What was revealed through the Leaked Pentagon Documents?

A look into Pentagon leaked documents and how they were leaked in the first place.

By: Carolina Lopes

Classified Pentagon Documents have been leaked on the Internet by Jack Teixera on Discord. The documents consist of information regarding the Ukraine War, Washington’s thoughts on certain topics, and information on international issues.

The leaked Pentagon documents were first printed before being sent to the chat.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65238951

The documents were first sent in a Discord group chat named “Bear vs Pig”, which only consisted of 24 members, and could only be entered by invitation. Mr. Teixera was one of them. He worked in the Air National Guard and had access to classified documents. The Discord group includes members from Ukraine, USA, Russia, South America and more. The pieces of classified information were sent in December, 2022 and the documents in January, 2023. One of the members, “Lucca”, posted these documents in a public Discord chat when having a disagreement with another member regarding Minecraft as well as the Ukraine war. At one point, Lucca texted “here, have some leaked documents” and proceeded to send screenshots of the documents.

Screenshots of a popular Discord server where the documents reached a wider audience.

https://www.bbc.com/news/65240603

After this, Mr Teixera deleted the group chat, but the documents appeared in another group chat and eventually spread around the Internet.

What do the leaked documents reveal?

The leaked documents consist of information related to the war in Ukraine. This includes which countries are giving assistance inside Ukraine and information regarding its upcoming spring attack.

Europe and US helping Ukraine

The documents state that the UK has the largest number of forces located in Ukraine, followed by Latvia, France, USA and the Netherlands. They don't specify their activities nor whereabouts. The UK has been one of the countries that has helped Ukraine the most, not only in relation to forces, but with donations as well. Contrary to the USA, they are not public to such things. There have not been any official responses to this information from the UK, however, they have tweeted that the leaked documents show a "serious level of inaccuracy". They continued saying that "Readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread misinformation." On the other hand, the Pentagon has confirmed that the documents are real.

Europe has also been helping by supplying tanks for their upcoming attack, however, it states that they still haven’t met the number needed according to the documents. The documents also address a Ukraine offensive attack, including their equipment and ammunition, etc. It also breaks down Ukraine’s struggle with their air defense and says that Kyiv may finish their supply of missiles.

Number of Casualties caused by war

So far, there has been very little information revealed by Russia regarding the amount of casualties they have suffered. The leaked documents show that they are allegedly not counting the number of casualties. FSB security services state that Russian deaths from the Russian National Guard, Wagner mercenaries, and more, have not been accounted for. According to the documents, the number of deaths can go from 189,500 to 223,000 deaths. For Ukraine, 131,000 casualties.

The most recent official announcement of casualties was in September, 2022 with 5,937 deaths. The documents state that not adequately counting and informing the system on the number of casualties demonstrates “continuing reluctance” from the military to show these numbers to higher authorities.

Russia has also questioned the reliability of the documents.

Information War

One of the documents mentions an “information war” amidst the defense ministry and Yevgeny Prigozhin (Mercenary boss from Wagner) at some point in February. Prigozhin had consistently claimed that the military stopped distributing ammunition equipment when his troops were fighting. This shows how Russian forces aren’t agreeing on how to handle the war.

UN Secretary General compromising sanctions

The documents reveal that the USA thinks the position UN secretary general has taken in regards to a grain deal is “undermining broader efforts to hold Russia accountable”. This Black Sea grain deal was introduced in July in response to growing worries of an international food crisis. The Secretary General was very inclined to meet Russian needs in this deal. “Guterres emphasised his efforts to improve Russia’s ability to export,” reads the document, “even if that involves sanctioned Russian entities or individuals.”

Chinese Technology expansion

The documents also show information regarding Washington’s international thoughts. For example, the expansion of Chinese technology.. There were conversations in relation to the decision whether they should eliminate 5G rollout plans from Huawei, a Chinese company. One of the documents talks about China’s “developing cyber attack capabilities”. Allegedly, they are made “to deny, exploit and hijack satellite links and networks as part of its strategy to control information, which it considers to be a key warfighting domain.”

Egypt Supplying Weapons for Russia

The document shows that Egypt planned to give Russia 40,000 rockets confidentially. It says that this was the “least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier”

South Korea unsure whether to supply Ukraine with Weapons

It was revealed that South Korea is unsure on whether or not to provide weapons for Ukraine. They are undecided due to their policy to not give weapons to countries in war. The documents reveal that they were able to hear a private conversation amongst high ranked officials, this draws concerns on how they were able to attain this.

Turkey’s position on the Ukraine War

It’s also revealed that Turkey’s stance on this war is much more in favour towards Russia. Initially, Turkey seemed to not be taking a side as they were providing Ukraine with drones and trying to continue grain distribution. It shows how Turkey is assisting Belarus and Russia in diminishing sanctions. The document states that towards Belarus, “Turkish companies purchased sanctioned goods” and “sold them in European markets.” It continues saying that the businesses “resold goods from Europe to Russia.” There was also information regarding members from Turkey and from the Wagner Group, apparently Wagner intended “to purchase weapons and equipment from Turkey” as a response to their “efforts in Mali and Ukraine.”