Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky directed a halt to the planning in December, however the leaked document, primarily based on intelligence gathered as of Jan. 23, lays out in element how the planning progressed and the way such a marketing campaign may proceed if Ukraine revived it.
The document — which in locations bears the marking HCS-P, indicating that sure info is derived from human sources — particulars how officers of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, the Ukrainian protection ministry’s army intelligence service, may plan deniable attacks that may keep away from implicating the Ukrainian authorities itself.
The Washington Post obtained the document, which has not been beforehand reported, from a trove of intelligence materials allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. The Department of Defense declined to remark.
President Vladimir Putin’s 2015 intervention in Syria to assist the embattled Assad regime retain energy throughout the civil struggle has created a everlasting presence of 1000’s of Russian troops there. The deployment, which incorporates superior warplanes and air protection techniques, has bolstered Moscow’s regional presence however exists in an surroundings Russia doesn’t completely management. Moscow transferred some troops and {hardware} from Syria to the Ukraine battlefield final fall, which can have led Kyiv to evaluate that their departure created vulnerabilities.
Attacks on Russian forces in Syria “might raise the threat level to the point where the Russians would need to call in reinforcements,” which may assist the struggle effort again in Ukraine, stated Aron Lund, a fellow on the assume tank Century International.
Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the chief of Ukraine’s Main Directorate for Intelligence, declined to remark.
During planning in December, the document states, Ukrainian army intelligence officers favored putting Russian forces utilizing unmanned aerial autos and beginning “small,” or probably limiting their strikes solely to forces of the Wagner mercenary group.
Ukrainian officers thought of coaching operatives of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the army drive of Syria’s Kurdish-controlled autonomous northeast, to strike Russian targets and conduct “unspecified ‘direct action’ activities along with UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] attacks,” in keeping with the document.
As planning occurred final fall, the SDF sought coaching, air protection techniques and a assure that its function can be stored secret in alternate for supporting Ukrainian operations. The management of the SDF additionally forbade strikes on Russian positions in Kurdish areas, the document says.
“The documents that you are talking about regarding our forces are not real; our forces have never been a side in the Russian-Ukrainian War,” stated Farhad Shami, an SDF spokesperson.
The document signifies that Turkey was conscious of the planning, stating that Turkish officers “sought to avoid potential blowback” and urged that Ukraine stage its attacks from Kurdish areas as a substitute of these in the north and northwest held by different insurgent teams, a few of them backed by Turkey.
Turkey opposes the SDF, nonetheless, and considers its core army ingredient, the People’s Protection Units or YPG, to be a terrorist group. The SDF is the primary accomplice of U.S. troops in Syria, the place they typically share bases on an ongoing mission to stifle the resurgence of the Islamic State.
The Turkish international ministry and embassy in the United States didn’t return requests for remark.
While it’s not clear how a lot Ankara knew about Kyiv’s plan, having Ukraine assist arm their enemy could not have been insupportable if Turkey thought it’d draw a violent response from Moscow, in keeping with a former U.S. official who labored in the area, who spoke on the situation of anonymity due of the delicate nature of the intelligence.
“Turkey’s goal in the region is to eliminate the military capability and leadership of the SDF,” the previous official stated. “If Turkey were to be greeted with such a plan, it would be in their interest to bait the Ukraine-SDF alliance into drawing the wrath of Russia.”
Moscow probably is aware of the situation of SDF items and wouldn’t face nice difficulties in putting them, as a result of SDF forces typically function close to Russian army bases, the previous official stated.
Lund stated that Ukraine’s plans represented a “high-risk project for the SDF,” which wants to keep up working relationship with Russia. “For the SDF to agree to something like this — it seems like a real gamble,” stated Lund, who additionally works as a Middle East analyst on the Swedish Defense Research Agency.
In November, in keeping with the leaked document, Ukrainian army intelligence officers recognized potential logistical constraints to their ambitions, together with “issues with intra-Kurdish border controls and establishing a base of operations.” By Dec. 29, the officers seem to have came upon that Zelensky had halted their planning. It is unclear why Zelensky directed the HUR to stop planning operations, however the document assesses that he could have performed so for quite a lot of causes: U.S. stress, Ukraine’s restricted provide of drones or doubts about whether or not the attacks may succeed.
Another issue may have been the “comparative success” of army intelligence operations in Russia, the document states. The HUR has been aggressive in staging sabotage, assassination and destabilizing operations in Russian-controlled areas in Ukraine, in keeping with different paperwork in the leaked trove. These areas probably supply benefits in logistics, language and different variables.
Kyiv is unlikely to revive the plans or “impose significant costs on Russia in Syria” with out help from the United States and Turkey, the document says. If Ukraine did proceed, attacks may “incur a Russian response targeting U.S. interests in the region if support for an operation is attributed to the United States.”
The document goes into element about what a marketing campaign of “notional” covert Ukrainian attacks may seem like, rating them by the chance that they might trigger Russia to escalate in response. It weighs attacks on well-defended “priority” Russian services close to Damascus and the Syrian coast, which might be probably the most harmful however the most expensive for Russia, in opposition to strikes on “Russia-affiliated petroleum infrastructure” in central Syria, which is poorly protected by air protection however would solely impose “modest costs” on Russia, significantly on the Wagner group.
The Syrian battlefield “provides deniability options” to Ukraine, the document states, as a result of it may assault Russian positions beforehand struck by Syrian rebels, launch attacks from insurgent and even regime-held areas, and attribute attacks to “front, defunct or active nonstate groups.”
Ranked highest on the escalation graph is an assault on a “key Russian facility,” which is accompanied by a graphic outlining an assault on Latakia’s Bassel al-Assad Airport, which shares services with Hmeimim Air Base, Russia’s fundamental army base in Syria. The graphic is dated to 2018 — the identical yr that the air base was attacked by a “swarm” of unmanned aerial autos — and says “Syrian opposition UAV used in attack.” It shows the departure level and flight path of the UAV from a location in Idlib governorate round 50 kilometers northeast of the air base and illustrates the way it flew over the air base itself. The departure level roughly corresponds to the identical place from which Russia alleged the drones had taken off.
The document additionally suggests such a facility might be attacked utilizing “USVs,” or uncrewed floor vessels, and an inset map highlights the Russian naval base at Tartus. Ukraine has dispatched one-way uncrewed boat drones with onboard explosives to assault Russian ships in the Black Sea.
The chart additionally posits an assault profile on “oil and gas infrastructure,” together with {a photograph} of the “Wagner-associated Jihar gas plant,” which The Post geolocated to gasoline fields close to the city of Palmyra. The picture is dated Jan. 5 and suggests the attainable munitions, staging space and goal sorts. It suggests the usage of “Group 1 or 2 UAVs,” probably a reference to how the U.S. Defense Department ranks the scale, weight and velocity of its unmanned aerial autos from lowest to highest.
At the bottom finish of targets risking Russia’s escalation, the document lists attacks on Wagner positions. {A photograph} shows parked autos and buildings at what’s recognized as a Wagner facility close to the Syrian city of Furqlus.
In evenly defended areas like that, “a determined enemy with a bit of technological know-how could do some damage,” Lund stated.
The leaked evaluation acknowledges that attacks like these may “complicate” U.S. coalition operations in jap Syria if Russia “more aggressively” polices Syrian airspace or strikes air protection weapons.
It mentions an actual however beforehand undisclosed Nov. 27 incident in which a Russian SA-22 air protection system primarily based in jap Syria fired on a U.S. MQ-9 drone. The drone was not struck by the missile, a U.S. official stated.
Isabelle Khurshudyan contributed to this report.
