The U.S. is investigating the release of dozens of classified documents to assess the damage to national security and relations with allies and other countries, including Ukraine.
Most of the materials are genuine. Some, however, appear to have been altered to show inflated U.S. estimates for Ukrainian battlefield casualties since Russia invaded in February 2022, as well as understated numbers for Russian forces.
It is unclear which documents might have been salted with misinformation and if they could be part of a Russian misinformation operation or a U.S. scheme to mislead Moscow about Kyiv’s war plans.
On Monday, the Pentagon said that the documents appear similar to the daily updates provided to its senior leaders, though there appear to be some inaccuracies.
Reuters said the documents first appeared on social media websites last month, beginning with Discord and 4Chan.
In addition to highly detailed information about the war in Ukraine, some of the leaked documents are said to cast light on sensitive briefing materials relating to U.S. allies.
The BBC said other documents reportedly focus on defense and security issues in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region.
