The Kremlin yesterday said that there was a general tendency to always blame Russia for everything when asked about accusations that Moscow might have been behind a leak of US intelligence documents about a number of nations, including Ukraine.
The US national security community is grappling with the fallout from the release of dozens of secret documents, including the impact on sensitive information-sharing within the US government and ties with other nations, two US officials said.
The documents, the authenticity of which Reuters has not independently verified, include information about the war in Ukraine, including losses for both sides and other details.
Photo: Reuters
Some national security experts and US officials said that they suspect that the leaker could be American, given the breadth of topics covered by the documents, but they do not rule out pro-Russian actors.
A former CIA officer said it is highly likely that Moscow orchestrated the leak to sow confusion and potential divisions between Washington and its allies.
When asked about allegations that Russia might have been responsible, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “I cannot comment on this in any way. You and I know that there is in fact a tendency to always blame everything on Russia. It is, in general, a disease.”
Asked about the idea that Washington had spied on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Peskov, who called the leaks “quite interesting,” said that could not be ruled out.
“But the fact that the United States has been spying on various heads of state, especially in European capitals, for a long time now has come up repeatedly, causing various scandalous situations,” he said.
The breach — which is being investigated by the US Department of Justice — appears to include assessments and secret intelligence reports that touch not only on Ukraine and Russia, but also highly sensitive analysis of US allies.
While the US Department of Defense is still reviewing the validity of photographed documents circulating online, they “appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement. “An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on US national security and on our allies and partners.”
A steady drip of dozens of leaked documents and slides have made their way onto Twitter, Telegram, Discord and other sites, and new documents continue to surface.
US officials told the Washington Post that some documents appeared to have been manipulated, but many were consistent with CIA reports that are shared at high levels within the White House, Pentagon and the US Department of State.
Defense analysts said that any breach of internal classified US documents would be both damaging and potentially embarrassing.
Other documents include apparent information about internal debate within the governments of US allies.
Among the documents, for example, were discussions about South Korea’s debate on whether to provide the US with artillery shells for use in Ukraine, the New York Times reported.
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