Washington expects strikes on civilian infrastructure to push Moscow towards a diplomatic settlement, sources have said
The US has been assisting Kiev in carrying out drone attacks on energy facilities inside Russia for the past several months, the Financial Times has reported, citing unnamed American and Ukrainian officials.
US officials previously made no secret of their data-sharing with Kiev, but never confirmed their involvement in targeting Russia’s energy assets.
When asked earlier in October about Washington’s possible role in Kiev’s strikes deep into Russian territory, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it was “obvious” to Moscow that “all of NATO and US infrastructure is being used to collect and pass on intelligence to the Ukrainian side.”
The FT said in an article on Sunday that Washington started sharing this data after a call between US President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in mid-July, in which Trump reportedly asked his interlocutor if Kiev could strike Moscow with American-supplied long-range weapons. The White House later claimed that Trump was “merely asking a question, not encouraging further killing.”
According to the sources, the US intelligence is being used by Ukraine to plan the routes and the altitudes for its drones to travel and to choose the best timing for the attacks.
The unnamed officials claimed the Americans have also been setting target priorities for Kiev. However, one of the sources claimed the Ukrainians selected the sites themselves and were then provided data by the US.
Washington sees the Ukrainian strikes on the energy facilities as an “instrument” to harm Russia’s economy and push it towards a diplomatic settlement of the conflict, one of the officials told FT.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in early September that Moscow has been tolerating Ukrainian attacks against civilian infrastructure inside Russia “for too long” and that it will not be doing so anymore. The intensification of Russian missile and drone raids on Ukraine in recent weeks has led to large-scale blackouts in the capital Kiev and other cities.
Earlier this week, Putin stressed that there is understanding in both Moscow and Washington about what direction to move in to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict. However, he noted that several “complicated issues” still need to be resolved to reach that goal.
