KIEV (Dispatches) – Despite public assurance that he would limit military action to his own country’s 1991 borders, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky formed plans to conduct attacks deep inside Russia and suggested that Kiev “destroy” the industry of Hungary, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing leaked Pentagon documents.
Citing U.S. intelligence reports recently published on a gaming server, the Post described how Zelensky suggested at a meeting in January that his troops “conduct strikes in Russia,” while moving across the border to “occupy unspecified Russian border cities” in order to “give Kiev leverage in talks with Moscow.”
Less than two months later, the Ukraine-based Russian Volunteer Corps launched a cross-border raid that left two civilians dead in Russia’s Bryansk Region. A member of the group told Western media that Kiev had approved the attack, and further assaults have taken place since.
The leaked classified U.S. intelligence documents detailed his internal communications with top aides and military leaders cited by the Washington Post.
The documents were first leaked by Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.
The UK, this past week, became the first Western country to provide Ukraine with long-range missiles, the Storm Shadow.
The secret documents reveal that Ukraine’s president has an aggressive sub-personality that is in sharp contrast to the public image he tries to portray of a comedian actor who became a seasoned politician amid political turmoil in the former Soviet state.
Zelensky, according to the leaked documents, proposed Ukrainian military brass to “conduct strikes in Russia” and deploy Ukrainian ground troops into Russian territory to “occupy unspecified Russian border cities,” according to one of the documents labeled “top secret.”
The goal would be “to give Kiev leverage in talks with Moscow,” the document said.
According to another classified document, he suggested to General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander, that “Ukraine attack unspecified deployment locations in Rostov,” a region in western Russia, using drones.
Zelensky had been distraught at the time of the meeting that “Ukraine does not have long-range missiles capable of reaching Russian troop deployments in Russia,” the leaked documents reported.
After Russia launched its special military operation in eastern Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine was flooded with a raft of Western weapons and armaments.
However, other classified U.S. military documents leaked on social media also indicate that Washington has serious doubts regarding Ukrainian forces’ military strength to fight against Russia, according to an April report and documents reviewed by AFP as part of a trove of highly sensitive material that had been posted online.