U.S. Limits Its Intelligence Sharing With Ukraine

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Intelligence-Sharing Leaves Ukraine in the Dark

Spy-satellite imagery first degraded, delayed to avoid provoking Russia

WASHINGTON—The U.S. is providing spy-satellite imagery to Ukraine to help in its fight against Russia-backed rebels, but with a catch: the images are significantly degraded to avoid provoking Russia or compromising U.S. secrets.

The White House agreed last year to Ukraine’s request to provide the photos and other intelligence. But before delivering them, U.S. officials black out military staging areas on Russian territory and reduce the resolution so that enemy formations can’t be clearly made out, making them less useful to Ukrainian military commanders.

Those steps, which delay the delivery of the images by at least 24 hours, are designed to keep the U.S. out of the so-called kill chain—military jargon for the stages of lethal operations—because of concerns that furnishing actionable intelligence to the Ukrainians could trigger a more aggressive Russian military response.

Update: US Edits Intelligence Data Before Sharing With Ukrainian Military -- Sputnik

WNU Editor: I can guarantee one thing .... if the U.S. shares in intelligence with Ukraine .... that same intelligence will be in the hands of Russian intelligence within the hour. Bottom line .... there are a lot of pro-Russian sympathizers in the Ukraine military, you just cannot vet them all out .... and this limitation of intelligence sharing is a tacit admission from the U.S. that this is the fact.