US officials and allies are assessing the impact of what is described as the largest leak of classified documents in years. The Pentagon is working to determine how the trove of material was accessed and posted on several platforms. It is also examining who has access to the information.
The FBI has arrested 21-year-old Airman First Class Jack Teixeira of the Massachusetts Air National Guard’s intelligence wing on suspicion of leaking the documents. Teixeira, who is being held without bail, was charged Friday with unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and unauthorized retention and transmission of classified material.
Whether the documents are authentic remains to be seen, but they provide new insight into US operations in Ukraine and Russia. They show the US is monitoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s phone calls with defence and military officials, as well as details of the size of Ukrainian military battalions. The documents also suggest that the US has penetrated Russian military forces and a mercenary group, as well as their internal planning – but that information was probably gathered through human sources who could now be at risk.
The documents, which appear to be daily intelligence briefings, have been posted on Discord, an online image board and pro-Russian Telegram channels, per the investigative website Bellingcat. The Pentagon is also examining its distribution lists to see who gets these reports, a Defense official said. The documents may have been viewed by thousands of people in the chat rooms where they were posted, but investigators believe they mainly fell into the hands of one person who then shared them publicly.