Russia or pro-Russian elements were likely behind the leak of several classified US military documents posted on social media that offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war in Ukraine, three US officials said on Friday, while the US Department of Justice separately said it was probing the leak.
The documents appear to have been altered to lower the number of casualties suffered by Russian forces, the US officials said, adding that their assessments were informal and separate from the investigation into the leak itself.
The US officials spoke on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the matter and declined to discuss the documents in any detail.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Kremlin and Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
An initial batch of documents circulated on sites including Twitter and Telegram, dated March 1 and bearing markings showing them classified as “Secret” and “Top Secret.”
Later on Friday, an additional batch appearing to detail US national security secrets pertaining to areas including Ukraine, the Middle East and China surfaced on social media, the New York Times reported.
Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the documents.
The justice department late on Friday said that it was in touch with the US Department of Defense and began a probe into the leak. It declined further comment.
A leak of such sensitive documents is highly unusual.
“We are aware of the reports of social media posts and the Department [of Defense] is reviewing the matter,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.
A CIA spokesperson said the agency was also aware of the posts and was looking into the claims.
One document posted on social media said that 16,000 to 17,500 Russian forces had been killed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.
The US believes the actual figure is much higher, at about 200,000 Russians killed and wounded, officials have said.
A Ukrainian presidential official on Friday said that the leak contained a “very large amount of fictitious information” and looked like a Russian disinformation operation to sow doubts about Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive.
“These are just standard elements of operational games by Russian intelligence, and nothing more,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in a written statement.
Separately, a missile fired from Ukrainian-held territory was shot down over the Black Sea town of Feodosia in Russian-controlled Crimea, the Moscow-installed head of Crimea’s administration said yesterday.
“A missile launched from Ukraine was shot down over Feodosia,” Sergei Aksyonov said on Telegram, without providing any detail on the kind of projectile in question.
Russia’s TASS news agency quoted an adviser to Aksyonov, Oleg Kryuchkov, as saying that debris had fallen in a Crimean town, but no damage or casualties had been reported.
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