According to The New York Times, senior Ukrainian officials stepped up intelligence sharing with American counterparts over the summer to plan the counteroffensive. As a result, Armed Forces of Ukraine made a great progress in Kharkiv Oblast.
As NYT reported earlier, American intelligence officials said that they often had a better understanding of Russia’s military plans than of Ukraine’s. Because Ukrainians were closely guarding their operational plans even as American intelligence was gathering precise details on what the Kremlin was ordering and Russian commanders were planning.
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But the fact is, as Ukraine laid its plans to strike back against the Russians, senior leaders in Kyiv decided that sharing more information with the United States would help secure more assistance, American officials said.
Also they claim that the gains in the northeast, including the recapture of Izium, a key railway hub, were the most important advances Ukraine has made so far and there are signs that the current offensive could be the early stages of a drive that could push back the Russian front line significantly.
The recent success indicated that Ukraine’s efforts to retake land in the south and east could unfold more quickly than he had previously assessed, even setting the stage for an attempt to retake Crimea next year, retired Lt. Gen. Frederick B. Hodges, a former top U.S. Army commander in Europe, said.
However, Mick Mulroy, a former Pentagon official and C.I.A. officer, said, “The Ukrainian military’s counteroffensive is moving faster and taking terrain even faster than expected, now is the time for the Ukrainian army to exploit every opportunity they have to degrade and destroy the Russian capacity to fight”.
Furthermore, current and former U.S. officials praised the sophistication of the Ukrainian preparations for the counteroffensive. The decision by Ukraine to tout its counteroffensive in the south before striking in the northeast is a standard technique for misdirection. Additionally, the offensive has demonstrated how the Russian forces have not been able to overcome the fundamental problems laid bare in the opening days of the conflict, they said.
As the Russian military continues to struggle to get its secure communications to work and to solve its logistics problems. It has also not been able to ramp up its industrial base to meet the demands of the war, multiple officials said. Ukrainian air defenses still threaten Russian aircraft, hampering Moscow from using the full potential of its military.
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