The revelations have equally affected the allies in the on-going Ukraine-Russia war as well as Israel. High-level teams are being despatched to allies, especially the NATO members in Europe, for reassuring them that the USA stands with the allies and Ukraine, writes Gopal Misra
Top secret and highly sensitive Pentagon documents have found their way on to a popular gaming site, Discord, on a social media platform, causing a huge embarrassment to the Biden administration.
The revelations have equally affected the allies in the on-going 14-month Ukraine-Russia War as well as Israel. The collapse of the Ukrainian Air Force is now known, and so the ‘dirty role’ of the Israeli secret service, Mosad, against its own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is trying to reform judiciary in his own country. The secret documents also reveal that under what circumstances Russian President Vladimir Putin might use tactical nuclear weapons in this war.
According to one member of the chat on the ongoing Ukraine War on this site, an unidentified poster shared documents that the poster claimed were classified, first typing them out with the poster’s own thoughts, then, as of a few months ago, uploading images of folded papers.
The CIA Director William Burns has recently called the leak “deeply unfortunate” promising a quite intense investigation to get to the bottom of this.” A similar assurance has also been made by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin that “We will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it.”
Meanwhile, high-level teams are being despatched to allies, especially the NATO members in Europe, for reassuring them that the USA stands for the allies and Ukraine. It also reveals that the peace efforts by the European Union, Germany and France could not really take off due to the Ukraine’s plans to intensify the war during this spring.
Both Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have already reached out to their counterparts in Ukraine. Austin believes that the leaks would not have much of an impact on Ukraine’s plans for a spring offensive. Ukraine’s strategy will “not be driven by a specific plan. The Ukrainian President y Zelenskyy and his leadership really know the full details of that plan,” Austin asserted.
Earlier, on April 5, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the new U.S. and EU ambassadors that their countries were responsible for a dramatic deterioration in relations with his country. It means, he appeared to be in no mood to agree to a ceasefire.
The leaks have also revealed that South Korean leaders were hesitant to ship artillery shells to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has also been taking steps to reduce the number of people who have access to the secret briefings on sensitive matters. Pentagon officials are also closely monitoring where the leaked slides are “being posted and amplified,” said Chris Meagher, assistant to the secretary of defence for public affairs.
The other sensitive issues being highlighted in the leaked slides, such as Ukraine’s shortage of air defence ammunitions, the shortage itself has been known and is one of the reasons U.S. military leaders have been pressing allies to supply whatever systems they can, such as the Iris-T systems pledged from Germany and the U.S.-manufactured Hawk air defense systems provided by Spain. It is being claimed that the publicizing an apparent shortage of anti-aircraft missiles may give comfort to Russia, but if it energizes Ukraine’s partners to accelerate delivery of missiles and other air defence capabilities, Kyiv will be reinvigorated for a longer–term of the on-going conflict. It is also being assessed that the bigger ‘known unknown’ is the extent to which these leaks influence U.S. political support for Ukraine,” according to Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
The leaks, however, exposes the myth the invincibility of the American defence establishment. Its budget is estimated to be 90 US billion US dollars annually. Its intelligence agencies are equipped with the state of-art communication systems supported by spies being monitored by satellites. Yet, it could be penetrated by a gaming site!
