New Secret Documents: What Do They Say About Sisi and Bin Zayed's Support for Russia?

In January 2023, an anonymous member of a Discord group chat with more than ten members published files containing classified U.S. military documents marked as “secret” and “top secret.”

According to a report by the Wall Street Journal on April 9, 2023, apparently, no one outside the group noticed these documents when they first leaked.

As a result, hundreds of the documents remained circulating among the small group on Discord, a social chat platform, until early March 2023, according to the newspaper.

However, in early March, another user reposted dozens of those documents in another group with a larger audience before they spread among the electronic Minecraft community.

According to American newspapers, the leaked documents reveal how Washington is not only spying on its enemies but also on its allies, such as Turkiye, South Korea, and even “Israel.” They also contain American–Ukrainian military plans to counter Russian aggression, as well as issues related to Egypt, the UAE, and Ukraine.

However, many of the documents were completely deleted from their location by the Discord chat group, and the site partially malfunctioned, which means that other documents were hidden quickly.

This major issue raises questions about the source of the leak of highly classified military and intelligence documents, including who is the actor behind it. Why is Washington spying on its allies? And how do the leaks affect their relationships?

 

Egypt and the UAE

Two leaked documents have revealed that Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Mohammed bin Zayed are working against U.S. interests and cooperating with Russia militarily and politically. The documents, including a leaked U.S. intelligence report, show that el-Sisi, one of Washington’s closest allies in the Middle East, has ordered the production of tens of thousands of missiles to be secretly shipped to Russia in order to be used in its attack on Ukraine.

The documents also reveal that Sisi has instructed his officials to maintain secrecy around the production and shipment of missiles to avoid problems with the West.

The Washington Post reported on April 10, 2023, that the documents were classified as highly confidential and dated February 17 of the same year.

The documents detail conversations between Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials that indicate plans to supply Russia with artillery shells and gunpowder, and that the Egyptian regime has ordered the production of up to 40,000 missiles to be sent to Russia.

The document says that on February 1, 2023, Sisi instructed Minister of State for Military Production Mohamed Salah el-Din that factory workers must be informed that the projectiles are intended for the Egyptian army.

The document also quoted Salah el-Din as saying that he would instruct his employees to work in shifts if necessary, “because it is the least Egypt can do to repay Russia” for its earlier assistance, without specifying the nature of that Russian assistance.

The newspaper said that the war between Ukraine and Russia disrupted Egypt’s access to Ukrainian wheat, so Cairo became increasingly dependent on Russian grains, which it desperately needs, as a wheat shortage could lead to popular unrest.

The document also quoted Sisi as saying that he was considering selling “ordinary things” to China to make room for more production of the Sakr 45,” a type of 122 mm missile manufactured by Egypt. While the document does not explicitly mention whether the missiles to be produced for Russia are the Sakr 45, the U.S. newspaper said that these missiles would be compatible with Russia’s multiple-launch rocket systems of the Grad type.

In response to questions about the leaked document and its discussion of conversations between Sisi and officials in the country, Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Abu Zeid spoke in a vague and general manner without denying the matter. He told the Washington Post that Egypt’s position since the beginning has been based on non-interference in this crisis and on commitment to maintaining an equal distance from both sides.

Abu Zeid stated that Cairo confirms its support for Egypt to the United Nations Charter and international law in the decisions of the United Nations General Assembly, and “we” continue to urge the parties to stop hostile actions and reach a political solution through negotiations.

However, the official page of the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the page of the presidential spokesperson, completely ignored the reference to the matter as a form of blackout so as not to stir up controversy among the Egyptian public.

The document does not mention how the U.S. government extracted details of the Egyptian discussions, but it seems that some of the information in the recently leaked documents comes from signals intelligence, which points to technologies such as intercepting communications.

The U.S. newspaper states that supplying the Russian government with weapons could lead to U.S. sanctions on Egypt, and that providing weapons to Russia in its war against Ukraine would be a maneuver that could backfire on Cairo.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees, said that if the talk of Sisi secretly making missiles for Russia that could be used in Ukraine is true, then a serious review of the U.S.–Egypt relationship is needed.

 

What Do the Documents Say?

This leak of secret documents was first revealed by the New York Times on April 7, 2023, and it turns out that it includes not only reports and documents related to the conflict in Ukraine, but also highly sensitive analyses regarding U.S. allies and national security secrets in Ukraine, the Middle East, and China.

According to American security analysts who reviewed the documents, the leaked documents go beyond the extremely classified materials related to war plans in Ukraine. They explained that most of the leaked documents include increasingly sensitive intelligence about China and military theaters in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Middle East, and terrorism, without providing further details.

The leaked documents also show the Russian Wagner Group’s attempt to obtain weapons from a NATO member state for use in the Ukrainian war, as well as satellite images used by the United States to track Russian forces, including undisclosed technology.

On April 10, 2023, Reuters reported that it had reviewed more than 50 of these documents, which are marked “secret” and “top secret,” confirming that they reveal details about Ukrainian military weaknesses “and information about allies including “Israel,” South Korea, and Turkiye.

The Washington Post reported on April 8, 2023, that the documents contain information from other U.S. intelligence agencies gathered about Russia and other countries, all based on information from secret security sources, without specifying any further details.

It warned that the briefings and summaries provide a rare glimpse into the world of American espionage, and that among the other secrets revealed in the documents are details about the places where intelligence agencies recruited knowledgeable informants for closed-door meetings with world leaders.

The Washington Post confirmed that the documents reveal the U.S. intelligence community’s knowledge of plans by Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU) to carry out a propaganda campaign in Africa to discredit the United States and France in particular.

The documents reveal that the United States deeply penetrated Russian forces, allowing them to warn Ukrainians in advance about Russian movements, plans, weaknesses, and strengths.

On April 8, 2023, the Washington Post reported that documents marked top secret from the U.S. Department of Defense (the Pentagon) provided tactical information on the war situation in Ukraine, including the country’s combat capabilities.

In the same document, the source of information was mentioned as “LAPIS time-series video,” an advanced satellite system that captures high-quality images of ground targets and may now be a target of Russian jamming.

Some of the documents may raise diplomatic controversy, as some reveal the Russian Wagner mercenary company’s attempt to obtain weapons from a Turkish contractor for use in Ukraine and Mali.

 

Who Leaked It?

According to U.S. officials, the intelligence leak represents one of the most significant and dangerous security breaches since the WikiLeaks disclosures in 2013, which included over 700,000 documents, videos, and diplomatic cables.

Dozens of classified documents have been published on Twitter, Telegram, and other social networks in recent days, with new documents continuing to bubble to the surface. The New York Times confirmed on April 10, 2023, that the danger of the leaked documents stems from exposing Washington’s spying on its allies to obtain their secrets and the deep involvement of the United States in the Ukraine conflict.

The Washington Post reported on April 8, 2023, that the leaks had affected America’s relationships with its Western allies, particularly those who questioned the U.S.’s ability to keep secrets and the possibility of reducing security cooperation, especially after it was revealed that it had spied on its enemies and allies alike.

Therefore, experts say that the documents could have an impact on the war in Ukraine, as they will give Russian intelligence agencies a picture of the larger apparatus that the U.S. has penetrated, giving them an opportunity to cut off sources of information.

According to CNN, Ukraine was forced to adjust its military plans before launching a counter-attack against Russian forces due to the leak of secret American documents on April 10, 2023.

The news outlet reported that a source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the leak as the reason behind the modification of their military plans.

A senior official described the leak to The New York Times as a major security breach that gave the Russians insight into how the information was obtained by Washington. The officials acknowledged that pinpointing the source of the leak would be difficult, given the large number of officials and contractors with security clearance to access government briefings.

Former U.S. intelligence and military officials expressed their concern over the potential range and impact of the leak in interviews with CNN on April 8, 2023. James Clapper, who served as the Director of National Intelligence during the Obama administration, stated that this is a very serious violation of security, and it could be very harmful to both the United States and many of its friends and allies.

Clapper added that all resources would be used to locate the individual responsible for leaking sensitive information, as the issue was preventing the wrong people from accessing these documents. Meanwhile, Glenn S. Gerstell, former General Counsel for the National Security Agency, emphasized that this underscores the need to reform the antiquated system of classified documents.

The Pentagon confirmed on April 10, 2023, that the leaked intelligence documents were presented in the same format as briefings given to top leaders and that the published images showed documents similar in appearance to those used in daily internal briefings.

On April 8, 2023, The Washington Post reported that U.S. and European officials are investigating the leak of dozens of classified documents that cover all forms of intelligence gathering without anyone’s notice.

The officials were at times shocked and angry at the amount of information revealed in the files that exposed the way the United States spies on both enemies and friends.

Reuters reported on April 10, 2023, that Michael Mulroy, a former senior official in the U.S. Department of Defense, said that the documents indicate they were leaked by an American citizen and not an ally. This was suggested given the breadth of topics covered by the documents, but they do not rule out parties supporting Russia. Mulroy told Reuters that the focus now is on this being a leak from the United States because many of these documents were only in its possession.

However, Reuters reported on April 8, 2023, that U.S. officials suggested that Russia may be behind the leak of the U.S. military documents, and most of the documents bear the NOFORN code, meaning that “foreigners” are not allowed to access them.

What happened is that at some point, other documents were allowed to be shared with Washington’s allies in the Five Eyes (FVEY) spying group, which includes Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, in addition to the United States. This means that the leak may not be limited only to the United States.