Leak or hack? Information or misinformation? A coup for Russia or an American ploy?
Many days later US intelligence documentssome marked as “top secret” were found circulating on social media, questions remain about how dozens of pages from Pentagon briefings were made public and the amount of stock in them. .
Here’s what we know about the documents.
Are the documents real?
Well, officials say – at least, for the most part.
U.S. officials are very concerned about the disclosure of classified information, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is working to determine the source of the leak.
Some documents appear to have been altered, officials said. It is unclear who corrected the reports or why they did so. Whatever the reason, military analysts say some documents overstate US estimates of the number of people killed in the war in Ukraine and understate how many Russian soldiers have been killed since then. Moscow’s invasion of the neighboring country last year.
Where does the material come from?
The evidence that this is a leak and not a hack seems strong.
The material may appear Whac-a-Mole style on platforms like Twitter, 4chan, and the messaging app Telegram – to say nothing of the Discord channel dedicated to the video game Minecraft – but what is being saved practices are photographs of printed summary reports.
That doesn’t seem like much to go on, especially with the thousands of people supposedly having access to the document. But in 2017, a visible wrinkle in an image of leaked National Security Agency documents was enough to send investigators on the trail of a young Air Force linguist named actual winner.
New documents may provide additional clues.
Online, they look like hasty snapshots of scraps of paper lying in a hunting magazine. Former official who reviewed the document say it appeared that a classified summary was folded, placed in a bag, and then taken out of the safe area to be photographed.
Some documents are specifically marked for the United States only, raising the possibility that an American official has leaked the information.
What have we learned about the war in Ukraine?
While the documents may not fundamentally alter the understanding of what is happening on the battlefield, they can provide insights – or at least tantalizing clues – to the with the expert eye of a Russian war planner.
The documents do not contain specific operational plans, including about Ukraine counterattack expected in the next month so. But they detailed secret US and NATO plans to build up Ukraine’s military in the face of that attack.
They also suggest that Ukrainian forces are in a more difficult situation than their government has publicly acknowledged, particularly pointing to the lack of air defense and the speed with which they are facing the system. The US-supplied highly mobile artillery missile is called HIMARS.
And the fact that the leaked documents – and especially the confirmation they make that the US government spy on both allies and enemies – could be damaging to the united alliance as a whole has emerged. to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion.
On the battlefield, however, some Ukrainian soldiers seem inclined to view it as just war in a different form.
Can the US infiltrate Russian intelligence?
Leaked Pentagon documents show how deeply the United States has infiltrated Russia’s intelligence and security services, allowing Washington to warn Ukraine of planned and understood attacks more insight into the power of Moscow’s war machine.
The document reinforces an idea that intelligence officials have long acknowledged: The United States has a better understanding of Russia’s military activities than it does of Ukraine’s plans.
The documents show that the military apparatus is so deeply compromised that US intelligence can receive daily real-time warnings about the timing of Moscow’s attacks and even specific targets. its.
That could now change.
The leak has the potential to do real damage to the Ukraine war effort by revealing which Russian agency the United States knows best, giving Moscow an opportunity to cut off sources of information.
Wrong information? If so, whose?
Officials in Washington have described the disclosure of the documents as a major intelligence breach, but in Kiev and Moscow, there is agreement on two things: The information is questionable and the target is a cover-up. . They just disagree about who is behind it.
In a statement to The New York Times, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the documents were filled with “fictional information.”
“There is no doubt that this is another element of mixed warfare,” he said. “Russia is trying to influence Ukrainian society, sowing fear, panic, distrust and suspicion. That is typical behavior.”
The Ukrainians say the goal is to undercut the upcoming counterattack.
In Russia, pro-war military bloggers also pointed to Ukraine’s counter-offensive – but reached a different conclusion.
A post on Gray areaa Telegram channel affiliated with the Wagner militia, said: “We should not rule out the high possibility that such a leak of classified information at the right time of the intensification of hostilities and after the fact of the incidents. The completed facts displayed in the documents are misinformation by Western intelligence in order to mislead our commanders into identifying the enemy’s strategy in the upcoming counter-attack.”
In other Russian Telegram channels, prominent voices say that the original documents show higher Russian losses, part of a “Western influence” operation intended to “create morale in Russia.” and Russian forces”. According to the head of a British company that specializes in tracking misinformation.
What other countries are named?
Leakage seems far beyond secret documents on Ukraine. Security analysts who have reviewed documents on social media sites say the growing trove of documents also includes sensitive briefs on Canada, China, Israel and South Korea, beyond the battlefield. military in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.
Among the revelations:
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A hacking group under the guidance of the Russian Federal Security Service may have trespassing on a Canadian gas pipeline company in February and caused damage to its infrastructure.
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A Pentagon review concluded that the leadership of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, encouraged its employees and Israeli citizens to participate in the anti-government protests that have boiled over. earthquake in March. Israeli officials denied the report.
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Officials in South Korea, a key US ally, are torn between Washington’s pressure to help supply Ukraine with ammunition and the country’s official policy not to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine. countries at war, fearing that the United States might divert South Korean weapons to Kiev.
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The documents say the Russian military may be struggling, but the Wagner group of private mercenaries – led by an ally of Russian President Vladimir V. Putin – is flourishing in many parts of the world. . The documents say Wagner is working to thwart American interests in Africa and has explored branching out into Haiti, right under the nose of the United States, with an offer to help the struggling government of that country deal with gangs.
Report contributed by Helene Cooper, Eric Schmitt, Julian E. Barnes, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Michael Schwirtz And Ivan Nechepurenko.
