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Pentagon assessing impact of leaked documents on national security
The US Department of Defense says it has launched an interagency effort to assess the impact that leaked intelligence documents could have on US national security and on its allies and partners, as it hunts for the source of the leak.
“The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” the department said in a statement.
The Pentagon has also referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation, Reuters reports.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret,” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Such closely-guarded information could be of great use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.
US officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
The documents first appeared last month on social media websites, beginning with Discord and 4Chan. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by the New York Times.
Some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals.
Key events
A bit more on the leak: One of the most eye-opening revelations from the documents is that Ukraine’s air defences risk running out of missiles and ammunition within weeks, according to the New York Times, potentially changing the course of the war.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate. It is unclear if the usage rate has since changed.
Ukraine’s Buk air defence systems, which it relies on along with the S-300 to protest vital sites from Russian air power, could run into trouble by mid-April, and air defences protecting troops on the front line could be “completely reduced” by 23 May.
Russian fighter jets and bombers gaining more opportunity to attack Ukrainian forces could prove a major challenge for Kyiv, the Times reported, citing senior military officials.
Colonel Yuri Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, did not comment specifically on the information contained in the documents but told the Wall Street Journal that Ukraine faced serious challenges in finding the Soviet-designed ammunition for its crucial S-300 and the Buk batteries.
“If we lose the battle for the skies, the consequences for Ukraine will be very serious,” he told the paper. “This is not the time to procrastinate,” he said, urging western allies to speed up their assistance.
For more on that, read on here:
Pentagon assessing impact of leaked documents on national security
The US Department of Defense says it has launched an interagency effort to assess the impact that leaked intelligence documents could have on US national security and on its allies and partners, as it hunts for the source of the leak.
“The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” the department said in a statement.
The Pentagon has also referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation, Reuters reports.
One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret,” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Such closely-guarded information could be of great use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.
US officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
The documents first appeared last month on social media websites, beginning with Discord and 4Chan. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by the New York Times.
Some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN,” meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the conflict in Ukraine. I’m Helen Livingstone and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they happen.
The US Department of Defense says an interagency effort is assessing the impact that leaked intelligence documents, many concerning the war in Ukraine, could have on US national security and on its allies and partners.
Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
The cache is a growing source of anxiety for US intelligence agencies, while US allies have been forced into denials over the contents.
Among other things, the documents suggest that without a huge boost in munitions, Ukraine’s air defences could be in peril, allowing the Russian air force to change the course of the war, the New York Times has reported.
Other recent developments:
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Russian shelling killed at least seven civilians in the cities of Kupiansk and Zaporizhzhia over the weekend, Ukrainian authorities said. “This is how the terrorist state marks Palm Sunday,” said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly address. “This is how Russia places itself in even greater isolation from the world.” Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christian and will celebrate Easter on 16 April.
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, chaired a full security council session on 5 April, the first since 2022, according to the latest intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence. The main report was presented by interior minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev, a choice the MoD said was likely an attempt by the Kremlin to portray the situation in those territories as being “normalised”. However “in reality, much of the area remains an active combat zone, subject to partisan attacks, and with extremely limited access to basic services for many citizens”.
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A Ukrainian government minister is due to visit India on Monday and will seek humanitarian aid and equipment to repair energy infrastructure damaged during Russia’s invasion, according to the Hindu newspaper. Ukraine’s first deputy foreign minister, Emine Dzhaparova, will make the first visit to India by a minister from Kyiv since the Russian invasion.
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Pope Francis and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, used their Easter messages to call for peace. The pope asked God to “shed the light of Easter upon the people of Russia”, appearing to ask Russians to seek the truth about their country’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tonnes of fuel near Zaporizhzhia as well as Ukrainian military warehouses in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
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