The key countries and revelations from the Pentagon document leak (2024)

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The documents primarily concern Ukraine’s military strength after a year of heavy fighting, pointing to weak spots in Ukrainian air defenses and potential problems with ammunition supplies.

Among the worrying details in the documents: One late February snapshot designed for the Defense Department’s Joint Staff stated that Ukraine’s “ability to provide medium range air defense to protect the [front lines] will be completely reduced by May 23. UKR assessed to withstand 2-3 more wave strikes” from Russian missiles and drones.

Another report from early February labeled “top secret” offers a bleak assessment of Ukraine’s planned spring counteroffensive, warning it is likely to result in “modest territorial gains” that are “well short” of Kyiv’s original goals.

Ukrainian officials have publicly downplayed the leaks. Privately, though, some are angered that vulnerabilities shared with the United States are now public.

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Several documents offer further evidence that the U.S. intelligence community has infiltrated the Russian military to a considerable degree. In some cases, the United States has been able to warn Ukraine of impending attacks, the documents suggest. The documents also make reference to internal planning by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and the Wagner Group, the private military contractor crucial to Russia’s war effort, suggesting both are compromised by the United States.

Some provide more detail about alarming events. One report states that a Russian fighter jet nearly shot down a British surveillance plane on Sept. 29 off the coast of Crimea — an incident that could have been far more dangerous than was publicly acknowledged at the time and fits into a pattern of harassment by Russian air forces in the area.

Russia has begun analyzing the documents, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday, adding that they appeared to be “quite interesting.” Some pro-Russian military bloggers have warned against reading too much into the leak, arguing without evidence that it could be a U.S. disinformation campaign.

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The documents include analysis on wide-ranging risks posed by China, including Beijing’s willingness to send lethal aid to Russia and details of an experimental hypersonic weapons test conducted by China in February.

One assessment published in the leak says that a Ukrainian attack on Russian soil using NATO weaponry could draw Beijing into the war. It said that a Ukrainian hit on a significant strategic target — or senior leader — in Russia, may act as “further justification China to send lethal aid” to Moscow.

Another includes details of a test conducted by Beijing of one of its advanced experimental missiles — the DF-27 hypersonic glide vehicle — on Feb. 25. It said that the vehicle flew for 12 minutes across 1,300 miles (2,100 km) and that it possessed a “high probability” of penetrating U.S. ballistic missile defense systems.

One section of the leaked documents said that British State Secretary for Defense Ben Wallace had tasked his ministry to explore plans to deploy one of its two naval aircraft carriers to the Indo-Pacific, potentially in cooperation with Asian allies or the United States. The document weighed potential negative reactions from Beijing.

China and Britain’s Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Another document said that a Chinese state-backed engineering firm was in negotiations in 2022 with Nicaragua’s government for the development of a deep-sea port that raised military concerns. It said the Nicaraguan government “probably would consider offering Beijing naval access in exchange for economic investment.”

Other information shared in leaks included details of a newly certified Chinese warship and a rocket launch in March that delivered two satellites expected to enhance Beijing’s military mapping capabilities.

China is committed to “peace talks and a political settlement” in Ukraine, “has never supplied arms to either side of the conflict” and “cannot verify the accuracy of the information about the flight test,” Hesong Shao, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Tuesday.

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One document dated Feb. 17 summarizes purported conversations between President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials that referenced plans to supply Russia with artillery rounds and gunpowder. In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret “to avoid problems with the West.”

The document quotes a person identified as Salah al-Din as saying he would “order his people to work shift work if necessary because it was the least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier.” The document does not make it clear what the earlier Russian help was.

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Iran has long been a top target for U.S. espionage, and the CIA has notched notable successes in penetrating the country’s nuclear program and security apparatus in the past. The leaked documents suggest that U.S. agencies routinely monitor at least some of Iran’s secret weapons activity, as well as internal deliberations by top Iranian officials.

One report with a top-secret label describes what appear to be private discussions among senior Iranian leaders over how to spin an upcoming visit by Rafael Mariano Grossi, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iranians are seen debating whether to allow domestic news media coverage of the visit and, if so, how to shape the coverage to benefit the government. Grossi was traveling to Iran in part to confront Iranian officials over what the IAEA suspects are undeclared facilities where nuclear weapons research occurred in the past. A separate document, sourced to intercepted communications and satellite photos, describes advanced preparations by Iran for a space launch.

The documents hint at U.S. monitoring of the IAEA itself, as a further means of gaining insight into Iran’s nuclear efforts. Previous intelligence leaks have confirmed routine U.S. monitoring of international organizations such as the United Nations and IAEA as well as foreign embassies.

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A “CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update” included in the leaks said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban identified the United States as one of his party’s “top three adversaries” during a political strategy session on Feb. 22, citing the U.S. Embassy in Budapest. The comment “constitutes an escalation of the level of anti-American rhetoric in his discourse,” the intelligence update read.

On Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, David Pressman, organized a news conference in Budapest to express concerns over “the continued eagerness of Hungarian leaders to expand and deepen ties with the Russian Federation despite Russia’s ongoing brutal aggression against Ukraine and threat to transatlantic security.” Pressman’s statement coincided with new U.S. Treasury sanctions targeting the Hungary-based International Investment Bank, which the Treasury accused of serving “as a mechanism for corruption and illicit finance, including sanctions violations.”

The right-wing populist leader has ramped up his anti-American public statements since President Biden took office, regularly expressing his admiration for former president Donald Trump. In his first post on Twitter after joining the social networking platform last year, Orban mentioned his “good friend” Trump. In a talk a few days later, the Hungarian leader described Trump as the only “hope for peace” in Ukraine.

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The Serbian government on Wednesday rejected claims that it had sent weapons to Ukraine and doubled down on its policy of noninvolvement in the war. Earlier this week, a leaked U.S. intelligence document — the authenticity of which could not be verified — appeared to indicate that the Balkan country provided lethal aid to Kyiv.

“Serbia has not sent any weapons to Ukraine and all allegations published on that topic are false rumours,” Serbian Defense Minister Milos Vucevic said in a statement. “Someone obviously aims to drag Serbia into that conflict.”

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One document reports that South Korea’s National Security Council in early March “grappled” with a U.S. request that the country send artillery ammunition to Ukraine. Seoul was concerned that the request could anger Moscow, the report said, citing signals intelligence.

South Korea has downplayed the leak, with deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo suggesting that Washington and Seoul “have a shared assessment that much of the information disclosed is altered.”

In a separate statement, President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office said that “the allegations of an eavesdropping breach are completely untrue” and that it was “requesting an appropriate response from the U.S.” about the leak.

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Israel is also named in the documents. One report says that in February, senior leaders of the Mossad spy service “advocated for Mossad officials and Israeli citizens to protest the new Israeli government’s proposed judicial overhaul, including several explicit calls to action that decried the government.” The report cites signals intelligence.

In response, the Israeli government put out a statement that emphasized the traditional political neutrality of the intelligence service. “The Mossad and its serving senior personnel have not engaged in the issue of the demonstrations at all and are dedicated to the value of service to the state that has guided the Mossad since its founding,” the statement read.

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One report suggests that Turkey, a NATO ally, was approached by Wagner to help procure supplies. The documents state that Wagner’s representatives “met with Turkish contacts to purchase weapons and equipment from Turkey for Vagner’s efforts in Mali and Ukraine,” using a variation on the spelling of the group’s name. It is unclear how much Turkey may have known about the efforts and whether they had concluded.

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The documents say that Zarya, a pro-Russian hacking group, shared screenshots on Feb. 25 with a purported officer from the Russian intelligence agency FSB in which they claimed they had gained access to Canadian gas infrastructure and could, among other things, start an emergency shutdown of a gas distribution site. The FSB believed a “successful operation” would cause an explosion, according to the documents.

It’s not clear that such an explosion had occurred. Enbridge, Canada’s largest natural gas utility, said Monday that it was neither attacked nor compromised. Laura Payton, a spokeswoman for the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s cryptologic agency, did not comment on whether there has been an attack on gas infrastructure or whether steps have been taken to avert such an incident, saying the agency does not comment on “allegedly leaked intelligence.”

Asked about the allegations in the leaked documents, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters in Toronto on Tuesday that “there was no physical damage to any Canadian energy infrastructure following cyberattacks.”

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One of the leaked documents says that Wagner Group associates had plans as of late February to “discreetly” travel to Haiti to assess the potential for a contract with the government to fight the gangs that control vast swaths of the capital and that have murdered and kidnapped thousands.

In October, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry requested the deployment of a foreign security force to stem the gang violence, but the United States and its allies haven’t been keen to lead one. The idea is controversial in a country with a history of destabilizing foreign interventions.

Jean-Junior Joseph, a government spokesman, denied that Henry’s government had contacted the Wagner Group or had meetings with its associates. Gary Desrosiers, a police spokesman, said he was not aware of any meetings between the Wagner Group and the police.

Taylor and Hill reported from Washington; O’Grady from Cairo; Coletta from Toronto; Mérancourt from Port-au-Prince; Morris from Berlin.

The Discord Leaks

The Washington Post and “Frontline” partnered to investigate Jack Teixeira’s alleged leak of classified U.S. intelligence on the Discord chat platform. The new documentary, “The Discord Leaks,” premiered Tuesday, Dec. 12 and is available to watch on PBS streaming platforms and washingtonpost.com.

The suspected document leaker: Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was indicted on six charges. Interviews with people who knew Teixeira offer the most detailed account yet of how he allegedly leaked classified information and his motivations. Discord’s rules and culture allowed a racist and antisemitic community to flourish, giving Teixeira an eager audience unlikely to report his alleged lawbreaking.

How the leak happened: The Washington Post reported that the individual who leaked the information shared documents with a small circle of online friends on the Discord chat platform. The Air Force disciplined 15 members of the Air National Guard after an internal investigation found that a “lack of supervision” helped enable Teixeira. This is a timeline of how the documents leaked.

What we learned from the leaked documents: The massive document leak has exposed a range of U.S. government secrets, including spying on allies, the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and the precariousness of Taiwan’s air defenses. It also has ignited diplomatic fires for the White House. Here’s what we’ve learned from the documents.