Russland vs. Ukraine

[Quintus Fabius]

Über die Bedeutung der USA als Verbündeter für die Ukraine:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/world...aways.html

A New York Times investigation reveals that America’s involvement in the war was far deeper than previously understood. The secret partnership both guided big-picture battle strategy and funneled precise targeting information down to Ukrainian soldiers in the field.

A U.S. base in Wiesbaden, Germany, supplied the Ukrainians with the coordinates of Russian forces on their soil.

To guide the Ukrainians as they deployed their ever-more-sophisticated arsenal, the Americans created an operation called Task Force Dragon.

The secret center of the partnership was at the U.S. Army garrison in Wiesbaden, Germany. Each morning, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers set targeting priorities — Russian units, pieces of equipment or infrastructure. American and coalition intelligence officers searched satellite imagery, radio emissions and intercepted communications to find Russian positions. Task Force Dragon then gave the Ukrainians the coordinates so they could shoot at them.

U.S. intelligence and artillery helped Ukraine

In spring 2022, the Biden administration agreed to send High Mobility Artillery Systems, or HIMARS, which used satellite-guided rockets for strikes up to 50 miles distant.

In the war’s first year, the Ukrainians were extremely dependent on the Americans for intelligence, and Task Force Dragon vetted and oversaw virtually every HIMARS strike.

The Biden administration kept moving its red lines

Wiesbaden was allowed to put about a dozen military advisers in Kyiv. To avoid drawing public attention to their presence, the Pentagon initially called them “subject matter experts.” Later the team was expanded, to about three dozen, and the military advisers were eventually allowed to travel to Ukrainian command posts closer to the fighting.

In 2022, the U.S. Navy was authorized to share targeting information for Ukrainian drone strikes on warships just beyond the territorial waters of Russian-annexed Crimea.

The C.I.A. was allowed to support Ukrainian operations within Crimean waters; that fall, the spy agency covertly helped Ukrainian drones strike Russian warships in the port of Sevastopol.

In January 2024, U.S. and Ukrainian military officers jointly planned a campaign — using coalition-supplied long-range missiles, along with Ukrainian drones — to attack about 100 Russian military targets across Crimea. The campaign, named Operation Lunar Hail, largely succeeded in forcing the Russians to pull equipment, facilities and forces in Crimea back to the Russian mainland.

Ultimately, the U.S. military and C.I.A. were allowed to help with strikes into Russia

In spring 2024, to protect the northern city of Kharkiv against a Russian assault, the administration authorized the creation of an “ops box” — a zone of Russian territory within which U.S. officers could provide the Ukrainians with precise coordinates. The box’s first iteration extended across a wide swath of Ukraine’s northern border. The box was expanded after North Korea sent troops to help fight the Ukrainians’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. The U.S. military was later allowed to enable missile strikes in an area of southern Russia where the Russians staged forces and equipment for their offensive in eastern Ukraine.

The C.I.A. could request “variances,” carve-outs to support strikes for specific objectives. Intelligence had identified a vast munitions depot in Toropets, 290 miles north of the Ukrainian border. On Sept. 18, 2024, a swarm of drones slammed into the munitions depot. The blast, as powerful as a small earthquake, opened a crater the width of a football field.

Later, the C.I.A. was allowed to enable Ukrainian drone strikes in southern Russia to try to slow advances in eastern Ukraine.

Wie schwach Russland in Wahrheit ist sieht man schon allein daran, wie wenig sie auf diese wiederholten kriegerischen Akte reagiert haben.