The classified documents reportedly contain information about the war in Ukraine, US allies, China, “defense and security issues in the Middle East,” and more. The Pentagon said the leak posed a “very serious” threat to national security.
The US Department of Defense first announced the leak last week, at which time an investigation was launched jointly with the Justice Department, the White House and other US government agencies. It was found that the documents were initially shared on Twitter, 4chan, Telegram and the Discord server for Minecraft, one of the most popular video games of all time.
“After a brief argument with another person on the Minecraft Earth Maps server about the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied, ‘There you have some leaked documents,'” adding 10 files marked “Top Secret,” Bellingcat wrote in the report.
On Saturday, the Washington Post reported that another Discord server called WowMao (owned by a YouTube channel with more than 200,000 subscribers) also hosted more than 30 classified documents. Other Discord users claim that many more documents were posted back on January 13th on a server called Thug Shaker Central. Both servers are currently down.
BBC News, which has seen “more than 20” of the leaked files, claims that their contents contain details of the deployment of Ukrainian and Russian forces ahead of Ukraine’s planned spring offensive. The documents “mention US equipment provided to the Armed Forces, as well as the readiness time of various Ukrainian units and the expected arrival time of military equipment.”
Asked if the leak had been located or if additional documents had been released, National Security Council strategic communications coordinator John Kirby said: “I don’t know.”
We are still investigating how this happened and the extent of the problem. Steps have been taken to take a closer look at how such information is distributed and to whom it reaches,” said Chris Meagher, US Assistant Secretary of Defense.
Meagher noted that some of the documents “appear to have been altered,” although their structure is similar to those “used to provide daily briefings to senior leaders on operations related to Ukraine and Russia, as well as other updated intelligence.” When asked how the leak could affect military operations, he replied that “the Ukrainians have demonstrated their capabilities and competence in this war.”
