U.S. Intelligence-Sharing Leaves Ukraine in the Dark
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.
The images also are being obscured to reduce the risk that, if the Russians were to obtain them, they could glean important intelligence about U.S. satellite capabilities.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-intelligence-sharing-leaves-ukraine-in-the-dark-1425068644
