The leaked US secret documents still raise surprises among the latest of these resounding surprises was what was identified by one of the documents, revealed by the New York Times, which identified 4 unexpected scenarios for ending the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Dozens of classified US documents were recently leaked and published on the Internet, which necessitated the opening of a criminal investigation into a breach that the Pentagon says poses a serious threat to US national security.
The new document is an analysis by the Defense Intelligence Agency, which states that these four hypothetical scenarios include the killing of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Vlodomir Zelensky, the elimination of the leadership of the Russian armed forces, and direct military strikes by Ukraine on the Kremlin.
The secret document, which dates back to February 24, a year after the start of the Russian military operation in Ukraine, said that the war will likely continue for a long time.
Experts say that the goal of writing these scenarios with intelligence is to help military officers, policy makers, or legislators consider possible outcomes of conflict as they weigh their options.
The document indicated that the decision to disclose the information contained in it to foreign partners, for example, rests with some senior officials.
US officials declined to disclose whether the document was authentic, but they didn’t question its authenticity.
The officials also cautioned that the leaked documents are out of date, and in many cases do not represent the current assessments of the various intelligence agencies.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that his country will continue to investigate the alleged leak of classified documents until it knows its source.
Austin stressed during a press conference that Washington deals with the issue of the leaked documents seriously, noting that he communicates with senior military leaders daily to respond to the leaked documents.
The US Secretary of Defense stated that the Pentagon documents date back to the period from the end of February to the first of March.
Many of these documents are related to Ukraine, and some of them indicate that the United States is monitoring its allies, while US officials seek to reassure them after the leaks.
Many of these leaks are no longer available on the sites where they were first published, amid reports that Washington is working to delete them.
Despite the possibility of falsification of some documents, the investigation reflects the US government’s extreme concern that the leaks revealed sensitive information about the war in Ukraine, the interception of allied communications, as well as the infiltration of US intelligence services into Russian military plans, which affected the US relationship with its allies.
