Last Friday, the press reported that about 100 secret military and intelligence documents from the United States were published on the Internet.
The files reveal confidential information about U.S. operations in Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Egypt, South Korea, and even mention Brazil’s involvement in peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
The most bizarre aspect is that the documents emerged over a month ago on anonymous web forums dedicated to gaming, such as the Discord channel dedicated to Minecraft.
If they are indeed authentic, the documents represent a significant breach of U.S. intelligence and provide insights into the U.S. role in defending Ukraine from the Russian invasion and other major geopolitical arenas.
For now, the ambiguous provenance of the documents, the somewhat surprising platform on which they were posted, signs that several of them have been altered, and the inability to verify them independently make it difficult to draw comprehensive conclusions.
However, the U.S. government seems to be treating the documents as legitimate. The Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the leaks, the Department of Defense and several other government agencies are jointly assessing any impact on national security, and Pentagon leaders are furious and struggling to undo the damage.
The leak of these documents exposes the contradiction between the incredible information-gathering capabilities of American agencies and their lack of care in handling confidential information.
What the documents reveal
The documents are current – dated from late February or early March of this year – and cover a wide range of topics, including:
• The documents reveal that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad supported protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he pushed for a major judicial reform in the country;
• There are revelations about Egypt, which, as one of the closest U.S. partners in the Middle East, received billions of dollars in military aid. But a leaked document reveals a scheme for Egypt to possibly support Russia with armaments. The document states that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had “recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be secretly sent to Russia,” reported The Washington Post;
• The leaked files provide new details on personnel losses in the Russia-Ukraine war, which both sides of the conflict are trying to keep secret. The New York Times reported: “One document states that the Russians suffered 189,500 to 223,000 casualties, including up to 43,000 killed in action,” while “in February, Ukraine suffered 124,500 to 131,000 casualties, with up to 17,500 killed in action”;
• Several maps show detailed troop movements and the state of Ukrainian and Russian armaments. Another top-secret document exposes the deficiencies of the Ukrainian armed forces and states that Ukraine would achieve only “modest territorial gains” in its counter-offensive.
• Documents were also leaked indicating that Vladimir Putin’s government considered the Brazilian proposal to create a peace negotiation group between Russia and Ukraine as a way to reduce pressure on the Kremlin, according to the Miami Herald.