The Pentagon said Sunday that an interagency task force is evaluating the validity and implications of “sensitive and highly classified material” that was leaked on several social media sites this week.
“Over the weekend, US officials have communicated with allies and partners and informed relevant congressional jurisdictional committees of the disclosure,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement. country and our national security is the highest priority of the Department of Defense.”
The leaked material, first reported by The New York Times on Friday, contains information about China, the Middle East, Israel’s Mossad spy agency, and US support for the Ukrainian military.
The Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense (DOD), is located in Arlington, Virginia. (Staff/AFP via Getty Images)
Mykhailo Podolyak, consultant for President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyyhe accused the Kremlin of doctoring the documents and allowing them to discredit US support for the Ukrainian war effort.
“The fake “document” that ended up on the web most likely discredits anti-offensive ideas and should promote an increase in trust between Ukraine and its partners or within of Ukraine,” Podolyak told Fox News.
UK war planning documents leaked online, INVESTIGATING PENTAGON
Some errors in the documents, such as lower estimates for the deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine than have been made public, have led to doubts about the authenticity of the material.
One of the documents said a Russian fighter jet nearly shot down a British spy plane off the coast of Crimea last September, an incident that could have drawn in the US and NATO to the war, according to the Washington Post. UK Defense Minister Ben Wallace previously told the British Parliament that the Russian jets were flying “recklessly,” but chalked up the missile launch to a “technical malfunction.”
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The Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the documents, which were photographed before they were released online.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
