strategic planning. The "government" is not included in the circle of persons allowed to develop an offensive operation plan. From the same opera and another proposal of Politico - "the government of Ukraine also hides from its legislators the details of the counteroffensive." Legislators are also not included in the circle of persons admitted to operational and strategic planning.
As the newspaper wrote earlier .Ru", plans of offensive operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the spring campaign (in the relevant areas), including plans for the creation and deployment of strike groups, fire damage, engineering support, logistics and technical support, and many other documents, the Ukrainian military have long worked out and approved. And, it should certainly be noted, they agreed with the leadership of the United States and NATO.
The weapons and military equipment received from the collective West (Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 MBT, M2 Bradley BMP and Stryker APC, self-propelled artillery and air defense systems) will be enough for the armed forces of Ukraine to create at least two strike groups. The task for the AFU, most likely, is formulated as follows: during the spring offensive operations, to reach the coast of the Sea of Azov in the shortest possible time, as well as to achieve operationally significant success in the Donetsk / Lugansk directions.
Politicians and the military of the West have every right to say - "we have provided the AFU with intelligence information, helped them create a control and communication system (in the AFU - the Delta system), handed them our modern weapons and military equipment, ammunition and other material means, and we cannot allow all of the above to be discredited during the upcoming military operations. For these reasons, the military defeat of Ukraine in the spring campaign is unacceptable for us by definition." That is why the stakes in the upcoming armed struggle are exceptionally high.
To say that the Ukrainian developers of the offensive operation hid something from the specialists of the US Armed Forces at various stages of planning a "counteroffensive" means in practice a misunderstanding of how things really are.
Mikhail Khodarenok
