Top secret American and NATO war documents detailing plans for strengthening the Ukrainian military ahead of a spring offensive against the Russians have leaked.
The Pentagon is very angry and has immediately launched an investigation to determine who may have been behind the leak of the documents.
According to details, the leaked documents were shared on social media including; Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia.
“We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter,” said Sabrina Singh, the deputy press secretary at the Pentagon.
Disclosures in the documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and other plans, represents a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine.
To the trained eye of a Russian war planner, field general or intelligence analyst, however, the documents no doubt offer many tantalizing clues and insights.
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.
A document labeled “top secret” offers the “Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar.” On that day, Ukrainian officials were at an American base in Wiesbaden, Germany, for war game sessions, and a day later, Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the supreme allied commander for Europe, visited the sessions.
Another document includes columns that list Ukrainian troop units, equipment and training, with schedules for January through April.
The document contains a summary of 12 combat brigades that are being assembled, with nine of them apparently being trained and supplied by the United States and other NATO allies.
Of those nine brigades, the documents said that six would be ready by March 31 and the rest by April 30. A Ukrainian brigade has about 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers, analysts said.
The document said that equipment delivery times would impact training and readiness in order to meet the timeline.
Total equipment needed for nine brigades, the document said, was more than 250 tanks and more than 350 mechanized vehicles.
That the documents could be posted on a widely dispersed social media channel, and presumably get into the hands of Russian officials, is a big coup for Moscow at a time when Russia had appeared to be trailing the United States in intelligence gathering in Ukraine.
