"Secret weapon"? Valerii Zaluzhnyi confirmed everything

"This headquarters has truly become a secret weapon for our partners and me in planning operations and formulating requirements for their implementation," Zaluzhnyi said in today's Facebook post, following an investigation by the New York Times on March 29 about the facility.

Zaluznyi said the coordination center was originally formed in April 2022 at the US European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, before moving to Wiesbaden.

He said the headquarters allowed Ukrainian and NATO planners to assess operational needs in real time and shape logistics accordingly.

"We realized over time that we needed a joint operational headquarters with our partners to assess weapons and equipment needs based on operational planning," he wrote.

Zaluznyi also said the need for such a headquarters became critical in the summer of 2022 when Western partners questioned the usefulness of some weapons Kyiv was seeking, but he did not specify which.

According to him, the headquarters in Wiesbaden, which also had the support of the United Kingdom, enabled the planning of operations, the coordination of logistics and the formulation of requirements in NATO standards.

Also, the headquarters helped conduct the war, forecast battlefield needs, and communicate supply demands directly to Washington and European capitals.

As reported by the Kyiv Independent, the New York newspaper previously described in detail the existence of the headquarters called "Task Force Dragon", stating that it was an initiative led by the United States of America.

The headquarters, the New York Times reported, provided Ukrainian forces with real-time intelligence, including the coordinates of Russian military positions — even inside Russian territory.

The initiative was intended to balance Russia's advantages in troop numbers and firepower.

Each day, American and Ukrainian officers jointly selected targets, analyzing satellite imagery and intercepted communications and electronic signals to identify Russian deployments, which they then shared with the Ukrainian military.

The New York Times article also revealed tensions and confusion within the then-US president's administration after Ukraine sank the Russian Black Sea flagship, the Moscow, in April 2022.

According to the report, US and Ukrainian naval officers were at an intelligence-sharing meeting when they first noticed the sinking ship on radar screens.

"Oh my God. Thank you very much. Bye," the Ukrainians reportedly replied.

It was also announced that the Ukrainian counter-offensive towards Melitopol in 2023 had been withdrawn in favor of a protracted campaign in Bakhmut.

Zaluzhnyi was relieved of his duties as Commander-in-Chief in February 2024 and was replaced by Oleksandr Syrskyi.

This move followed months of speculation and media reports that the main reason for Zaluzhnyi's removal was an internal disagreement over Ukraine's war strategy.

The former commander-in-chief assumed the role of Ukrainian ambassador to the United Kingdom on July 11, 2024.