The United States has said it is still evaluating an apparent leak of documents containing US military intelligence, which a Pentagon spokesperson said could pose “a very serious risk to national security” and lead to the spread of misinformation.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher said Washington was still investigating how the documents, which have circulated online, were made public, as well as the extent of the leak.
“There have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom,” Meagher said.
“The release of sensitive confidential material can have tremendous implications not only for our national security, but could also lead to the loss of life.”
Documents have been constantly appearing on internet platforms in recent days, with some circulating for weeks and possibly months.
They began receiving attention in the US media last week, and US officials have since followed a careful line in assessing their authenticity. Meagher said Monday that US Defense Department personnel were still working to make that determination.
“The photos appear to show documents similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our top leaders on Ukraine and Russia related operations, as well as other intelligence updates,” he said.
Officials from various agencies have repeatedly warned that at least some of the documents appeared to have been tampered with.
On Sunday, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the situation.
Many of the documents purported to include secret information about the war in ukrainewhile others appeared to show sensitive analysis of US allies, including Israel and South Korea, raising questions about surveillance.
When asked about the scope of the leak on Monday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied: “We don’t know what’s out there.”
“We don’t know who is responsible for this. And we don’t know if they have more that they intend to publish,” she said.
“So we’re looking at this and monitoring it as best we can. But the truth and the honest answer to your question is that we don’t know and does that worry us? You are absolutely right, it is.
Kirby added that US President Joe Biden had been briefed on the matter late last week.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said US officials “are engaging with allies and partners at high levels on this, including to assure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and fidelity to securing our partnerships.”
US officials have said that some documents giving casualty estimates on the Ukrainian battlefield appear to have been doctored to underestimate Russian losses.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters news agency that the documents related to the war in Ukraine contained a “large amount of fictitious information.”
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a document it purports to show to US intelligence claims that Mossad, one of the country’s intelligence agencies, encouraged recent protests against Netanyahu’s plan to tighten checks on the judiciary was “lying and baseless.”
One of the documents also purported to detail internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to supply arms to kyiv and its policy of not doing so.
A South Korean presidential official said on Sunday that the country was aware of the reports about the leaked documents and planned to discuss the “issues raised” with Washington.
The release appears to be the most serious public leak of classified information in years, though it is believed to be much smaller in scale and scope compared to the 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables that appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
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