The bizarre deluge of posted intelligence documents

OK

good gamers chat

server room

,

Reportedly

by a 21-year-old National Guard technician, made headlines last week

ranging from about a large number of disclosures including

secret Russian military plans

and to

US espionage against allies like Israel and South Korea.

But some

of the revelations were not exactly new. American allies learned long ago that our intelligence agencies are spying on them, and most shrugged at the news.

But the damage to US foreign policy, especially the Biden

after

administrative effort to organize international support for Ukraine,

what I

it is real.

This is embarrassing for anyone who has ever had a security clearance, a former senior official told me. The Allies are going to look into this and conclude that they cannot trust us with any of their secrets.

the

supposedly”

Discord leak

S

,

“

named after the social media site where the documents appeared, were also a windfall for Russian counterintelligence services.

The Russians can use those documents to make intelligence gathering more difficult for us, said Paul R. Pillar, a 28-year veteran of the CIA. They can use them to narrow down the possibilities where they have been compromised.

The documents include detailed assessments of Ukrainian army units, their deployment and the condition of their weapons.

US officials have said most of the documents appear to be genuine, although at least one, a summary of Ukrainian and Russian casualties, has also surfaced in a version that appears to have been manipulated. An FBI affidavit unsealed in U.S. District Court in Boston on Friday confirmed that at least one of the documents was genuine and classified at the top secret level.

But intelligence experts said those revelations may be less damaged than they appear.

Battlefield intelligence has a limited shelf life, said Douglas Lute, a retired Army lieutenant general and former commander of US forces in Kosovo. It changes almost from day to day.

The part that’s most damaging is the information about which units get the most advanced armor, including Western tanks, Lute said. The Russians can conclude that those are the units to target.

But the Ukrainians can make it

inside

more difficult by changing units

S

names and assignments, he noted.

A bigger problem, Lute suggested, may be the effect of leaks

each

to land

That may be so

willing to send aid to Ukraine, but only if they can keep their role a secret. After the leaks

those governments are more

probably risk averse.

One of the

leaked

documents, for example

listed name

Serbia

next to on a list of

Countries that have agreed to supply weapons to Ukraine come as a surprise, as Serbia has remained officially neutral in the war and has tried to maintain friendly relations with Russia.

Serbia’s defense minister was quick to deny that his government supplied arms to Ukraine, but added that he could not prevent private arms trafficking.

However, the biggest impact of the Discord leaks may stem less from their content than from the striking pessimism they revealed in US intelligence assessments of Ukraine’s planned spring offensive.

A US intelligence assessment reported by

T

the Washington Post warned that Ukraine suffers from shortcomings in training and ammunition and said the offensive was likely to yield only modest territorial gains, a result well short of Kiev’s goals.

Officials have not disputed the authenticity of the document.

Another report warned that the war could descend into a long stalemate by 2024.

Some US officials have secretly expressed similar assessments for months, warning that Ukraine’s official goals for its counter-offensive may be unrealistic. The Ukrainians themselves have publicly shouted

about shortages of air defense and artillery

for months

.

But those judgments somehow seemed stronger on paper, in the parsimonious language of official intelligence reports.

just at the moment

President

Biden and his aides tried to persuade other countries to step up their aid to Ukraine, the Discord documents unexpectedly spotlighting private US doubts that Ukraine can win.

It’s not that no one realized that the Ukrainians face a huge challenge, Pillar said. But the fact that it is being said through official channels could make it more difficult to sustain the coalition that supports the government in Kiev.

Lute agreed.

This leak accelerates the erosion of

w

Western support for Ukraine

,

,

he said.

polls in

both

the United States and Europe have found that public willingness to send aid to Ukraine is slowly declining. An Associated Press poll in February found that 48% of Americans supported US arms aid to Ukraine, up from 60% in May last year.

Governments faced with public skepticism will be even less inclined to continue donating money and weapons to Kiev if the war begins to look like a lost cause.

Ukraine’s spring offensive was never certain. The Discord leaks, unlikely as their origins are, have raised the stakes even higher.