After TS (top secret), two other letters repeatedly stand out throughout the leaked Pentagon files: SI. The letters stand for special intelligence, and signify that the information has been derived from signals intelligence work. This encompasses eavesdropping, surveillance and even backdoor access to information systems – all part of a panopticon of global, US-led intelligence collection.
Signals intelligence told the 1.25 million Americans with top secret clearance – and sometimes their British allies – that Russia had made marginal battlefield gains in Ukraine, that the Wagner group may be allowed to restart recruiting prisoners, and even that Russian hackers had gained control of a Canadian gas pipeline they hope to explode.
They also revealed that António Guterres, the UN secretary general, “seemed to be annoyed” about the idea of having to meet Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on a proposed trip to Kyiv; that Zelenskiy complained in a meeting that Ukraine did not have long-range missiles “capable of reaching Russian troop deployments inside Russia”; and that leaders of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, “advocated for” its officials to protest against planned changes to the judiciary.
A significant portion of this signals intelligence is derived not from the US but from the UK and the other members of the Five Eyes intelligence group – Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It comes from listening posts such as the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus, which can pick up information from as far away as Afghanistan. It is then collectively “placed in a bucket”, according to one former insider, for all members to analyse.
“If it wasn’t worth it to the Americans, they wouldn’t do it,” the former Whitehall official added. In return, many of the Pentagon snippets analysing the raw intelligence are marked “FVEY”, to be shared among Five Eye members, giving the UK access to the daily outpourings of the US intelligence machinery.
The Five Eyes element also points to a principal anxiety about the possible consequences of the leaks.
“Leaks are always damaging,” said Lord Ricketts, a former UK national security adviser, “and what’s most damaging is if they have revealed any sources or methods. You can be sure the Russians will have crawled through this for evidence on how the US has got its information, whether from human sources or digital means. The risk is they close down access to information in the future.”
However, from looking at the documents, the methods involved are hard for outsiders to discern.
Many of the documents are revelatory, most notably about the Ukraine war. The most alarming slide, in a batch of several dozen seen by the Guardian, is that Ukraine will run out of routine urban air defence missiles for its S-300 systems on a specific date, 2 May. A map marks almost all of Ukraine’s major cities outside Kyiv as red from May, describing them as “critical national infrastructure without air defences”.
Another document says Ukraine is hoping to generate 12 new brigades for its counter-offensive force, but is 53 short of the 253 tanks deemed necessary. Much of the other promised equipment had not been delivered as of late February. Frontline troop counts show Ukraine’s forces are outnumbered by Russia’s, for example by having 4,000 to 8,000 on the southern Zaporizhzhia front against Russia’s 23,250.
Taken together, they paint a picture of uncertainty, removed from the generally upbeat assessments of western politicians, and suggest the long-awaited counter-strike may not necessarily be successful. Kyiv is at risk of “losing the ability to mass ground forces” near the frontline if the air defences have run out. Ukrainian leaders may not mind the more realistic assessment – Zelenskiy asked again for more weapons on Thursday – but soon the truth of the air defence prediction will emerge.
British ministers, meanwhile, have worked hard to downplay the leaks. Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, told CNN on a visit to Washington this week that the papers contained “a number of inaccuracies, significant inaccuracies, or manipulation of information,” although it is widely recognised in the US that they are genuine. Only one instance of subsequent Russian disinformation has been spotted: a crude attempt to rewrite estimates of the numbers killed through digital manipulation by altering one of the documents.
Ricketts said the reality was that there was “a fair amount of weary acceptance” in the UK intelligence community and an acknowledgment that leaks occurred on both sides of the Atlantic, such as when dispatches by Sir Kim Darroch, the UK’s ambassador to Washington, leaked in 2019. Darroch had described Donald Trump as “insecure” and “incompetent” and was forced to quit.
British insiders were also anxious to stress that the UK already kept track of Discord, where the Pentagon documents first leaked, although the focus is largely on monitoring on extremists. A relatively flat-footed US response had seen officials first blame Russian hackers, as documents spread at speed. Several days passed before the arrest of the 21-year-old air national guardsman and IT technician Jack Teixeira in Massachusetts. Meanwhile, journalists had interviewed his online associates ahead of US law enforcement.
Teixeria’s profile – a gamer wanting to show off to his friends – hardly matched the classic leaker profile of a politically motivated person such as Daniel Ellsberg, the leaker of the Pentagon Papers that revealed the truth about the Vietnam war, or Clive Ponting, the British civil servant who leaked documents about the sinking of the Argentinian cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands war.
Teixeira was one of 1.25 million people able to access top secret material on the US Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, a share repository created in response to 9/11. A former senior British official said he believed it was obvious that now was the time to review the distribution of top secret material.
“This is a system that was built up for counter-terrorism, when large numbers of people needed to know about threats. But in an era where counter-state threats are taking over, and the danger of leaks greater, it looks like a rethink is needed,” the ex-insider said.
