Why does the US not know the military situation of Ukraine?

The US government has more information about Russian troops in Ukraine than Kiev does, The New York Times reported on June 8, citing US officials.

It seems that Kiev is hiding information about military activities from Washington, possibly even fooling the US to protect its generous aid to the country, the newspaper claimed.

According to NYT sources, the Ukrainian government has only provided the US with “a few secret meetings or drips of information on operational plans”, given the US intelligence community’s data-gathering capacity in the US. Ukraine is limited, because it has long focused on Russia.

“The United States is working to build an intelligence agency for Ukraine, not to spy on the Ukrainian government,” the report states. Intelligence gathering was further complicated by cloudy weather in Ukraine, which limited the effectiveness of satellites in surveying the Ukrainian military.

“The secrecy of Kiev has forced US military and intelligence officials to try to get information from other countries operating in Ukraine, training sessions with Ukrainian soldiers and from President Volodymyr Zelensky.” , the NYT quoted sources as saying.

The newspaper noted that the reason for this move was because Ukrainian officials “did not want to release information that would encourage the US and other Western partners to delay the delivery of weapons”. In theory, any country involved in a military conflict is incentivized to project strength regardless of the actual situation.

Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official, expressed concern that the US intelligence community is facing a major challenge. “We’re not going to talk about whether Ukraine can defeat the Russians,” she told the newspaper. “For me, not knowing the details publicly means an intelligence failure. “.