South Korea is concerned about the leak of the 155-millimeter shells proposal to the U.S. and its relations with Ukraine

The document states that Mr. Kim suggested that the United States supply Poland with 330,000 rounds of 155-millimeter shells because the goal was to get them to Ukraine as quickly as possible.

South Korea was aware of the news reports about the leaked documents and planned to discuss “issues raised” by the leak with Washington, a senior government official in Seoul told reporters on Sunday. The government would study precedents from the past and similar cases to see if South Korea would lodge a protest or demand an explanation.

Although U.S. officials have confirmed that the trove of leaked documents appear to be legitimate intelligence and operational briefs compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, at least one had been modified from the original at some point. The authenticity of documents is not an indication of their accuracy.

The senior South Korean official refused to give details about internal discussions within Mr. Yoon’s government. He said that there was still no change in the policy on Ukraine. South Korea has been shipping humanitarian aid to Ukraine but has insisted that it would not directly provide any lethal weapons.

The Russian Army in Ukraine: The U.S. Military, Military, Political Leaders, and Military Efforts during the February 2022 Invasion

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, both sides have used tanks as mobile artillery and to support infantry attacks on enemy trenches. The NATO tanks would be important if theUkrainians attempt to recover territory captured by Russia in the coming months.

The monetary incentive is part of a larger tranche of initiatives structured to help Russian formations and boost morale as they struggle to seize territory in Ukraine’s east, the documents say.

The documents from late February and March were found on social media sites recently and outline critical shortages in the Ukrainian military. The US appears to be gathering intelligence on the top military and political leaders in Ukraine, a reflection of their struggle to get a clear view of the country’s fighting strategies.

Smaller, portable anti-tank missiles and anti-tank mines have been used in earlier phases of the war to mitigate the presence of tanks on the battlefield.

The Kremlin has excelled in rewarding achievements considered important to the state. Olympic gold medalists sometimes receive cars or apartments. The main suspect behind the poisoning of a Russian intelligence turncoat in London in the 2000s was given a seat in Russia’s Parliament.

Israeli Defense Forces in Ukraine: Analysis of the Leaked Communiqués from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the C.I.A. Operations Center

In fact, the documents released so far are a brief snapshot of how the United States viewed the war in Ukraine. Many pages appear right out of the Joint Chiefs of Staff briefings, and in a few cases also from the C.I.A. operations center. If you combine current order of battle and projections of where the air defenses are going to be located it makes sense that they would be very useful to Russian military planners.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the leaked assessment publicly, said on Sunday that Israel had taken “a very clear stand in support of Ukraine since Day 1 and had decided to focus on humanitarian aid,” mostly because of Israel’s strategic interests regarding Russia’s influence and the Iranian presence in Syria.

Israel has decided not to give Ukrainians more robust weaponry for air defense, such as Israel’s Iron Dome missile intercept system, and has ruled out giving it with offensive weapons.

For years, Russia and Israel have worked together to avoid fatal errors in Syria. Israeli officials inform their Russian counterparts about impending strikes in order to prevent the flow of arms from Iran to its proxies in Syria and Lebanon.

The document lists Israeli weapons that could be transferred to Ukraine, including the Barak-8 and Spyder surface-to-air missiles and Spike anti-tank guided missile.

According to leaked documents, a hacking group under the guidance of the Federal Security Service may have caused damage to a Canadian gas company in February.

If the Zarya attack succeeded, it would mark the first time that the United States intelligence community had observed a pro-Russia-hacking group perform a disruptive attack against Western industrial control systems.

The New York Times was unable to verify the US intelligence assessment, despite denials from Mossad and other senior Israeli defense officials.

The F.S.B. officers anticipated that an explosion would occur at the gas distribution station and that they were watching Canadian news reports for any signs of an explosion.

A recent National Cyber Threat Assessment of Canada expressed concern about the disruption of critical infrastructure, in particular internet- connected operational technology that underpins industrial processes, according to an email from Canada’s information technology security agency.

Canada, a strong ally of the United States and a NATO member, has been among the most fervent critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, imposing sanctions on more than 2,400 Russian individuals and entities.

Canada’s federal cyberprotection agency previously warned that the pipelines could be struck by the same kind of audacious digital attack that targeted a major American pipeline in May 2021. The vulnerability of the energy infrastructure to cyberattacks was demonstrated when a major oil and gas transmission line from Texas up the East Coast to New York was forced to shut down due to a cyberattack.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023/russia-ukraine-war-documents-leak/hacking-canada-pipeline

A Frustrated Battle for Bakhmut, Ukraine, During the Last Breathing Tube: A Russian Propaganda Plot

Ransomware is a type of modern-day piracy that has targeted businesses, local governments and hospitals. There are some cases where victims receive an email with links that contain software on their computers that holds them hostage until money is paid.

Experts say that criminal groups with loose affiliations with foreign intelligence agencies have been known to conduct such attacks on their own.

Assaults on critical infrastructure have been a major concern for a decade, but they have accelerated in recent years in the United States and beyond after breaches. Among them were the SolarWinds intrusion by one of Russia’s intelligence agencies and another against some types of Microsoft-designed systems that was attributed to Chinese hackers.

Once surrounded, the wounded soldiers are at risk of being overrun and killed, as the bullets run low, and the still fighting may be overrun and killed. The commander of ground forces in the east, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, called the single supply road the “last breathing tube” and asked that Kraken, a unit in the military intelligence agency, be deployed to Bakhmut, the document said.

The assessment only captures one fleeting moment, from late February, in the 10 month long battle for Bakhmut, a mining town of questionable strategic significance but one that both sides freighted with political meaning.

Ukrainian soldiers have been attacked by ex-cons in various places, and have had their own battles with the Russian special forces troops, who bombard them round the clock.

The Ukrainian forces were almost encircled, with the opinion that they were low in mood and low in confidence according to the leaked assessment.

The leaked assessment said that Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s director of military intelligence, offered to deploy elite units under his command for two weeks to push back Russian troops threatening the supply road. It cited General Budanov as describing Ukraine’s position at the time as “catastrophic.”

The Ukrainian military has effectively safeguarded key secrets throughout the war, including foreshadowing of the successful, surprise counterattack last summer in the Kharkiv region that swept over Russian lines. Ukrainian officials say that the document leak is a Russian propaganda ploy.

Roman Mashovets, an adviser to Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, also offered a cleareyed assessment in a briefing, the document says.

Mr. Mashovets advised that a single supply road, winding over hills to the west of Bakhmut, remained accessible for the forces inside the city — and that it was under artillery fire.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023/russia-ukraine-war-documents-leak/hacking-canada-pipeline

The Striking Exile of Vladimir Petrovich Wagner in the First Month of the Ukraine War: The Case of the Kremlin Group

The leak opened a window on internal deliberations in the Ukrainian leadership and showed a Western intelligence assessment that Bakhmut was teetering by late February.

This fighting, which came after the intelligence assessment was written, was successful in pushing Russian forces far enough from the roads to allow resupply of soldiers in the city and evacuation of the wounded.

But it came at a strategic cost for Ukraine, which has been seeking to retain its best trained and equipped soldiers for a counteroffensive anticipated in the coming weeks or months.

Before the Ukraine war, little was known about Wagner. Though mercenary fighters associated with the group known by that name had appeared on the battlefields of Syria and Libya, its origins were shadowy and there was debate over whether Wagner existed at all or was simply a product of Kremlin mythmaking.

In February, emissaries from the company were in NATO territory looking for weapons and equipment for their fight in Ukraine.

Whether weapons actually changed hands and the Turkish authorities were aware of the effort was not clear. Officials from the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not immediately comment on the revelation.

But the weapons scheme also shows how much further Wagner must now go for its supplies, a sign that Western sanctions against Russia have begun to bite.

The sign is that they are degrading their capabilities, according to the senior director for New America which is a Washington think tank. “Going further afield certainly suggests impact U.S. and European sanctions are starting to have on degrading the pipeline.”

In September, after denying for years that he was associated with the group, Yevgeny Prigoslin, a close friend and ally of the president, acknowledged that he created the group.

Since then, Mr. Prigozhin has become an unavoidable — and menacing — fixture of the war, donning a helmet and body armor to visit his troops at the front line, while calling for the firing (or worse) of military leaders who have refused to follow his cavalier example. He endorsed the execution by sledgehammer of a soldier who defected to the Ukrainian side and was sent back in a prisoner exchange, in a most disturbing episode of the war.

He has created an army out of freed Russian convicts and hired guns that one of the leaked Pentagon documents assessed to be about 22,000 strong in the area around Bakhmut —possibly larger than the entire Ukrainian contingent along that front.

After Mr. Prigozhin publicly accused the Russian military in late February of failing to provide his troops with sufficient ammunition, unnamed Defense Ministry officials seemed to go into damage-control mode, acknowledging Mr. Prigozhin’s claims might be true and proposing to double the amount of munitions supplied to Wagner forces, according to a C.I.A. document.

According to the documents, American spies have been gathering signals from associates of Prigozhin in order to view the inner workings of their operation. One document describes how American intelligence operatives apparently listened in on a Prigozhin associate in February planning to recruit prisoners again into Wagner’s ranks.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023/russia-ukraine-war-documents-leak/hacking-canada-pipeline

Israeli intelligence agencies warned against overhauling the judiciary in the wake of demonstration demonstrations against the Morse code of January 22nd, 2012

It added: “The Mossad and its serving senior personnel have not engaged in the issue of the demonstrations at all and are dedicated to the value of service to the state that has guided the Mossad since its founding.”

Israel, which returned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to power in December as the head of the most far-right government coalition in its history, was paralyzed by protests and strikes in March after the government revealed plans to overhaul the country’s judiciary. The proposed changes, which were criticized by Israel’s closest ally, the United States, aim to curb judicial review of legislation and give the government more control in the selection of judges.

The documents show that the information was obtained with intelligence signals. The leaked documents are labeled with orders to be shared only with American intelligence agencies.

Current and former Israeli intelligence officials said the agency’s rules and longstanding tradition of nonpartisanship would have precluded direct involvement by the agency’s leadership in a political crisis.

Some Mossad employees were given permission to take part in the demonstrations as private citizens. The Mossad chief, David Barnea, in consultation with Israel’s attorney general, allowed junior employees to participate so long as they did not identify themselves as members of the organization, according to a defense official familiar with the agency’s policy.

Several hundred former Mossad employees, including five former chiefs, also signed a statement in March opposing the overhaul promoted by the government.

According to political commentators in Israel, the leaked assessment made it appear that they were confused about the actions of former Mossad employees with those of current employees.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/explain/2023/russia-ukraine-war-documents-leak/hacking-canada-pipeline

The Israeli Mossad, the Shin Bet, and the Russian Military Intelligence Service: The Russian Army is a Catastrophe

The legislation would be delayed and allow time for negotiations with the opposition parties, as a result of the protesters stalling the proposal.

The Mossad has never taken a position on any issues in Israel. Also, in contrast to the Shin Bet, which deals with domestic security, the Mossad works exclusively outside the country.

It is providing detailed targeting data. The long, complex logistical train is coordinating the delivery of weapons to the Ukrainians. And as a Feb. 22 document makes clear, American officials are planning ahead for a year in which the battle for the Donbas is “likely heading toward a stalemate” that will frustrate Vladimir V. Putin’s goal of capturing the region — and Ukraine’s goal of expelling the invaders.

One senior Western intelligence official summed up the disclosures as “a nightmare.” There are a number of ways that this can be damaging, said the Russia-born Chairman of Silverado Policy accelerator on Sunday. He mentioned that the Russian military intelligence service may be able to use pages on social networking sites such as Telegram to figure out how they are gathering information.