Volodymyr Zelensky’s top advisers warned the Ukrainian president against divulging war plans to US counterpart Joe Biden in September, The Washington Post reported.
“Don’t share anything with Biden you don’t want on the front page of The Washington Post,” an aide purportedly cautioned Zelensky ahead of his trip to the United States.
Doubts in Kiev about Washington’s ability to keep a lid on sensitive secrets was a concern in the wake of the Pentagon leaks earlier in the year, often referred to as the "Discord Leaks." The April disclosures reportedly left Zelensky fuming at the time, with the Ukrainian leader telling WaPo the following month that the breach was “not beneficial to the reputation of the White House, and I believe it is not beneficial to the reputation of the United States.”
The leak put a strain on Kiev’s relations with Washington, the outlet claimed, yet the intelligence-sharing relationship was not severed.
One of the most damaging releases of classified national security secrets in years, the Pentagon leaks in April caused tremendous embarrassment for the US intelligence community.
One of the things that these docs shed light on was that internal evaluations of Ukraine’s military capabilities were much lower than what was stated publicly. The leaked "SitRep" briefings on the conflict in Ukraine included plans for the long-advertised spring counteroffensive by the Kiev regime's forces, specifically, revealing that the counteroffensive would fail to live up to its hype.
At the time, US officials were “blindsided and furious,” the publication cited one insider as admitting.
The leaked docs laid bare the bleak intelligence assessments predicting that all the billions' worth of military aid to Ukraine would go down the drain, leaving Kiev facing huge human and material losses. The forecast was in sharp contrast to sanguine messages that were coming out of the White House's corridors. From casualty estimates for Kiev’s forces, to details of shrinking supplies of air defense munitions and logistical weaknesses, the classified documents pointed to “modest territorial gains” to be expected from Kiev’s counteroffensive.
In the months since the Pentagon leaks, the calamitous situation that was described in them resulted in Ukraine’s botched counteroffensive, while the chorus of voices among House Republicans questioning the need for aiding Kiev further has grown stronger. In October, US President Joe Biden submitted a $106 billion supplemental request to Congress that includes $61 billion for Ukraine. In December, the total request grew to nearly $111 billion as Senate Democrats released new draft legislation. However, last week, the request was blocked, just as the previous one, due to disagreements among lawmakers, with Republicans demanding the inclusion of border security measures in the bill.
House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a letter to the White House earlier, stating that aid to Ukraine is "dependent on the enactment of transformative changes to our nation's border security laws". Meanwhile, the White House's Office of Management and Budget warned Congress last week that it would run out of money for military aid to Ukraine by the end of the year unless Congress passed its supplemental funding request.