US Department of Defense documents have been leaked to the public. In Russia and Ukraine, the information has been discussed based on stories from the Western media.
Secret documents of the US Department of Defense leaked on social media have caused reactions in Russia and Ukraine.
The documents became a news topic at Easter, when The New York Times (you are moving to another service) was the first major media to report on the matter. The documents reveal information such as US intelligence about Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine and US and NATO plans to support Ukraine in its planned spring offensive.
The documents also revealed that the United States has been spying on its allies.
In Russia, commentators in some media are shocked by the number of fallen Russian soldiers. The matter has been reported mainly on the basis of western media in the last few days.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov according to the documents are “very interesting” and they are going to be studied carefully. Peskov answered the Russian media Izvestijan (you switch to another service)to the question by considering that the documents show that the United States is spying on the heads of several countries.
A BBC journalist who follows Russian television Francis Scarrin according to the leak emerged on the first channel, where the Mesto Vstrechi program discussed, among other things, the loss of men in the leak. For example, the panelists were dismayed that the numbers were higher than the numbers in Ukraine.
In another popular program on TV channel 1, the host interrupted a panelist who suggested that US intelligence was deep even in the Russian military, because otherwise the leaked information would not be so extensive.
Russian war bloggers have pondered the veracity of the leak.
War bloggers are social media influencers approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The power of war bloggers is based on the fact that they criticize the war from a so-called patriotic point of view.
The opinion of war bloggers also matters, because they have a lot of followers on social media in Russia.
One of the war bloggers Juri Kotenok (you are moving to another service) brought up the diversion theory. According to him, the news about the leak that spread in the Western media is part of the West’s plan to confuse Russia before the major invasion of Ukraine.
Attached to the Russian Wagner mercenaries (you switch to another service) It was pointed out on the Telegram channel that the photos of leaked documents circulating on social media in Russia may have been faked. In the pictures, the number of Russian losses has been changed.
CNN: Ukraine made changes due to leak
Western media have also been quoted in the Ukrainian media. In Ukraine, information about the troops cannot be shared without the permission of the army.
Ukrainians have been irritated by the leak, says Kyiv Post (you will switch to another service)which in turn referred to CNN (you will switch to another service) to information. The newspaper also reported the president of Ukraine to Volodymyr Zelensky was aware that he was being spied on.
According to CNN’s source, the Ukrainians have already made changes to their military operations due to the leak.
In Ukraine, the Russians are blamed for the leak. This is how it has been described to an American for NPR (switch to another service) An expert and colonel familiar with the Ukrainian army Roman Svitan. According to him, the leak does not affect Ukraine’s attack plans or relations between Ukraine and the United States.