By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The Leaked Documents

Classified war documents on U.S. and NATO efforts to support Ukraine’s military ahead of a planned spring counteroffensive were posted to social media this week. The leaked documents, at least one labeled “Top Secret,” reportedly include maps of Ukraine and information on troop and battalion strengths, anticipated weapons deliveries, and casualty numbers. The material, dated March 1, does not include detailed battle plans but provides a glimpse into the Ukrainian military’s status as of five weeks ago. The documents, which appeared online as early as March 1 and 2, were later posted to Twitter and Telegram.

Another trove of classified information was published on 4chan, an online anonymous message board. More than 100 pages were posted, which included sensitive U.S. briefing slides on topics like China, Indo-Pacific military issues, the Middle East, and terrorism, according to the New York Times. One slide was labeled “Secret/No Forn,” meaning not to be shared with foreign governments. A senior intelligence official who spoke to the Times called this leak a “nightmare for the Five Eyes” intelligence alliance, composed of the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

As of now, it’s unclear who published any of the classified information and why, though the U.S. Defense Department has launched an investigation. Pentagon officials have acknowledged that they are legitimate Defense Department documents; however, some of the content seems to have been altered to inflate Ukraine’s casualty numbers. U.S. defense officials indicate this may be part of a push to further Moscow’s disinformation efforts; pro-Russian online accounts have actively publicized the documents since their release. “As many of these were pictures of documents, it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, U.S., and NATO efforts,” Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told the Times.

Although neither sets of released papers seem to provide specific details, such as when and where the anticipated Ukrainian military offensive will occur, they do provide important intelligence about the timing of weapons and troop deliveries as well as the progress of troop buildups—both things that could potentially provide Moscow with a tactical advantage. Some military analysts predict the spring strike will focus on Russian-occupied territory in southeastern Ukraine. Still, according to Ukrainian national security chief Oleksiy Danilov, no more than five people know when and where the spring strike will occur.

As for best strategies, retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis thinks Ukraine’s military should “drive to the Black Sea and split the Russians” on two flanks, coming up behind them. Speaking on FP Live on Thursday, the former NATO supreme allied commander said such an effort would “complicate their ability to manage logistics.” For more from Stavridis, including why he thinks Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to use nuclear weapons and why Washington should support Kyiv.

However, the documents offer many tantalizing clues and insights to the trained eye of a Russian war planner, field general, or intelligence analyst. The documents mention, for instance, the expenditure rate of HIMARS, American-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems, which can launch attacks against targets like ammunition dumps, infrastructure, and concentrations of troops, from a distance. The Pentagon still has to say publicly how fast Ukrainian troops are using the HIMARS munitions; the documents do.

The U.S. Justice Department confirmed it had opened an investigation into the leak after senior U.S. officials realized its scope was much more expansive than initially thought.

They outline information about the Ukrainian and Russian militaries and include highly sensitive U.S. analyses of China and other nations. The materials also reference highly classified sources and methods that the United States uses to collect such information, alarming U.S. national security officials who have seen them.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Sabrina Singh, said in a brief statement that the matter is under review. Still, she declined to address when officials first became aware of the leak and how damaging the Biden administration considers the disclosure. The Pentagon has referred the matter to the Justice Department, she said.

One U.S. defense official, who like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s preliminary understanding of the leak, said that many of the documents appear to have been prepared over the winter for Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior military officials, but that they were available to many other U.S. personnel and contract employees with the appropriate security clearances.

It was unclear who may have posted the materials online, this person said, adding that hundreds — if not thousands — of people had access to them. The source of the leak, the official said, “could be anyone.”

According to a Post review, the material that appeared online includes photographs of documents labeled “Secret” or “Top Secret” and began appearing on Discord, a chat platform popular with gamers.

On Wednesday, images showing some documents began circulating on the anonymous online message board 4chan and made their way to at least two mainstream social media platforms, Telegram and Twitter.

In some cases, it appears that the slides were manipulated. For instance, one image features combat casualty data suggesting the number of Russian soldiers killed in the war is far below what the Pentagon publicly assessed. Another version of the image showed higher Russian casualty figures.

Besides the information on casualties that appeared to be manipulated to benefit the Russian government, U.S. officials who spoke to The Post said many of the leaked documents did not appear to be forged and looked consistent in format with CIA World Intelligence Review reports distributed at high levels within the White House, Pentagon, and the State Department.

The leak, first reported Thursday by the New York Times, coincides with an expansive effort by the United States and NATO to arm and train Ukrainian units for an anticipated push this spring to reclaim Russian-occupied territory in the east and south. There were immediate concerns that the information’s disclosure could complicate that plan, as the documents appear to reveal how much Western military weaponry and other equipment had arrived on the battlefield, how many Ukrainian soldiers are trained to use it, and how Ukraine has arrayed its air defenses to stop an onslaught of Russian missiles.

A Ukrainian service member was at the front line in Lyman, Ukraine, on April 7. 

Another potentially sensitive data point is the rate at which NATO-supplied howitzers are burning through the 155mm shells they fire. The documents describe incoming shipment flows and projections outlining how fast the Ukrainians would run out if shipments were impeded. The Pentagon has refused to disclose such insights publicly and only vaguely describes how much artillery ammunition it provides.

The documents also include battlefield assessments, including for Bakhmut. Russian and Ukrainian forces have been stalemated in this Ukrainian town for months, locked in a ferocious, grinding artillery campaign that has left thousands dead.

While the documents do not contain specific battle plans, the material is “incredibly helpful” to the Kremlin, said Dmitri Alperovitch, chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator, a think tank. “It has an order of battle information — detail about the units involved [in the forthcoming counteroffensive], their manning, equipment, and training levels. … That information can be extremely beneficial for putting up a defense.”

The documents appear to have been drawn from multiple reports and agencies and concern matters other than Ukraine. Two pages, for example, are purportedly a “CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update” and include information about events concerning Russia, Hungary, and Iran.

“We are aware of the posts and are looking into the claims,” a CIA spokesperson said.

Rachel E. VanLandingham, a former Air Force attorney and expert on military law, said that whoever is responsible for the leak “is in a world of hurt.” Such breaches, she said, constitute “one of the most serious crimes that exist regarding U.S. national security.”

The images of the documents obtained by The Post all appear to have come from the same source. Each page was printed before being photographed and folded in four in the same manner.

Classified documents may only be printed from computers in a secure facility, and each transaction is electronically logged, said Glenn Gerstell, a former general counsel with the National Security Agency who emphasized that he was speaking only about general procedures.

“The fact that the documents were printed out should significantly narrow the universe of the initial inquiry,” Gerstell said. “But even assuming they were properly printed out, that doesn’t mean the person who printed them was responsible for the leak. Maybe they kept them securely, and some spy or unauthorized person got to them and took a picture of them. Or maybe they were negligently left somewhere.”

In the past, U.S. government employees and contractors have faced considerable prison time for mishandling classified information. In one high-profile case, Reality Winner, an Air Force veteran and National Security Agency contractor pleaded guilty in 2018 to a single felony count of unauthorized transmission of national defense information and was sentenced to five years and three months. She had shared a report about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election with a news outlet.

Skepticism abounded Friday among both Russian and Ukrainian officials aware of reports about the leaks, with each side accusing the other of being involved in a deliberate act of disinformation.

“Russia is looking for any way to intercept the information initiative, to try to influence the scenario plans of Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on his Telegram account Friday. “But these are only standard elements of the operational game of Russian intelligence — and nothing more. This has nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans.”

Grey Zone, a Telegram channel popular with Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, said the documents might be “disinformation of Western intelligence to mislead our command to identify the enemy’s strategy in the upcoming counteroffensive.”

 

 

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