Still seems the docs are legitimate. Ukraine looked worse for wear in the documents. Doubtful it was a shock to anyone that the US spies on it’s friends and allies. It’s the arrest and Bellingcat’s involvement that are bothering me. I’ve been around long enough to remember Bellingcat, prior to the rebrand, was Brown Moses. Is this going to play into the internet censorship agenda? I think so.
A man in his 20s who worked on a U.S. military base may be behind a major leak of secret U.S. intelligence documents that has triggered a diplomatic firestorm and multiple investigations by the Biden administration.
The unidentified man reportedly shared the classified information — mostly about U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine in its war with Russia — on the Discord chat app, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The leaker reportedly identified himself only as OG and ran a Discord group called Thug Shaker Central. A fellow member of the chat group spoke to The Post, saying he knew the leaker’s true identity and location but said he wouldn’t help authorities track him down.
The man identified as OG copied classified information he was privy. He eventually resorted to taking photographs and sharing them with other members of his Discord group.
The classified documents contained images of the battlefield in Ukraine and updates there on troops, including U.S. Army Special Forces personnel.
U.S. officials said they haven’t identified the suspected leaker or how the sensitive documents became public. The Justice Department and the Pentagon are investigating the security breach.
“They were somewhere in the web. Where exactly and who had access at that point, we don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday at a State Department press conference.
And this is where Bellingcat comes into the picture
However, Bellingcat has seen evidence that some documents dated to January could have been posted online even earlier, although it is unclear exactly when. Bellingcat also spoke to three members of the Discord community where the images had been posted who claimed that many more documents had been shared across other Discord servers in recent months.
As the channels were deleted following the controversy generated by the leaked documents, Bellingcat has not been able to confirm this claim.
None of the documents seen by Bellingcat had been scanned but rather had been photographed. Creases can be seen on the documents with items, such as a hunter’s scope box and some Gorilla Glue visible in the background of those dated from early March. This appears to indicate that at least some of the documents were photographed in the same location.
The content of the shared documents ranges widely, with some topics including maps of hotspots in Ukraine such as Bakhmut and Kharkiv, a delivery timetable for Western munitions to Ukraine as well as maps and catalogues of Ukrainian air defence assets – including a calendar of ammunition expenditures. A “CIA Operations Center Intelligence Update” marked “Top Secret” for March 2 is also included in the images, although much of the information in these documents had previously been publicly available through media reports.
While it has as yet not been possible to uncover the original source of these apparent leaks, it has been possible to trace the spread of the documents over a variety of internet forums in recent months before they were reported by pro-Russian Telegram channels and then major media outlets.
Bellingcat is an intelligence op. NATO/US/5 eyes. Always has been, always will be. They’re going to garner a bunch of undeserved credibility for this ‘work’
Video at the link below
Armed FBI agents swarmed a Massachusetts home Thursday afternoon where they arrested a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard in connection with the leak of highly classified military documents about the Ukraine war.
Sky5 was overhead Thursday when armed agents approached 21-year-old Jack Teixeira’s North Dighton home through the woods, and an armored vehicle drove up the driveway. Moments later, a man in a green shirt and red basketball shorts exited the home, put his hands on his head, turned around and walked back to where a team was waiting to take him into custody.
Earlier, while law enforcement officials were gathering nearby, Sky5 saw the same man sitting on a porch, reading a book.
In a brief statement, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed that Teixeira was taken into custody “without incident” earlier in the day. Garland also said Teixeira would make an initial appearance in Boston Federal Court.
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