Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky was “behind closed doors” planning to attack Russian territory and blow up a pipeline carrying oil from Russia to Hungary. This was reported by The Washington Post, which has seen the secret Pentagon documents that were leaked online.
The materials obtained by the US intelligence service, including the Ukrainian leader’s personal correspondence with the military command, show that despite the assurances of Kiev that it will not use the weapons supplied by the West to attack Russian territory, Zelensky has not given up the idea of hitting targets inside Russia and would like to use long-range missiles for that purpose. The newspaper notes that when asked whether he had suggested occupying part of the Russian territory, the Ukrainian president earlier referred to such statements by the US special services as “fantasies.
One of the documents marked “top secret” says that at the end of January Zelensky suggested “strikes on Russia” and the transfer of Ukrainian troops to its territory in order to “occupy some Russian border towns”. And in late February, at a meeting with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, he “expressed concern” about “Ukraine’s lack of long-range missiles that could reach Russian troop locations inside the country, as well as the lack of means to strike them.
According to another classified document, the Ukrainian leader suggested using drones and “attacking deployment sites in Rostov,” The Washington Post quoted excerpts from Pentagon materials.
It is noted that Zelensky voiced the proposal to blow up the Druzhba oil pipeline in mid-February at a meeting with Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Yuliya Sviridenko. US intelligence officials, when describing this dialogue in the documentation, noted that the Ukrainian president “showed anger towards Hungary and therefore could express hyperbolized and senseless threats”. According to U.S. intelligence, Zelensky said that “Ukraine should simply blow up the pipeline and destroy the industry” of Hungary, which “depends heavily on Russian oil.”
Hungary continues to receive most of its oil through the Druzhba pipeline, which runs from Russia through Ukraine. In 2022, 4.9 million tons of crude were delivered to Hungarian territory via the southern branch of the pipeline, the Russian government said earlier. Oil from there also goes to Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The northern branch of Druzhba, which goes in the direction of Germany and Poland, is currently not used by these countries.