The war in Ukraine is at an inflection point, with President Trump calling for a reconciliation with Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin and calling for an end to the battle.
But nearly three years after Trump returned to power, the US and Ukraine joined an extraordinary partnership of intelligence, strategy, planning and technology, where evolution and internal work are known only to a small circle of America and allies.
With incredible transparency, the Pentagon offers public accounting for the $66.5 billion weapons it supplies to Ukraine. However, the New York Times investigation reveals that American involvement in the war is far deeper than previously understood. The secret partnerships both guided a big picture battle strategy and poured accurate targeting information into Ukrainian soldiers on the field.
Here are five takeaways from the survey.
The US base in Wiesbaden, Germany, provided the Ukrainians with the coordinates of Russian troops on their soil.
The idea behind the partnership was that close cooperation with Ukraine in America compensated for Russia’s enormous advantages in human resources and arms. To guide the Ukrainians in deploying weapons more refined than ever before, the Americans created a tactic called Task Force Dragon.
The secret center of the partnership took place at the US Army’s Rison site in Weesbaden, Germany. Every morning, US and Ukrainian military officers target priorities such as Russian units, equipment or infrastructure. American and Union intelligence agents intercepted communications to find satellite images, radio emissions, and Russian positions. The task force dragons gave the Ukrainians coordinates so they could shoot them.
Military officials worried that calling a target “target” might be overly provocative. Instead, they were called “points of interest.”
The intelligence and artillery of the United States helped Ukraine quickly turn the tide against Russian invasion.
In the spring of 2022, the Biden administration agreed to send a high-mobility gun system or HIMARS using satellite-guided rockets on strikes up to 50 miles away.
In the first year of the war, the Ukrainians were very dependent on the Americans for the Intelligence Report, and the task force dragons examined and overseen almost all Himahs to attack.
The strike has skyrocketed the rate of casualties in Russia, and Ukraine’s 2022 counterattack has been a huge success. By December, the Ukrainians had embraced David and Goliath’s best hands against Russian enemies.
The Biden administration continued to move the red line.
From the beginning, the administrative authorities tried to throw away the red line. The US was not fighting Russia. It was helping Ukraine. Still, they were worried that Putin would have taken steps to achieve either attacking NATO targets or perhaps to do something good to his nuclear threat. Even if the regime developed more broken risk tolerance to help Ukraine respond to the evolving threat, many of the most potentially provocative measures were kept secret.
Wiesbaden, who relaxed the ban on Ukraine’s ground on American boots, was allowed to place around 12 military advisers in Kiev. To avoid attracting public attention to their presence, the Pentagon initially called them “experts on the subject.” The team was then expanded to about three dozen, and military advisers were ultimately allowed to travel to the Ukrainian command post, close to the battle.
In 2022, the US Navy was authorized to share targeting information for Ukrainian drone strikes on warships across Crimean territory annexed by Russia. The CIA has been authorized to support Ukrainian businesses within Crimean waters. That fall, the spying agency secretly helped Ukrainian drones attack Russian warships at Sevastopol port.
In January 2024, US and Ukrainian military officers from Wiesbaden planned a campaign to use long-range missiles supported by the Coalition to attack approximately 100 Russian military targets across Crimea. The campaign, dubbed Operation Lunar Hail, was a major success in forcing the Russians to return Crimean equipment, facilities and troops to the mainland of Russia.
Ultimately, the US military and the CIA were allowed to support the strike against Russia.
The hardest red line was the Russian border. However, in the spring of 2024, the administration approved the creation of an “OPS box” to protect northern cities from Russian attacks. This is a zone of Russian territory that can provide accurate coordinates to Ukrainians to U.S. officers in Wisbaden. The first iteration of the box spread across a wide range of Ukraine’s northern borders. The box was expanded after North Korea sent troops to help combat Ukrainian invasions into Russia’s Kursk region. The US military was later allowed to allow missile strikes in areas in southern Russia, where Russia staged troops and equipment for attacks in eastern Ukraine.
Due to long-standing policies, the CIA banned the provision of information on targets regarding Russian soils. However, the CIA could request “dispersion” and sculptures could be engraved to support strikes of a particular purpose. The intelligence agency had identified a vast ammunition depot in Tropet, 290 miles north of the Ukrainian border. On September 18th, 2024, a flock of drones hit ammunition depot. A powerful explosion, like a small earthquake, opened the width of the soccer field into the crater. The CIA subsequently allowed drone strikes in Ukraine in southern Russia to try to slow progress in eastern Ukraine.
The political discrepancies in Ukraine contributed to the collapse of the 2023 counterattack.
The 2023 counterattack was intended to gain momentum after the first year’s victory. However, after the partners held a war game at Wiesbaden and agreed to the strategy, the plan ran head-on to Ukrainian politics.
General Valerie Zarjuny, the chief of the Ukrainian army, accepted the plan. Its center was an attack in the direction of Meritpol, the southern city of South that cut off Russian supply lines. However, his rival and subordinate Colonel Olexandr Silsky had his own plans. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was by his side, splitting ammunition and troops between not one but two major fronts. The Ukrainians never regained Bahmut, and within a few months the anti-aggressiveness ended with failure. Russia had an advantage.
