Ukraine Facing Shortfalls, Egypt Arming Russia, British Forces in Kyiv: Key Revelations of Leaked US Docs

US intelligence has serious concerns about Ukraine’s capability in the ongoing war and warned that Kyiv might fail to amass sufficient troops and weaponry for its planned spring counter-offensive and might fall “well short” of its goals to recapture Russian occupied territories, leaked documents have shown.

The documents are part of a trove of highly sensitive material that has been posted online, sparking a US criminal investigation into a breach posing a “very serious” risk to national security.

Here are some top points revealed in the alleged Pentagon document leak:

1. One document stated that tough Russian defence and “enduring Ukrainian deficiencies in training and munitions supplies probably will strain progress and exacerbate casualties during the offensive,” according to The Guardian.
2. US intelligence didn’t expect much from Ukraine’s spring offensive due to shortfall in troop number and equipment deliveries. The intelligence document said that Ukraine was facing significant “force generation and sustainment shortfalls” and was only likely to achieve “modest territorial gains”.
3. It also warned that Ukraine was running out of its Soviet-era anti-aircraft missiles, which was still the backbone of its air defense and said that Kyiv would run out of SA-11 Gadfly missiles by the end of March and S-300 missiles by May.
4. Another document said Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ordered the production of 40,000 rockets for shipment to Russia, telling officials to keep it secret to “avoid problems with the West,” AFP reported.
5. Dozens of photographs of documents have been found on Twitter, Telegram, Discord and other sites in recent days. Many of these documents are no longer available on the sites where they first appeared and the US is working to have them removed.
6. Some documents also reveal concern among top South Korean national security officials that arms and ammunition manufactured by their country might end up being used in Ukraine, a violation of its policy of not selling weapons to nations at war. However, South Korea said a “significant portion” of leaked US intelligence documents indicating concerns were fake.
7. The intelligence also said that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency was encouraging its officers to take part in protests against the Netanyahu government’s plans to weaken the independence of the judiciary. But the Israeli government denied any Mossad involvement in the agitations.
8. One of the documents also showed that Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban described the US as one of the top three adversaries of his party, Fidesz, at an internal political strategy session in February.
9. Leaked documents also suggest that the UK deployed around 50 special forces to Ukraine. It also indicates that more than half of the Western special forces personnel in Ukraine between February and March this year may have been British.
10. The US intelligence leak has also created a diplomatic headache for Washington as they appear to show US spying on close allies including South Korea and Israel.

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