Zelensky Fumes Over White House Leak Of Secret Missile Plan To NY Times
Despite all the recent billions in US taxpayer monies recently sunk into Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky is fuming after key controversial aspects to his 'victory plan' pitched to Biden administration officials were leaked to The New York Times.
The following is the leaked content made public for the first time in the Tuesday NY Times piece:
In one part not made public, Mr. Zelensky proposed a “nonnuclear deterrence package” in which Ukraine would get Tomahawk missiles, a totally unfeasible request, a senior U.S. official said. A Tomahawk has a range of 1,500 miles, more than seven times the range of the long-range missile systems called ATACMS that Ukraine got this year. And the United States sent only a limited number of those, senior U.S. officials said.
On the whole, the NYT report comes off scathing and negative toward Zelensky, calling his recent tour to lobby Washington and the West in favor of his victory plan a failure. But then it comments that the plan was likely set up to fail.
The Times piece strongly suggests the whole thing is a political charade to begin with, and that Zelensky set up the 'victory plan' for failure in order to lay ultimate blame on the West for 'lack of support' when it inevitably rejects it:
But the real audience for the plan might be at home, some military analysts and diplomats say. Mr. Zelensky can use his hard sell — including a recent address to Parliament — to show Ukrainians that he has done all he can, prepare them for the possibility that Ukraine might have to make a deal and give Ukrainians a convenient scapegoat: the West.
In the wake of this leak to the Times by Biden admin officials, Zelensky has begun lashing out directly at the White House in a rare moment.
"And this was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House. How should we understand these messages? So, it means between partners there’s nothing confidential?” Zelensky said in a fresh media interview published Wednesday.
According to Politico's commentary:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Wednesday that he asked the United States for Tomahawk long-range missiles to help defeat Russia — and slammed the White House for leaking secrets to the American media.
...Zelenskyy, though, was displeased with information about the Tomahawk request being divulged to The New York Times for a story in which an anonymous senior U.S. official described the Ukrainian request as totally unfeasible.
⚡️ President Zelenskyy on Tomahawks: "It was confidential information between Ukraine and White House. How to understand these messages? So, it means, between partners there is no confidential things." pic.twitter.com/gTDFuEWLks
— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) October 30, 2024
Still, one Ukrainian official told the same publication, "We know the plan is realistic. U.S. own military studied it and said it is realistic." So it seems the White House is indeed throwing Zelensky under the bus, even as he tries to do the same to the White House.
What has become very clear to all is that Ukraine forces are in the throes of suffering decisive battlefield defeat in the east, and now the blame-game begins.
* * *
Below is some further commentary by Gray Zone journalist Aaron Maté [emphasis ZH]...
US officials recently leaked that Zelensky's "Victory Plan" includes a request for long-range US Tomahawk missiles, which they ruled out as too escalatory. Zelensky is understandably upset that this was disclosed. He's being thrown under the bus.
But it's worse than that. Before it invaded in Feb. 2022, Russia sought a US commitment to not place long-range missiles like the Tomahawk inside Ukraine. Biden initially said he was open to discussing that, but then backed off.
This likely factored into Russia's decision to impose its security demands by force. Rather than negotiate with Russia, Biden chose to encourage war -- and then leave Ukraine hanging anyway.