Everything We Know About The Ukraine War Leaks
ForbesDec 23, 2022
The Facts
Classified documents detailing American and NATO plans to build up Ukraine's military ahead of a spring counteroffensive were this week leaked on social media. The Pentagon was reportedly investigating the matter while Biden officials told the New York Times they were working to get the documents removed from social media platforms, though had not yet succeeded.
Sarcastically commenting on his own platform, Twitter owner Elon Musk seemed to brush off attempts to censor the leaked documents. "Yeah, you can totally delete things from the Internet," he said, continuing: "That works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to whatever you were trying to hide at all."
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
The leaked documents overestimate Ukrainian losses while underestimating those of Russia. This indicates that they were likely manipulated by the Kremlin before their release in order to help propagate the Kremlin's disinformation aims.
Establishment-critical narrative
If the documents were even partially faked, they would not be fooling anyone at the US Dept. of Defense, which is the owner of the original files. Other possibilities include that the files were in fact released by the US to misdirect Russia ahead of Ukraine's coming counteroffensive or that the documents are 100% authentic.