Were these documents disclosed by the Russians to expose Ukrainian weakness and shatter morale, as seems most likely to the analysts I contacted? Or were they actually disseminated by Ukraine, as some Russian bloggers appear to believe, in a plot to make the Kremlin think that Ukraine is weak and thereby disguise its true strengths in advance of a planned spring counteroffensive?
We’re in Angleton’s “wilderness of mirrors” here. What matters, as he observed, is that you know what’s accurate and what is a manipulated reflection. Though a few documents appear to have been doctored, an administration official told me Monday: “We’re still examining them, but at first glance, this appears to be real.”
Intelligence is always about what philosophers call epistemology — the study of how we know what we know. But let’s try to focus on facts, by examining some baseline themes in the documents that accord with information from other sources. By restricting ourselves to this subset of information supported by collateral evidence, we can make out some basic themes.
First, Ukraine is facing a severe shortage of air defense weapons that could cost it the war. We knew it had a problem from last week’s announcement that the United States was rushing an additional $2.6 billion in air defense systems and other weapons. The new package includes ammunition for Patriot and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, missile batteries; nine gun trucks and 10 anti-drone laser systems; new air surveillance radars, antiaircraft ammunition and Grad rockets.
The raw numbers about the air defense shortage recorded in a Feb. 23 document are scary. Ukraine depends on Soviet-era SA-10s and SA-11s for 89 percent of its air defense over 20,000 feet. At current firing rates, the document predicted, the SA-11s would be depleted by March 31 and the SA-10s by May 2. Other systems “are unable to match the Russian volume” of attacks, and the shortage is so severe that “multiple mitigating options must be simultaneously pursued.”
If Ukraine can’t fill this gap, Russia could finally have the “air superiority” to attack Ukrainian ground targets at will, the document notes. That means Ukraine might not be able to mass ground forces for its counteroffensive or protect its cities.
Second, the West’s “arsenal of democracy” isn’t close to matching Ukraine’s needs. In theory, logistics should be Ukraine’s great advantage against a Russia facing what were supposed to be “crippling” sanctions. But there’s a bad mismatch between Ukraine’s expenditure of missiles and ammunition and the West’s supplies. Partly that’s a result of the Ukrainians firing too much ammunition, but the documents describe desperate efforts to persuade nations such as South Korea and Israel to sell lethal weapons to Ukraine.
This ought to be the trump card for the United States. In World War II, the United States converted manufacturing plants across the country to make tanks, planes and aircraft carriers that simply overwhelmed Japan and Germany. No similar mobilization has taken place this time. Why not? Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has met several times with defense contractors, but why hasn’t President Biden appointed the equivalent of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s War Production Board?
Third, the Biden administration has been more risk averse than some allies — and more than seems necessary. One of the documents says that Britain and France have sent crewed electronic warfare planes over the Black Sea while the United States has sent only drones. Why? The answer is that we don’t want a direct confrontation with Russia, like the one the documents say took place in September, when the Russians nearly shot down a British RC-135.
The administration’s caution is sensible. But are Biden and Austin being too cautious? International law allows surveillance planes to fly 12 miles off the coast. Yet one of the documents draws a wider 50-mile limit around Crimea, describing it as a “SECDEF Directed Standoff.” Pentagon officials evidently decided that the intelligence gained from flying closer wasn’t worth the risk. But they should explain why to the public.
Finally, journalists have been hearing privately for many months from top U.S. officials that they believe this conflict is at a deadly impasse, with heavy casualties depleting both sides. The documents provide a more explicit snapshot. A Feb. 23 analysis described a “grinding campaign of attrition” that “is likely heading toward a stalemate.”
Ukraine is betting that a spring counteroffensive can reverse these trends. The administration backs that gamble, too. “Much will depend on the fighting in the spring as to how much longer the war lasts,” the administration official told me.
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies,” British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said in 1943. But the Ukraine intelligence documents appear to be largely accurate, and they tell a chilling story.
