Ukraine War Plans Leak Likely To Impact U.S. National Security, Included ‘Internal Matters’ Of Several American Allies: Officials

According to officials, a drip of classified documents electronically about U.S. and NATO’s’s preparations for an offensive against Russia in Ukraine includes classified” domestic matters” of British allies and is likely to have an effect on British regional security.

The Pentagon is investigating how dozens of the classified documents, which are around two months old, surfaced on Discord before appearing on Twitter and Telegram, a messaging app with wide reach in Russia. U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that the leak will likely impact America’s national security worldwide, and the documents also include intelligence on “internal matters” from U.S. allies such as Israel, the U.K., and South Korea.

Some of the documents appear altered to show the number of Ukrainian casualties much higher and Russian casualties much lower, according to The New York Times. They also include details about Ukrainian forces and their military equipment, and reveal some information that has never been available to the public, such as the Ukrainian military’s burn rate of HIMARS munitions, which the U.S. has supplied to Ukraine.

Ukraine believes the leaked documents are full of fake information peddled out by Russia that “have nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans,” but a U.S. official told CNN that the documents “look real.” Experts who have reviewed the documents also doubt the leak was part of a Russian disinformation campaign, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities keep downplaying the veracity of the articles that were leaked. The leak is an” operation by Russia’s’s special services ,” according to Andriy Chernyak, a spokesman for Ukraine military intelligence, but Kyiv is taking additional security measures in response to the leak. As it apparently gets ready to launch an offensive against Russia in the coming weeks, President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that his nation is strengthening its protection to prevent illicit statements of crucial defense information.

The Department of Justice launched an inquiry into the documents’ leakage and possible alteration. It is still unknown who leaked the information and where they came from. The documents were first posted by a Discord class called Thug Shaker Central, according to Aric Toler, director of research and preparation at Bellingcat, an investigative news organization that specializes in open-source knowledge. Hundreds of documents were apparently posted on the Discord host, which draws Minecraft players, between January and March.

According to The Journal, U.S. officials are investigating a variety of scenarios that could have led to the hole of classified documents. On Saturday, U.S. leaders claimed that top-secret security clearance holders in the government may have leaked the information or exposed British intelligence systems.

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This statement was contributed to by Tim Pearce.