The US reportedly provided with intelligence used to shoot down a Russian plane carrying hundreds of troops in the early days of the war.
In addition, US intelligence on where and when Russian missiles and bombs were set to hit allowed Ukraine to move its aircrafts out of the strike path, current and former US officials told on Tuesday.
The real-time information assisted Ukraine in pushing back on the Russian attack on a key airport near the capital of Kyiv.
US officials said the intelligence sharing was massive and unprecedented for a country that is not a Nato partner.
The shared intelligence played a significant part in Ukraine successfully resisting Russian forced attacking Kyiv and the surrounding area, and retreating that assault.
‘From the get-go, we leaned pretty heavily forward in sharing both strategic and actionable intelligence with Ukraine,’ a US official briefed on the issue told NBC News.
‘It’s been impactful both at a tactical and strategic level. There are examples where you could tell a pretty clear story that this made a major difference.’
Another unnamed former senior intelligence official with knowledge on the matter said that ‘there has been a lot of real-time intelligence shared in terms of things that could be used for specific targeting of Russian forces’. The details include satellite images and ‘where certain types of Russian units are active’.
A White House National Security Council spokesperson stated to the news outlet: ‘We are regularly providing detailed, timely intelligence to the Ukrainians on the battlefield to help them defend their country against Russian aggression and will continue to do so.’
In the first days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US defense and intelligence lawyers restricted the sharing of some information that would help Ukraine launch strikes on Russian forces. However, Congress pushed for that guidance to be removed as Russia advanced its invasion, according to officials.
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