The news has been that a
torrent of documents classified
as highly secret from the United States, were leaked to the networks and to the adversaries of the North American power.
These would be very recent files that concern the immediate conflicts of the White House, in particular the Ukrainian challenge and the threat from Russia and China.
To understand what it is about, the materials carry the
NOFORN
classification , a seal that prevents sharing them with foreign intelligence agencies, including
Five Eyes
, the espionage community that links the US with its
close allies
in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
Seen in this way, it is worrying news.
As
The Washington Post
pointed out , above the content of the files themselves, "the most damaging part is the leak itself."
It would reveal an unusual vulnerability in US national security.
The key to the reports is that they cast doubt on the Ukrainian potential in the war, they discuss the casualty numbers released by Washington, and they would point to a less complex and more effective place for the Russian side in the process of the conflict.
Mindful of that, it is still interesting that
the first doubts about the reliability of these files come from Russia.
"It is probably interesting for someone to look at these documents, whether they are really documents or whether they could be fake, or constitute
an intentional leak,"
said Sergei Ryabkov, the Kremlin's deputy foreign minister.
"Since the US is part of the conflict and is probably waging a hybrid war against us, it is possible that technical stories are being used to
deceive their opponent
, that is, the Russian Federation," he said convinced.
Any doubts
Ukraine, which is the great axis of this surprising episode, reduced it to a mixture of lies with truths, a look, the latter, not inconsiderable.
But then
he blamed the Kremlin
for both leaking the papers and adding certain contents.
The US has never denied ownership of the controversial reports.
According to the investigations of
The New York Times
, the medium that had the scoop on the scandal, Joe Biden's government officials acknowledge the authorship of the documents although they warn that
many of them would have been manipulated
.
Truths with lies
For more information, the Post revealed this Thursday that the author of this audacity was a 21-year-old boy, Jack Teixeira, an employee at an Air Force military base.
He is a young racist, pro-arms and computer technician, a skill that would have been enough for such an adventure.
A memory, although with some important differences from the case of Edward Snowden, who
released a bunch of secret documents in 2013.
Video image showing Jack Teixeira, in a T-shirt and shorts, at the moment of being arrested.
AP Photo
This comparison has limits and pulls some doubts that should be cleared from one story to the other.
Snowden moved files on him through
The Guardian
and
The Washington Post
and was a CIA and National Security Agency (NSA) agent.
Teixeira was just an employee of the National Guard and just the leader of an online chat group,
which is not exactly hackers.
Not only for this reason, if he goes back a bit, to the origin of this news and his framework is reviewed, it is difficult for him to assemble the meccano.
According to the highly respected investigative website Bellingcat, of journalists specializing in the collection and verification of intelligence data, the documents initially appeared in
photos posted on Discord,
a platform that is popular with gamers, people who play online.
Again, not the hacker underworld.
Those images show crumpled documents arranged on top of magazines and other household items for photos.
The occurrence would be that whoever stole them, folded them, put them in his pocket and took them out to photograph them and shoot them on the networks through
an unpredictable channel of online games.
We do not know if he knew exactly what he had taken in his pocket.
That's the version intelligence community officials shared with
New York Times reporters.
Bellingcat traced the leak to a now-defunct Discord server.
His investigation even suggested that the documents had appeared online in March.
But there is also evidence that some of those materials were posted as early as January on Discord as well,
without anyone noticing their existence and importance.
The content
One of the most sensitive issues the files would reveal is that despite Biden's declaration that he "will not send the US military to fight in Ukraine", there would be more than 150 specialized commandos from the US and other allied
nations
in the country.
Nothing that can surprise the Russian side.
But also, something difficult to hide.
Another significant piece of information, perhaps the most important, would be the recognition that Ukraine
is not in a position to launch the much-touted
spring counter-offensive aimed at retaking Russian-occupied areas.
Such an observation would reveal hidden doubts in the White House about the real state of the war.
There are no details on the dates of this eventual offensive, or more specific indications on its structure and design.
It is cited as a difficult or impossible hill to take.
The
Washington Post,
which investigated these materials, writes that they constitute an admission of "significant deficiencies in the generation and maintenance of Ukrainian military force" and, therefore, the likelihood that such an operation would in any case bring only "modest gains." territorial”.
The influential daily in the US capital suggests that, in such a case, the White House would have been lying about the conflict and the Ukrainian successes.
What does kyiv say?
After dismissing the information as fictitious again last week, she denied that there is planning against the clock now to
anticipate that eventual counteroffensive
.
The childish and obvious question asks, let's imagine in the case of a construction, if we are facing an
attempt to confuse the enemy
regarding an assault described as crucial for the fate of the war.
That's what the Russians suggest.
Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher, while admitting that the images "appear to show documents of a similar format" to those provided to the military leaders of the General Staff, insisted on doubts regarding some content
.
While US officials have kept quiet about which parts may have been tampered with, one of the secret files shows that estimates of the deaths of Russian military personnel in Ukraine are significantly lower than previously indicated: just over
40,000
. against 200 thousand.
On the contrary, the number of deaths of the Ukrainian military would be much higher than the known figures.
Intelligence analysts believe that
data was manipulated
to underestimate the casualties on the Russian side and exaggerate those on the Ukrainian side.
For what, who, how? They do not clarify it.
Kiev warned that much of the information would come from
"open sources",
a concept in intelligence (OSINT,
Open-source intelligence
) that refers to the collection of available and non-secret information that, when analyzed and combined with certain criterion, builds a context.
Ukrainian President Voldomymir Zelensky.
One of the victims of the leak that alludes with serious doubts to the Ukrainian spring offensive.
Photo Reuters
The material would also reveal some mischief, which probably confirms the presence of an ingenious hand in the documents.
They reveal an
enormous penetration of US intelligence
in the Russian Ministry of Defense and in the Wagner mercenary squad, the concrete heart of the war and of the Kremlin's military strategy.
A fact that if verified
would mark an embarrassment
for the supposedly closed and impenetrable structure built by the former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin.
But from now on its diffusion is enough to demonstrate it.
There also seems to be a wink among professionals in these underworlds.
It is revealed, for example, that the Israeli colleagues of the Mossad, the famous foreign counterintelligence service of that country, are part of those who
promote the massive marches
against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his initiative to destroy the Judiciary in that country.
Remarkable.
The Mossad has not said anything.
We only know that Biden has clearly repudiated that proposal.
They are details.
©
Copyright Clarín 2023
look also
United States: a young man from the National Guard was arrested for the leak of secret Pentagon documents
Joe Biden Says He's 'Concerned' About Pentagon Documents Leak, But Sees No Immediate Risk
