By William Tucker
Chief Correspondent for In Homeland Security
Late yesterday evening The Daily Beast ran an article claiming that the U.S. won’t share intelligence regarding Russian force posture with Ukraine. Estimates of the Russian troop strength massing on Ukraine’s shared border with Russia have greatly fluctuated, but recent intelligence suggests that Moscow has moved in mobile hospital units and enhanced its supply lines to its forward deployed troops. Indeed, should Russia make the decision to make a conventional military thrust into Ukraine it could do so in short order. U.S. intelligence showing what Russian units are present, where and how they are organized, and where a major incursion might occur is information that Kiev would find vital. Russian military moves of the past decade have followed closely on the heels of carefully orchestrated civil unrest in which ethnic Russians are thought, at least by Moscow, to be in danger. Notable occurrences of this approach include Georgia in 2008, Kyrgyzstan 2010, Crimea 2014, and in Eastern Ukraine we see pro-Russian protesters seizing government buildings in several cities. The situation in the east has forced Kiev to offer an ultimatum to these protesters –release the hostages and buildings peacefully and participate in talks, or face forceful eviction. This is exactly the type of situation Moscow has used to justify its recent incursions.
The Obama administration has expressed solidarity with the Ukrainian people regarding their sovereignty little has been done beyond extending aid and creating a Twitter hashtag. With the situation in eastern Ukraine nearing a tipping point it would seem that this solidarity would compel Washington to share vital intelligence to Kiev sooner rather than later. Sharing intelligence, especially raw information, is not as easy as it would seem, however. Much of the Ukrainian military and intelligence services have been infiltrated by Russian operatives, or sympathizers at the very least. If the U.S. does share this intelligence, or is preparing to do so, it must compile it in a format that doesn’t sacrifice sources, methods, or capabilities lest the information makes its way to Moscow. It’s amazing what an analyst can pull from a single photograph, so it is imperative that the U.S. doesn’t harm itself while attempting to support Ukraine. Remember, despite the Beast’s headline, the article doesn’t quote a single individual as saying U.S. policy is to withhold information from Ukraine. Sharing intelligence with another nation when no intelligence sharing agreement is in place isn’t always an easy endeavor. Parsing and compiling this information takes a bit of time, but it will likely happen.
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