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NYT report on the leaked documents and how they might impact intelligence sharing.

Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts and Russia’s Military Struggles

The information, exposed on social media sites, also shows that U.S. intelligence services are eavesdropping on important allies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/politics/leaked-documents-russia-ukraine-war.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20230408&instance_id=89758&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=141347410&segment_id=129952&te=1&user_id=5edae170e2c7f9e85eb5207073ecafed

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — A trove of leaked Pentagon documents reveals how deeply Russia’s security and intelligence services have been penetrated by the United States, demonstrating Washington’s ability to warn Ukraine about planned strikes and providing an assessment of the strength of Moscow’s war machine.

The documents paint a portrait of a depleted Russian military that is struggling in its war in Ukraine and of a military apparatus that is deeply compromised. They contain daily real-time warnings to American intelligence agencies on the timing of Moscow’s strikes and even its specific targets. Such intelligence has allowed the United States to pass on to Ukraine crucial information on how to defend itself.

The documents lay bare the American assessment of a Ukrainian military that is also in dire straits. The documents, from late February and early March but found on social media sites in recent days, outline critical shortages of air defense munitions and discuss the gains being made by Russian troops around the eastern city of Bakhmut. The intelligence reports show that the United States also appears to be spying on Ukraine’s top military and political leaders, a reflection of Washington’s struggle to get a clear view of Ukraine’s fighting strategies.

The material reinforces an idea that intelligence officials have long acknowledged: The United States has a clearer understanding of Russian military operations than it does of Ukrainian planning. Intelligence collection is often difficult and sometimes wrong, but the trove of documents offers perhaps the most complete picture yet of the inner workings of the largest land war in Europe in decades.

 

American officials said while the documents offer hints about U.S. methods to collect information on Russian plans, U.S. intelligence agencies do not yet know if any of their sources of information will be cut off as a result of the leak. American officials have conceded they have lost some sources of information since the war began, but the new documents appear to show that America’s understanding of Russian planning remains extensive.

The State of the War

But the leak has the potential to do real damage to Ukraine’s war effort by exposing which Russian agencies the United States knows the most about, giving Moscow a potential opportunity to cut off the sources of information.

The leak has already complicated relations with allied countries and raised doubts about America’s ability to keep its secrets. After reviewing the documents, a senior Western intelligence official said the release of the material was painful and suggested that it could curb intelligence sharing. For various agencies to provide material to each other, the official said, requires trust and assurances that certain sensitive information will be kept secret.

The documents could also hurt diplomatic ties in other ways. The newly revealed intelligence documents also make plain that the U.S. is not just spying on Russia, but also its allies. While that will hardly surprise officials, making such eavesdropping public always hampers relations with key partners, like South Korea, whose help is needed to supply Ukraine with weaponry.

Senior U.S. officials said an inquiry, launched Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would try to move swiftly to determine the source of the leak. The officials acknowledged that the documents appear to be legitimate intelligence and operational briefs compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, using reports from the government’s intelligence community, but that at least one had been modified from the original at some later point.

 

One senior U.S. official called the leak “a massive intelligence breach,” made worse because it lays out to Russia just how deep American intelligence operatives have managed to get into the Russian military apparatus. Officials within the U.S. government with security clearance often receive such documents through daily emails, one official said, and those emails might then be automatically forwarded to other people.

Another senior U.S. official said tracking down the original source of the leak could be difficult because hundreds, if not thousands, of military and other U.S. government officials have the security clearances needed to gain access to the documents. The official said that the Pentagon had instituted procedures in the past few days to “lock down” the distribution of highly sensitive briefing documents. The documents posted online were photographs of folded papers, some with images of a magazine behind them, information that may help investigators.

The documents show that nearly every Russian security service appears penetrated by the United States in some way. For example, one entry, marked top secret, discusses the Russian General Staff’s plans to counter the tanks NATO countries were providing to Ukraine, including creating different “fire zones” and beginning training of Russian soldiers on the vulnerabilities of different allied tanks.

Another entry talks about an information campaign being planned by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence unit, in Africa trying to shape public opinion against the United States and “promote Russian foreign policy.”

While some of the intelligence briefs offer analysis and broad warnings of Russian plans, others are the kind of actionable information that Ukraine could use to defend itself. One entry talks about the Russian Defense Ministry formulating plans to conduct missile strikes on Ukraine’s forces at specific sites in Odesa and Mykolaiv on March 3, an attack that the U.S. intelligence agencies believed would be designed to destroy a drone storage area, an air defense gun and kill Ukrainian soldiers.

 

Still another entry discusses a report in February disseminated by Russia’s National Defense Command Center about the “decreased combat capability” of Russia’s forces in Eastern Ukraine.

While the documents were compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, they contain intelligence from many agencies, including the National Security Agency, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of the material is labeled as having been collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or F.I.S.A., noting that its further distribution is not allowed without the permission of the attorney general.

One section of the documents is labeled as being the C.I.A. Operations Center Intelligence Update from March 2. That section discusses intelligence on how the Russian ministry of defense had considered steps to counter accusations that it had not been supplying munitions to Wagner group troops in Ukraine “according to a signals intelligence report.”

The documents reveal that American intelligence services are not only spying on the Russians, but are also eavesdropping on important allies.

In the pages posted online, there are at least two discussions about South Korea’s debate about whether to give the U.S. artillery shells for use in Ukraine, violating Seoul’s policy on providing lethal aid. One section of the documents reports that South Korean officials were worried that President Biden would call South Korea’s president pressuring Seoul to deliver the goods.

Another section of the documents, from the C.I.A., is more explicit about how the United States has learned about the South Korean deliberations, noting the information was from “a signals intelligence report.”

Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, Thomas Gibbons-Neff from London and Michael Schwirtz from Lviv, Ukraine.

 
A correction was made on 
April 8, 2023

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a U.S. law on national security surveillance. It is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, not the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

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49 minutes ago, KYHorn said:

NYT report on the leaked documents and how they might impact intelligence sharing.

Leaked Documents Reveal Depth of U.S. Spy Efforts and Russia’s Military Struggles

The information, exposed on social media sites, also shows that U.S. intelligence services are eavesdropping on important allies.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/08/us/politics/leaked-documents-russia-ukraine-war.html?campaign_id=190&emc=edit_ufn_20230408&instance_id=89758&nl=from-the-times&regi_id=141347410&segment_id=129952&te=1&user_id=5edae170e2c7f9e85eb5207073ecafed

  Reveal hidden contents

WASHINGTON — A trove of leaked Pentagon documents reveals how deeply Russia’s security and intelligence services have been penetrated by the United States, demonstrating Washington’s ability to warn Ukraine about planned strikes and providing an assessment of the strength of Moscow’s war machine.

The documents paint a portrait of a depleted Russian military that is struggling in its war in Ukraine and of a military apparatus that is deeply compromised. They contain daily real-time warnings to American intelligence agencies on the timing of Moscow’s strikes and even its specific targets. Such intelligence has allowed the United States to pass on to Ukraine crucial information on how to defend itself.

The documents lay bare the American assessment of a Ukrainian military that is also in dire straits. The documents, from late February and early March but found on social media sites in recent days, outline critical shortages of air defense munitions and discuss the gains being made by Russian troops around the eastern city of Bakhmut. The intelligence reports show that the United States also appears to be spying on Ukraine’s top military and political leaders, a reflection of Washington’s struggle to get a clear view of Ukraine’s fighting strategies.

The material reinforces an idea that intelligence officials have long acknowledged: The United States has a clearer understanding of Russian military operations than it does of Ukrainian planning. Intelligence collection is often difficult and sometimes wrong, but the trove of documents offers perhaps the most complete picture yet of the inner workings of the largest land war in Europe in decades.

American officials said while the documents offer hints about U.S. methods to collect information on Russian plans, U.S. intelligence agencies do not yet know if any of their sources of information will be cut off as a result of the leak. American officials have conceded they have lost some sources of information since the war began, but the new documents appear to show that America’s understanding of Russian planning remains extensive.

The State of the War

But the leak has the potential to do real damage to Ukraine’s war effort by exposing which Russian agencies the United States knows the most about, giving Moscow a potential opportunity to cut off the sources of information.

The leak has already complicated relations with allied countries and raised doubts about America’s ability to keep its secrets. After reviewing the documents, a senior Western intelligence official said the release of the material was painful and suggested that it could curb intelligence sharing. For various agencies to provide material to each other, the official said, requires trust and assurances that certain sensitive information will be kept secret.

The documents could also hurt diplomatic ties in other ways. The newly revealed intelligence documents also make plain that the U.S. is not just spying on Russia, but also its allies. While that will hardly surprise officials, making such eavesdropping public always hampers relations with key partners, like South Korea, whose help is needed to supply Ukraine with weaponry.

Senior U.S. officials said an inquiry, launched Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, would try to move swiftly to determine the source of the leak. The officials acknowledged that the documents appear to be legitimate intelligence and operational briefs compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, using reports from the government’s intelligence community, but that at least one had been modified from the original at some later point.

 

One senior U.S. official called the leak “a massive intelligence breach,” made worse because it lays out to Russia just how deep American intelligence operatives have managed to get into the Russian military apparatus. Officials within the U.S. government with security clearance often receive such documents through daily emails, one official said, and those emails might then be automatically forwarded to other people.

Another senior U.S. official said tracking down the original source of the leak could be difficult because hundreds, if not thousands, of military and other U.S. government officials have the security clearances needed to gain access to the documents. The official said that the Pentagon had instituted procedures in the past few days to “lock down” the distribution of highly sensitive briefing documents. The documents posted online were photographs of folded papers, some with images of a magazine behind them, information that may help investigators.

The documents show that nearly every Russian security service appears penetrated by the United States in some way. For example, one entry, marked top secret, discusses the Russian General Staff’s plans to counter the tanks NATO countries were providing to Ukraine, including creating different “fire zones” and beginning training of Russian soldiers on the vulnerabilities of different allied tanks.

Another entry talks about an information campaign being planned by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence unit, in Africa trying to shape public opinion against the United States and “promote Russian foreign policy.”

While some of the intelligence briefs offer analysis and broad warnings of Russian plans, others are the kind of actionable information that Ukraine could use to defend itself. One entry talks about the Russian Defense Ministry formulating plans to conduct missile strikes on Ukraine’s forces at specific sites in Odesa and Mykolaiv on March 3, an attack that the U.S. intelligence agencies believed would be designed to destroy a drone storage area, an air defense gun and kill Ukrainian soldiers.

Still another entry discusses a report in February disseminated by Russia’s National Defense Command Center about the “decreased combat capability” of Russia’s forces in Eastern Ukraine.

While the documents were compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, they contain intelligence from many agencies, including the National Security Agency, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of the material is labeled as having been collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or F.I.S.A., noting that its further distribution is not allowed without the permission of the attorney general.

One section of the documents is labeled as being the C.I.A. Operations Center Intelligence Update from March 2. That section discusses intelligence on how the Russian ministry of defense had considered steps to counter accusations that it had not been supplying munitions to Wagner group troops in Ukraine “according to a signals intelligence report.”

The documents reveal that American intelligence services are not only spying on the Russians, but are also eavesdropping on important allies.

In the pages posted online, there are at least two discussions about South Korea’s debate about whether to give the U.S. artillery shells for use in Ukraine, violating Seoul’s policy on providing lethal aid. One section of the documents reports that South Korean officials were worried that President Biden would call South Korea’s president pressuring Seoul to deliver the goods.

Another section of the documents, from the C.I.A., is more explicit about how the United States has learned about the South Korean deliberations, noting the information was from “a signals intelligence report.”

Julian E. Barnes, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt reported from Washington, Thomas Gibbons-Neff from London and Michael Schwirtz from Lviv, Ukraine.

A correction was made on 
April 8, 2023

An earlier version of this article misstated the name of a U.S. law on national security surveillance. It is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, not the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

 

Every country spies on every other country.

News at 11

 

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I don't know why but earlier today I was thinking about that Tech grad who worked for Russia Today when it was shut down. It turned out she was easy to locate on the interwebz because Tx Monthly wrote an article about her last year.

She's still posting on twitter. She's still a verrrry open and fair-minded journalist, just as she insisted before the invasion. It's probably just a small coincidence that she now lives in Moscow, vacations only in Dubai, and blogs on Telegram. I don't know how she's doing on telegram but her twitter posts get almost no engagement.

https://twitter.com/RachBlevins

 

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In looking at the Russian defensive fortifications and upgrades, may be we all looking at the wrong area for the counter attack.  Many of us believe it will rally at either Mariupol or Melitopol, or perhaps both.  Given the fortifications, I started considering that perhaps the Ukrainians will look for other areas of opportunity.  We I compared this fortification map with deep state map of Russian troop locations I noticed something.  Just north of Vuhledar, there is a corridor with few Russian troops and if the fortification map is to be believe it looks to be lightly fortified.  I wonder if the first strike could be directly at this corridor, with the idea of splitting the fronts into North and South, vs East and West.  Given the geography of the area, with bridges and wetlands, it would be a short strike about 65 km to the Russian border and could serve split their army.  Additionally, it doesn't appear they would need lots of people to hold this area.  The real advantage would be that it could open a corridor to the south that evades the existing fortifications by going around them from the north and the east, which it doesn't appear the Russians are expecting.  The rally point for this might be Novotroitske.  

Just a thought, I'm just looking for points of opportunity.  

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8 hours ago, BamaATL said:

In looking at the Russian defensive fortifications and upgrades, may be we all looking at the wrong area for the counter attack.  Many of us believe it will rally at either Mariupol or Melitopol, or perhaps both.  Given the fortifications, I started considering that perhaps the Ukrainians will look for other areas of opportunity.  We I compared this fortification map with deep state map of Russian troop locations I noticed something.  Just north of Vuhledar, there is a corridor with few Russian troops and if the fortification map is to be believe it looks to be lightly fortified.  I wonder if the first strike could be directly at this corridor, with the idea of splitting the fronts into North and South, vs East and West.  Given the geography of the area, with bridges and wetlands, it would be a short strike about 65 km to the Russian border and could serve split their army.  Additionally, it doesn't appear they would need lots of people to hold this area.  The real advantage would be that it could open a corridor to the south that evades the existing fortifications by going around them from the north and the east, which it doesn't appear the Russians are expecting.  The rally point for this might be Novotroitske.  

Just a thought, I'm just looking for points of opportunity.  

Yep, I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.

Let’s just hope the Russkies don’t read Surly. Otherwise, the offensive is dead on arrival.

Edited to say, I was being a dick, you might be right. But I hope the people in charge use some imagination to create an offensive that can’t be stopped. Wherever that may take them.

Edited by Victor Lazlo
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3 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

Impressive. I know they are not the only ones who do this, but nice to see. 

 

 

One of the issues I was reading about regarding the F-16 is that it's one of the worst to do this with because of its sensitivity to debris on the runway. The airfields have to be maintained at a pretty high level to prevent debris from getting into the intake - more so than with some other fighters. 

In all honesty, I don't think that's the only reason, but it is a legitimate issue. 

The person I was watching was recommending the Swedish Gripen as a better fighter for what Ukraine is trying to do because it's specifically designed for mobile airfield deployment from the ground up, from takeoff, to maintenance and support. And then the Hornet was second best because it's designed for aircraft carrier deployment, which necessitates a more compact maintenance and support by definition. 

Of course, there are so MANY more F-16s, and so many roles it can be used for. I'm sure the reluctance to send them over has way more to do with politics - including funding - than it does the cleanliness of the runways required. I still found it interesting coming from an objective observer. 

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5 hours ago, Victor Lazlo said:

Yep, I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.

Let’s just hope the Russkies don’t read Surly. Otherwise, the offensive is dead on arrival.

Edited to say, I was being a dick, you might be right. But I hope the people in charge use some imagination to create an offensive that can’t be stopped. Wherever that may take them.

Ukraine took back Kharkiv and Kherson when Russia had more effective (trained/competent) personnel than they do now, and had better equipment than they do now.

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6 hours ago, Victor Lazlo said:

Yep, I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.

Let’s just hope the Russkies don’t read Surly. Otherwise, the offensive is dead on arrival.

Edited to say, I was being a dick, you might be right. But I hope the people in charge use some imagination to create an offensive that can’t be stopped. Wherever that may take them.

Oh I don't know, freely admit that.  If the Ukrainians have shown us anything, they are full of surprises.  They have also shown that they can be strategically clever and feint well, a la the Kharkiv offensive.  What I was looking for is at least from a map standpoint anything that looks like opportunity that we haven't been considering.   If the Russian MOD or Wagner are reading this site for advice, I'd say they have much bigger problems to contend with.  The other thing that stood out is that fighting into Russian fortifications is sort of like determining that you have to fight on Russian dictated terms.  I would think it would make more sense to fight on your own terms and dictate to the enemy, if possible. 

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14 hours ago, BamaATL said:

In looking at the Russian defensive fortifications and upgrades, may be we all looking at the wrong area for the counter attack.  Many of us believe it will rally at either Mariupol or Melitopol, or perhaps both.  Given the fortifications, I started considering that perhaps the Ukrainians will look for other areas of opportunity.  We I compared this fortification map with deep state map of Russian troop locations I noticed something.  Just north of Vuhledar, there is a corridor with few Russian troops and if the fortification map is to be believe it looks to be lightly fortified.  I wonder if the first strike could be directly at this corridor, with the idea of splitting the fronts into North and South, vs East and West.  Given the geography of the area, with bridges and wetlands, it would be a short strike about 65 km to the Russian border and could serve split their army.  Additionally, it doesn't appear they would need lots of people to hold this area.  The real advantage would be that it could open a corridor to the south that evades the existing fortifications by going around them from the north and the east, which it doesn't appear the Russians are expecting.  The rally point for this might be Novotroitske.  

Just a thought, I'm just looking for points of opportunity.  

Be careful on your prognostications. I thought today would be the start of the offensive. I was wrong.

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The document leak- is it a real leak or psyops? I think we’ll know by how well supplied Ukraine is with munitions. 
 
A common theme of the documents, echoed by Zelensky in his discussions with the west, is the Ukrainian need for more ammunition. If the offensive struggles for lack of munitions, is the Ukrainians have to ration air defense and artillery munitions, then we can probably figure the docs are legit. If (and I really hope this is the case) Ukraine busts loose on their offensive and have a full supply of munitions to fire, we can probably attribute the leaked docs as psyops. 

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21 hours ago, MillerEP said:

 

I guess I don’t really understand all the fences being built. Are they also heavily patrolled? We know they don’t stop small groups of immigrants. They sure as shit aren’t going to slow down tanks. It’s not like mounds of razor wire that would really bog down infantry. Seems like that fence may add no more than a few minutes to breach all up and down the line. 

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17 hours ago, Chopper said:

I don't know why but earlier today I was thinking about that Tech grad who worked for Russia Today when it was shut down. It turned out she was easy to locate on the interwebz because Tx Monthly wrote an article about her last year.

She's still posting on twitter. She's still a verrrry open and fair-minded journalist, just as she insisted before the invasion. It's probably just a small coincidence that she now lives in Moscow, vacations only in Dubai, and blogs on Telegram. I don't know how she's doing on telegram but her twitter posts get almost no engagement.

https://twitter.com/RachBlevins

 

Moscow Miss.

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19 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

Hope so. Mainly because the very low number of troops mentioned

15 minutes ago, statsman said:

The document leak- is it a real leak or psyops? I think we’ll know by how well supplied Ukraine is with munitions. 
 
A common theme of the documents, echoed by Zelensky in his discussions with the west, is the Ukrainian need for more ammunition. If the offensive struggles for lack of munitions, is the Ukrainians have to ration air defense and artillery munitions, then we can probably figure the docs are legit. If (and I really hope this is the case) Ukraine busts loose on their offensive and have a full supply of munitions to fire, we can probably attribute the leaked docs as psyops. 

We (in the West) are focused on numbers tossed around in the "leaked" documents, but a bunch of the Russian milbloggers/sympathizers were freaking out more over the idea that the US had seemed to have penetrated Russian comms pretty thoroughly up to high levels (general staff).  Now, most of us assume this is probably the case and that we've always had a way (multiple ways actually) of looking at what the Russians do since we have entire 3-letter agencies who do this stuff (and our allies are doing the same), but if you look at some of what was mentioned, the OSINT nerds could probably come up with info that could resemble what was in the "leak" based on ground and satellite information (and in terms of ammo, etc., a lot of that is public knowledge).  The Russian milbloggers seemed to fixate more on the "confirmation" that their comms were penetrated.

If this was deliberate misinformation (which the US has done before), the people doing it know what the Russians would fixate on, and by throwing a bunch of shit into the mix (ammo numbers, casualties, comments on non-Ukrainian stuff, etc. - the stuff I mentioned that the OSINT nerds could come up with and so is not much of a secret), they make it look like some senior staffer just got sloppy with some briefings/intel.  The Russians however would fixate on the idea that their comms were thoroughly penetrated.

For reference, the intercepted cell phone calls that get published every so often are not "Russian comms", although I'm sure the Russians are using them for military communications (when they shouldn't be) - those cell phone calls are picked up with off-the-shelf devices.  I'm talking the military-grade communications systems the Russians are using to talk to Moscow and each other.

Anyways, if this "leak" gets the idea out there that Russian comms are thoroughly penetrated (we assume they are, but they may not be), it's going to cause the Russians a lot of problems, because A) they have to work out how to secure their existing comms systems (which would be hard with untrained personnel) or deploy new systems (which they probably don't have or would be tough with untrained personnel) and B) they have to assume that the West knows all of their defensive plans/numbers/shortcomings/etc.

If it's misinformation on the eve of a counter-offensive, it's brilliant, because Russian officers would have to assume their comms are all compromised, all of their plans are known, and their paranoia/confusion would ramp up like crazy, and they might be afraid to use their comms which would lead to a further breakdown in a cohesive defense against Ukraine.  Russia would probably resort to Ye Olde Runners manually carrying messages between units, which is not very good these days. 

Oh, and Ukrainian drones might be able to pick up the high level of runner foot traffic of say higher-level headquarters.  That would be hilarious if they identified some headquarters here and there because runners are being  used.

If it's an actual leak from a sloppy staffer/official, the Russians have to assume their comms are penetrated and it's going to fuck up their plans/defense.  If it's misinformation, the Russians would think some legitimate things would be in the docs in order to make them look more authentic, and so they can't rule anything out.

Confused Rooster Teeth GIF by Achievement Hunter

 

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23 minutes ago, SquishMitten said:

I guess I don’t really understand all the fences being built. Are they also heavily patrolled? We know they don’t stop small groups of immigrants. They sure as shit aren’t going to slow down tanks. It’s not like mounds of razor wire that would really bog down infantry. Seems like that fence may add no more than a few minutes to breach all up and down the line. 

I believe they are primarily meant to stop Russian citizens trying to flee in order to avoid conscription and destruction of their economy/country.

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2 minutes ago, Orange&White said:

I believe they are primarily meant to stop Russian citizens trying to flee in order to avoid conscription and destruction of their economy/country.

At the very least it's a political statement. Nothing says we hate you a lot more than we used to like putting a fence across your border with razor wire on top. It won't stop an invasion, but it's a lot more inconvenient than simply strolling across like they used to be able to do. 

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