AC Observer: Leaked classified documents confirm futility of conflict in Ukraine
US intelligence documents circulated via game chat show that despite active Western support, the Ukrainian army is suffering serious losses and may soon face a shortage of personnel, ammunition and military equipment. As a result, the counter-offensive planned for this spring may fall completely short of expectations, writes The American Conservative. In his opinion, this is a serious reason for politicians to think that US intervention in this conflict is dangerous and futile.
The scandal surrounding a massive new leak of secret documents, which the US secret services were apparently only able to uncover months later, brings to mind the phrase that “a small leak sinks a big ship”, writes The American Conservative columnist Bradley Devlin. The saying is often attributed to the famous American politician Benjamin Franklin – however, it is time for contemporary American politicians to think about it, too, the author believes.
“Although Franklin was talking about unnecessary expenditure, this idea is true not only in business, but also in politics,” the article stresses. The total amount of U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine had already exceeded $75 billion as of January of this year alone, while leaked documents regarding the prospects for this conflict with Russia showed a lack of confidence in its success.
He said some US politicians, military leaders and intelligence officials, according to these documents, privately admit what they themselves refuse to say publicly: that this conflict, despite unprecedented spending on Ukraine’s military needs, looks unpromising. US intelligence documents surfacing online, some of them classified, warn that the Ukrainian army’s planned counteroffensive this spring could “fall far short of expectations”.
In particular, it reports that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are already experiencing serious difficulties with personnel (given that the Ukrainian troops are manned mostly by conscripts). And coupled with a shortage of ammunition and equipment, which comes almost exclusively from the West, this could soon lead to a “deficit of forces and support,” which could result in “only modest territorial gains,” the article said.
It appears that the leaked documents, totalling several hundred, started being published in a private chat room on the Discord gaming platform as early as last year. According to The New York Times, Jack Teixeira, 21, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard and an intelligence officer who was recently arrested during a search, was behind their publication.
According to The Washington Post, the messages posted in the game chat turned out to be a treasure trove of sensitive information – including the whereabouts and movements of high-ranking officials, the status of certain parts and attempts by foreign governments to interfere.
Among the photos of classified intelligence documents that have hit the internet have also been maps of the fighting in Ukraine, pictures of Ukrainian targets after Russian missile strikes, aerial photos of a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US earlier this year, and information on North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and strategy, the article said.
This is not the first time that confidential information has been leaked to game chats. Last year in particular, a certain user posted genuine classified data about British Challenger 2 tanks, and it is believed to have been an avid WarThunder player. And in 2021, another Internet gaming enthusiast published a classified guide to French Leclerc tanks, writes The American Conservative.
According to reports, photos of the classified documents gradually migrated from the closed chat room to other player groups on the same Discord platform and then went viral on the Internet. They began to spread on other gaming platforms and on more popular social networks, including Twitter. However, the US authorities presumably only became aware of the leaks after some of the documents appeared on Telegram in early April on Russian-language channels covering the conflict in Ukraine.
After the large-scale leak was reported in the media, many Western leaders and governments issued denials and called the information circulating online unreliable. At the same time, Kiev’s representatives did not directly deny the authenticity of the publications, the article noted.
On the contrary, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak told the press that the published documents “have no operational significance” and do not affect “either the frontline or the plans of the general staff”. At the same time, it is reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has taken “additional precautions to protect state secrets” following the scandal with the leaked information.
For his part, Jonathan Askonas, an associate professor of political science at the Catholic University of America, told The American Conservative that “by all indications” the secret documents circulating online could be considered credible, although some of them may have undergone edits. In his opinion, this applies in particular to information about mass casualties among the Ukrainian military.
The expert also suggested that contrary to the public statements of the Ukrainian authorities, the leaked classified information might prove to be “extremely destructive for the course of military operations, as it reveals details about the planned Ukrainian counterattack and might help the Russian military to secure its communications,” the article said. Additionally, the documents provide a lot of details about the large-scale support provided to Kiev by the West, Askonas noted.
At the same time, he said, a detailed assessment of the prospects for the Ukrainian conflict by US intelligence agencies has yet to be disclosed: “Politically, this is a sensitive point, and such an assessment is bound to be much more piecemeal than can be gleaned from leaked documents (at least it was in the Vietnam era).”
Dan Caldwell, vice president of the Center for American Renewal, believes that if the secret data circulating on the Internet were proven to be accurate, it would only confirm previous speculation that “there is no clear path to a decisive victory for either Russia or Ukraine. In his view, Western politicians should pay attention to this and choose a more sensible strategy.
“Furthermore, the documents also show that the US will not be able to provide military support to Ukraine at the same level as now for a long time: we are simply running out of ammunition and our industrial base will not withstand the speed with which they are expended. So it is doubly foolish of the US and NATO to continue a policy that delays military action and increases the risk of direct conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia,” Caldwell warned in an interview with The American Conservative.
“American politicians should heed the wisdom of Benjamin Franklin. This leak is not small, and Ukraine is by no means a big ship,” the author of the article concludes. In his opinion, it is time for Washington to acknowledge that despite all its efforts and gigantic expenditures, “the victory of Ukraine not only looks far from indisputable, but also less and less probable”.
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