The person who leaked the classified US documents that have led to a national security investigation is a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked at a military base and was trying to impress other colleagues, the Washington reported Wednesday. Post, quoting other members of a chat group.
This individual shared classified information on the Discord instant messaging platform of about two dozen men and teens who shared a “mutual love of guns and God,” the Post said. The newspaper bases its information on interviews with two members of the Discord chat; Company members said Wednesday they were cooperating with authorities. The Defense Department and Justice Department have yet to comment on the matter, though Justice last week opened a formal investigation into the leak, which is believed to be the most damaging in several years.
Who initially shared the documents is called OG (acronym for Original Ganster). “Shout racial slurs,” said one of the sources quoted by the Washington Post. “He’s fit. He’s strong. He’s armed. He’s trained,” said a member of the chat group, who is under 18 and spoke on condition of anonymity with his mother’s permission, the Post reported. OG told Discord members that he worked at a military base and that he had access to vast amounts of classified information on a daily basis.
As days go by, it appears that the leak was a consequence of a Pentagon policy of giving clearances on internal security matters to a large number of officials. It could also be just the “tip of the iceberg” of a material that had been circulating for some time. It includes data on the lack of weapons in Ukraine, the intelligence methods of the United States against Russia or even espionage by this country towards other nations such as Israel or South Korea.
In what appears to be the most serious leak of US secrets in years, confidential documents were shared on Discord and other platforms, including the 4Chan chat, the encrypted global messaging app Telegram and Twitter. US national security agencies and the The Justice Department is investigating the publication to assess the damage to national security and relations with allies.
Meanwhile, the AFP agency reviewed the leaked documents and these are some of the issues they deal with:
One of the documents takes stock of the conflict in Ukraine as of March 1, 2023, that is, after just over a year of fighting, and assesses Russia’s losses of between 35,500 and 43,500 people, compared to 16,000 to 17,500 in Ukraine. Moscow also reportedly lost more than 150 planes and helicopters, compared to more than 90 for kyiv. Another version of the document, apparently doctored, claims instead that Ukrainian losses would be higher than Russian ones, which seems to confirm the Pentagon’s fears that this leak could “potentially feed disinformation.”
Two documents dated February 28 detail the worrying state of Ukraine’s air defenses, which have so far played a crucial role against Russian attacks, preventing Moscow from gaining control of airspace. kyiv’s ability to maintain medium-range air defenses to protect the front line “will be reduced to zero by May 23,” they say.
One of the documents notes that nearly 90% of Ukraine’s medium- and long-range defenses are made up of Soviet-era SA-11 and SA-10 systems, which could run out of ammunition by late March and early May respectively. .
An undated document says that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly regretted to his highest general that the Ukrainian army did not have long-range missiles that would allow it to directly attack enemy forces on Russian soil, and suggested in late February to take carry out such an attack by means of drones. This information, which seems to indicate that Washington is watching its partner, could partly explain the US reluctance to provide Kiev with the longer-range weapons it has been asking for, but this US hesitation predates the aforementioned exchange.
Another undated document claims that the leaders of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, encouraged both agency officials and ordinary citizens to protest against the controversial judicial reform pushed by the Israeli government.
The source of this information, the interception of electronic communications, seems to point to espionage operations by the United States against an allied country.
According to another of the documents, detailing a March 1 exchange between two South Korean officials, the South Korean national security council feared the United States would transfer certain munitions ordered from Seoul to Kiev.
That would have violated South Korea’s policy not to provide lethal aid to Ukraine. This revelation, which again seems to suggest that Washington is spying on a close ally, has sparked criticism in South Korea, where the opposition called on Wednesday for an investigation to be opened. President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office countered that the spying allegations were “nonsensical lies.”
A February 27 document discusses surveillance flights of the Black Sea by the United States, United Kingdom, France, and NATO from late September to late February using drones and manned aircraft.
About two weeks after the date of this document, Washington accused the Russian military of intercepting one of its MQ-9 Reaper drones over the Black Sea and damaging it, which Moscow denied.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
