Zelenskyy speaks of Pentagon leaks: please stop playing games with me, our country is at war
Ukraine’s president will not confirm or deny the information in the leaked classified documents from the Pentagon, calling on the media to stop "playing games" with him as it harms the country at war with Russia.
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In an interview with the Washington Post, Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the leaks "harmful to both Washington and Kyiv", adding that this is "definitely a bad story."
Mr Zelensky said that he had learned about the disclosures in the news.
"I did not receive information from the White House or the Pentagon beforehand. We did not have that information. I personally did not," he told the Washington Post.
Ukraine’s president compared the Pentagon leaks to a "TV show" that some people may be interested in but that ultimately aided Russia at a critical moment.
"Somewhere it’s a hype, somewhere it’s a scandal. For us, anything that informs our enemy in advance in one way or another is definitely a minus for us. I don’t see any advantages here," he stressed.
Mr Zelenskyy declined to confirm or deny the information in the leaks, or even describe the disclosures as "sensitive", because that would acknowledge that the documents are real, he said.
"It is not sensitive. If I answer you, that means it’s sensitive, it means there are real documents," he explained.
"Please, stop playing games with me. I am the president of a country at war."
The topic was earlier discussed by US state secretary Anthony Blinken and Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, the Washington Post adds.
In early April, the New York Times was the first to have reported a ‘leak’ of allegedly classified documents from the Pentagon online, some of which were related to Ukraine's planned spring counteroffensive.
The US believes that part of the leak was falsified by Russia. A member of the Massachusetts Air Force National Guard, was earlier arrested in connection with the leaked documents probe.