WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said it was investigating screenshots of classified war documents detailing US and NATO military efforts to help Ukraine circulated on social media.
US officials said the leaked documents that appeared on Twitter and Instagram were real slides, mostly part of a larger daily intelligence information produced by the Pentagon about the Ukraine war.
Earlier, The New York Times citing senior US officials said that classified war documents posted on social media were widely used in Russia.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh did not confirm the documents’ originality but said that the US Defence Department was “aware of the reports of social media posts, and it was reviewing the matter.”
A Ukrainian official told Reuters that the documents contained a “very large amount of fabricated information” and the social posts looked like a Russian propaganda to sow doubts about the offensive that required advanced Western weapons.
Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, on his Telegram handle said that he believed the Russians were behind the purported leak. Podolyak said that the documents disseminated were false and had “nothing to do with Ukraine’s real plans” and they were based on “a large amount of made-up information.”
Whether genuine or not, the leakage of the documents had heightened focus on when the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive would begin and what, if anything, either side knew about the other’s preparations for it.
One image circulating on Russian Telegram channels was a photo of a hard copy of a document titled “US, Allied & Partner UAF Combat Power Build.” Marked as secret, the document from the month of February listed the amounts of certain Western weapons systems that Ukraine currently had been using, estimated delivery of additional advanced systems and the training Ukraine was expected to complete on the systems.
Another was titled “Russia/Ukraine Joint Staff J3/4/5 Daily Update (D+370)” and was listed as secret. J3 refered to the operations directorate of the US military’s joint staff, J4 deals with logistics and engineering, and J5 suggests strategies, plans and policy recommendations. “D+370” refers to the date the document was produced: 370 days after the first day of the Russian invasion.
A third document was a map, listed as top secret, showing the status of the conflict as of March 1. The map showed Russian and Ukrainian battalion locations, sizes, and total assessed losses on both sides. The casualty numbers on this document were what officials believed was doctored – the Russian losses were actually far higher than the “16,000-17,500 killed in action” listed on the document, officials said.
The leaked document also said that 61,000-71,500 Ukrainians had been killed in action, which officials said also appeared edited to be higher than actual Pentagon estimates.
The Kremlin did not respond to a request from Reuters for comments.
