It is not clear which documents might contain disinformation and whether they could be the result of a Russian disinformation operation or an American maneuver aimed at misleading Moscow about Kyiv’s war plans. The documents, classified as “Secret” or “Top Secret,” include sensitive presentation slides concerning the situation of the war in Ukraine in February and March of this year.
Source of the Leak
US officials are still unsure how the documents were disseminated on the internet. Images of crumpled documents, suggesting they may have been folded to be concealed before being removed from highly classified areas and photographed, have been published on social media platforms, including Discord, 4Chan, Telegram, and Twitter.
The open-source investigative site Bellingcat reported that it found evidence that the documents, or at least some of them, appeared on social media as early as March or even January. Bellingcat traced the first references to the leak back to a now-defunct Discord server and cited three former users claiming that a large number of documents had been shared there.
Read also: Leak of US Confidential Documents: Impact on National Security and Relations with Partners
Content of the Documents
The documents cover a wide range of topics of interest to US policymakers, including:
- Ukraine: information on Ukrainian airstrikes, the country’s air defense weaknesses, and the size of certain Ukrainian military units.
- Wagner Group: descriptions of several outreach initiatives by the Russian mercenary group, including with Turkish “contacts,” Haitian government officials, and the organization’s growing presence in Mali.
- Middle East: updates on Iran’s nuclear activities and information on discussions between the United Arab Emirates and Russia for the construction of a maintenance center for certain weapons.
- China: predictions on how China would react to Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, as well as details on British projects in the Indo-Pacific region.
- North Korea: information on Pyongyang’s missile tests and an assessment that a February parade likely overestimated the ICBM threat to the US.
- South America: intelligence on Brazilian officials’ plans to visit Moscow in April to discuss a mediation plan in Ukraine.
- Africa: an assessment that France would struggle to achieve its security objectives in West and Central Africa.
This article was written based on information provided by Reuters news agency here.
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