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Leaked secret Pentagon documents lift the lid on U.S. spying on Russia’s war in Ukraine

NBC News obtained more than 50 of the leaked documents, many of them labeled “Top Secret."

April 10, 2023, 1:47 AM WAT
By Dan De Luce, Kevin Collier, Phil McCausland and Ken Dilanian

Dozens of leaked Defense Department classified documents posted online reveal details of U.S. spying on Russia’s war machine in Ukraine and secret assessments of Ukraine’s combat power, as well as intelligence gathering on America’s allies, including South Korea and Israel.

NBC News obtained more than 50 of the leaked documents, many of them labeled “Top Secret,” the highest level of classification.

The documents first appeared online in March, and a senior U.S. official said Saturday that the government’s “working theory” is that they are real, although some of them could have been altered.

The full impact of the leak remains unclear, but it could represent the most serious breach of U.S. intelligence secrets since a contractor for the National Security Agency, Edward Snowden, passed on thousands of classified documents to journalists about U.S. electronic surveillance in 2013. In this case, the scale of the disclosure is much smaller, involving dozens instead of thousands of documents.

The documents include repeated references to information based on secret signals intelligence — electronic eavesdropping — a crucial pillar of U.S. intelligence-gathering. A former U.S. intelligence official said the disclosure of some signals intelligence reporting about Russia and its spy agencies could cause significant damage if Moscow is able to cut off those sources of information.

It remains unclear how the trove of documents ended up on various social media sites.

In a statement over the weekend, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said, “The Department of Defense continues to review and assess the validity of the photographed documents that are circulating on social media sites and that appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material. An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our Allies and partners. Over the weekend, U.S. officials have engaged with Allies and partners and have informed relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction about the disclosure. The Department of Defense’s highest priority is the defense of our nation and our national security. We have referred this matter to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.”

The New York Times first reported the leak last week. The Times and The Washington Post first reported the contents of some of the same documents obtained by NBC News. The open-source investigative group Bellingcat said the documents first appeared on the Discord social media platform in March.

Many of the documents that NBC News obtained, dated from February to March, appear to be briefing slides prepared by the U.S. military’s Joint Staff and refer to information gleaned from an array of U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, which oversees U.S. spy satellites. Some of the documents carry the label NOFORN, which prohibits the information from being shared with foreign partners.

Although U.S. officials believe the documents are most likely authentic, at least one of those obtained by NBC News appears to have been doctored, with two versions of the document appearing online, providing different estimates of Russian casualty figures.

The leak will also raise fresh questions among U.S. allies about whether Washington can be trusted with secret information. It remains unclear whether the leak is the result of a hack by a foreign adversary or whether the disclosure came from within the U.S. government or through a U.S. ally with access to American intelligence reporting.

NBC News was not able to independently confirm the intelligence reporting cited in the documents.

Here are some of the highlights from the documents:

• Russia’s private mercenary outfit, the Wagner Group, has sought to purchase weapons from NATO member Turkey, as well as from Mali. The group is also considering recruiting more convicts for the war in Ukraine, according to the documents, citing signals intelligence.

• Some documents include satellite images of damage to various targets from Ukrainian strikes in February. A strike on an “assembly area” caused “severe damage” and was carried out with the help of U.S. intelligence, a document said.

• The battle for Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region is most likely headed for a “stalemate” through 2023, exhausting Russian units and frustrating Moscow’s war aims, according to an assessment based on signals intelligence and National Reconnaissance Office satellite and commercial satellite imagery, a document said.

• A document marked “secret” examines why Ukrainian bombs equipped with U.S.-made guidance systems, known as Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs, have failed recently. It speculates that bomb fuses are not being armed correctly and that GPS signal issues — potentially caused by Russian jamming efforts — could be at play.

• A Feb. 28 document assesses “pathways” for Israel to provide “lethal aid” to Ukraine, providing hypothetical situations that might drive Israel from its balancing act between Kyiv and Moscow. Marked “secret,” the document also suggests what Israeli weapons could be transferred to Ukraine, such as Israel’s Javelin equivalent and other missile systems. The analysis says the “most plausible” scenario is that Jerusalem adopts a Turkish model under U.S. pressure. Like Ankara, it would mean that Israel “sells lethal defense systems or provides them through third-party entities” while openly advocating for peace and “offering to host mediation efforts.” Alternative scenarios consider how Moscow’s support of Iran’s military programs or proxy efforts in Syria could drive Israel to provide Ukraine with “lethal aid.”

• South Korea has concerns about providing artillery shells to the U.S. to replenish America’s supplies, as officials worried that the ammunition would end with Ukraine’s military, according to documents citing signals intelligence.

• The leadership of Israel’s Mossad foreign intelligence service encouraged its staff to take part in anti-government protests that have swept Israel, according to one document. Israel issued a statement vehemently denying the assertion when it was first reported.

US scrambles to trace source of highly classified intel leak

By Idrees Ali

April 10, 2023

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Reuters) - Classified documents that appeared online, with details ranging from Ukraine's air defenses to Israel's Mossad spy agency, have U.S. officials scrambling to identify the leak's source, with some experts saying it could be an American.

Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.

"The focus now is on this being a U.S. leak, as many of the documents were only in U.S. hands," Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview.

U.S. officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.

The Russian embassy in Washington and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment.

Following disclosure of the leak, Reuters has reviewed more than 50 documents labeled "Secret" and "Top Secret" that first appeared last month on social media websites, beginning with Discord and 4Chan. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by the New York Times.

Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. Some giving battlefield casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top secret information. Some documents are marked "NOFORN," meaning they cannot be released to foreign nationals.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday that they have not ruled out that the documents may have been doctored to mislead investigators as to their origin or to disseminate false information that may harm U.S. security interests.

The White House referred questions to the Pentagon.

In a statement on Sunday, the Pentagon said it was reviewing the validity of the photographed documents that "appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material."

The Pentagon has referred the issue to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.

One of the documents, dated Feb. 23 and marked "Secret," outlines in detail how Ukraine's S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate.

Such closely guarded information could be of use to Russian forces, and Ukraine said its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.

WATCHING ALLIES

Another document, marked "Top Secret" and from a CIA Intel update from March 1, says the Mossad intelligence agency was encouraging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.

The document said the U.S. learned this through signals intelligence, suggesting the United States had been spying on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.

In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu's office described the assertion as "mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever."

Another document gave details of internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about U.S. pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine, and its policy of not doing so.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday that fact checks on the documents are a priority and that it would request the U.S. to take "appropriate" steps after confirming details.

Yoon's office said the possibility that the documents were fabricated or a product of third-party interference cannot be ruled out, warning any attempts to "disrupt the alliance would face repercussions".

Some lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party expressed "strong regret" over the spying allegations, calling them a clear violation of national sovereignty and a major security failure of the Yoon administration.

"We strongly demand a thorough investigation and urge that similar incidents do not occur," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The Pentagon has not addressed the contents of any specific documents, including the apparent surveillance of allies.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there was concern about the leak at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the documents showed a snapshot in time from more than a month ago, rather than more recent assessments.

The two officials said the military and intelligence agencies were looking at their processes for how widely some of the intelligence is shared internally.

Officials are looking at what motivations a U.S. official or a group of officials would have in leaking such sensitive information, said one of the officials who spoke to Reuters.

The official said investigators were looking at four or five theories, from a disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine U.S. national security interests.

Reporting by Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Soo-hyang Choi and Hyonhee Shin in Seoul; Editing by Don Durfee, Daniel Wallis, Diane Craft and Gerry Doyle

Leaked Intelligence Files Give Insights Into U.S. Tracking Of Nigeria’s Election

The documents revealed Washington DC had access to high-level internal conversations within Nigeria’s domestic intelligence agency.

Murtala Abdullahi
April 10, 2023

The United States Intelligence Community monitored Nigeria’s just-concluded national elections and tracked top-level talks within the Department of State Services (DSS), according to leaked files seen by HumAngle.

The briefing slides were part of a cache of highly classified documents circulated online in recent weeks that revealed information about the U.S. spying on allies and adversaries. It included intelligence on South Korea, France, Israel, Ukraine, and Russia.

Though the U.S. government has not confirmed the authenticity of the documents, it said it was “actively reviewing” the issue. Officials, however, told CNN and the New York Times that the documents appear legitimate “though at least one of the dozens of pages of classified reports had been altered”.

The markings on the Nigerian files showed that it was a compilation of assessments from open-source intelligence and highly sensitive communication intercepts.

One of the top-secret briefs obtained through intercepting communication revealed that security services were aware of the malfunction of some of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) prior to the elections.

“Nigerian Department of State Services (DSS) Assistant Director for the Communications Intelligence Department Usman Sani on 19 February recounted to DSS Director-General Yusuf Bichi that INEC Deputy Director of Information and Communication Technology Lawrence Bayode earlier that day revealed to probably INEC Principal Engineer Victor Igboh that some BVAS devices began malfunctioning prior to being sent out to their designated locations,” the brief stated.

Igboh was said to have responded that the majority of the BVAS devices stored at the INEC headquarters in Rivers state were malfunctioning due to swollen batteries, “an issue he claimed would likely affect the election if not quickly remedied”.

The document also reported “unspecified challenges with the BVAS” and card reader machines in the northeast region.

The brief, which was the most sensitive on Nigeria among the dozens leaked, indicates that American intelligence was keeping tabs on the communications of senior officials of the country’s domestic intelligence agency.

The other files focused on the Central Intelligence Agency’s updates on the outcome of the election. It noted that Nigeria’s electoral commission (INEC) had announced Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the President-elect.

It also highlighted that INEC confirmed that Tinubu had passed the benchmark of 25 per cent of votes in two-thirds of the country’s 36 states and the capital. The threshold for declaring the winner of the election has since become an issue surrounded by controversy and is currently a subject of litigation.

Another file with a label indicating that it was secret but authorised for release to the Five Eyes Alliance reported that imagery analysis had revealed that in early March the Nigerian government maintained an increased security posture following the announcement.

HumAngle contacted DSS and INEC spokespersons about the development but has yet to receive comments at the time of filing.

On Monday, Reuters reported that the U.S. national security community was grappling with the fallout of the leaks, including the impact on sensitive information-sharing within the government and ties with other countries.

Attention was drawn to the documents by a series of publications by the New York Times, and the U.S. authorities have especially found them troubling because of the unusual recency of the information they contain.The leaks also indicate that the U.S. “has plugged itself into [Ukrainian] President Volodymyr Zelensky’s internal conversations and those of even the closest U.S. allies, like South Korea.”

Unlimited22:
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Perpetua Nkwocha, Mercy Akide, Faith Ikidi, Cynthia Uwak, Precious Dede.


Even casuals will remember these names for a long long time

The late former Attorney General of the Federation, Prince Bola Ajibola, SAN, was my mentor, a role model and a man of uncommon integrity who served Nigeria selflessly.

He believed that the worth of a person is what he is able to give back to society and he demonstrated it throughout his own life. His is a life that must be celebrated and it is a life that is an example to us all.

He was an International Arbitrator even before he became Attorney General of the Federation and then later a World Court Judge. We know that being a World Court Judge doesn’t come by appointment but rather through election by the United Nations.

We are thankful to God for all his achievements during his lifetime. We pray that his memory will always be blessed.

I was 30 years old when I was first offered a public service role as Special Adviser to Prince Bola Ajibola, then Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.

I learnt a lot working for him. Permit me to share 3 defining events that I witnessed.

Igbos should participate in census wherever they are – Ohanaeze counters IPOB

The Ohanaeze Ndigbo on Sunday urged the Igbo to participate in the forthcoming national population census wherever they are located.

Ohanaeze’s remark is contrary to the call by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, that Igbos should return to the South East for the forthcoming national census.
IPOB in its directive said the census would be used as a mock referendum for Biafra.

However, the Secretary-General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Okechukwu Isiguzoro, in an Easter message to Igbo people, said the ethnic group should participate effectively in the census wherever they are located.

A statement by Isiguzoro reads partly: “Ndigbo should remain wherever they are and participate effectively in the forthcoming national census.

“The National Population Commission, NPC, must include religion and ethnicity as part of the data to be captured during the enumeration since it is in line with the wishes of the majority of Nigerians today who appreciate the importance of such data in our national life.”

Isiguzoro also urged security agents, IPOB, and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, to work against insecurity in the South East.

“All stakeholders in the security of Ala-Igbo including our governors, traditional rulers, bishops/religious leaders, and most importantly, non-state actors such as IPOB, MASSOB, ESN, UGM, etc [must] work together to end insecurity in our homeland,” he added.

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— ASISAT O.O.N (@AsisatOshoala) April 9, 2023