The US Department of Defense on Thursday denied providing intelligence allowing Ukrainian forces to target senior Russian officers near the front, as claimed by the New York Times.
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It is true that the United States transmits elements of intelligence to Kyiv “in order to help the Ukrainians defend their country”, declared John Kirby, the spokesman for the Pentagon.
But, he added, “we do not provide information on the whereabouts of senior military commanders on the battlefield, nor do we participate in targeting decisions made by the Ukrainian military.”
The New York Times, on the contrary, said on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources within the American services, that the information provided by the United States to the Ukrainian army had made it possible to target several Russian generals near the front.
Quoting several senior US officials, the newspaper said that of the dozen Russian generals killed by Ukrainian forces, “many” were targeted with the help of US intelligence.
The US National Security Council (NSC) had previously called the claim that the United States was helping Ukraine kill Russian generals “irresponsible”.
“The United States is providing battlefield intelligence to help Ukrainians defend their country,” NSC spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told AFP in an email.
“We do not provide information with the intention of killing Russian generals,” she stressed.
Washington’s intelligence efforts to assist Ukraine up close in the fighting have included ‘focusing on determining the location and other details of Russian military mobile headquarters, which move regularly writes the New York Times.
On Monday, the Pentagon officially reported that Russian Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov had been for “several days” last week on the frontline in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, thus suggesting that Russia’s top military officials were closing in on the fighting.
But the Pentagon had not confirmed the injury rumors concerning Valéri Guerasimov.