Leaked Pentagon Documents Could ‘Endanger Lives’ of UK Special Forces: Ellwood

Defence Committee Chair Tobias Ellwood speaking to the media on College Green outside the Houses of Parlliament, London, on July 7, 2022. Dominic Lipinski/PA Media

The chairman of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee has warned the leaking of classified Pentagon documents that detail the involvement of UK special forces in Ukraine could “endanger lives.”

The “top secret” files first appeared on the Discord social media app last month. Media outlets including the BBC and The Guardian reported one of the documents suggests up to 50 UK special forces personnel have been deployed to Ukraine to serve alongside U.S. and other Western special forces troops.

The documents claim there were 14 U.S. special forces personnel in Ukraine and on Wednesday the White House confirmed they were there to provide support to the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv and assist with logistics.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox News: “There is a small U.S. military presence at the embassy in conjunction with the defense attaché’s office, to help us work on accountability of the materiel that is going into and out of Ukraine. So they’re attached to that embassy and that defense attaché.”

Kirby added: “They are not fighting on the battlefield. We are not enabling support on the battlefield. … There has been no change to the president’s mandate that there will not be American troops in Ukraine fighting in this war.”

The supposedly leaked documents did not say where the UK special forces troops were deployed and Britain’s Ministry of Defence has warned against taking information in the allegedly leaked documents at “face value.”

‘Large-Scale Disclosure of Sensitive Material’

But Tobias Ellwood, an MP and chairman of the Defence Committee, told The Times of London, “Given our long-established lead in scale and capability when it comes to elite forces, it will come as no surprise that our special forces are doing much of the heavy lifting.”

“But this deliberate, large-scale disclosure of sensitive material could easily endanger lives and should prompt an urgent review about who has access to sensitive information and how it is shared,” he added.

Labour MP Dan Jarvis, a former Parachute Regiment commander who served in Afghanistan, said special forces operations were often “by necessity shrouded with secrecy.”

Jarvis, a former major with 1 Para, which formed the bulk of the Special Forces Support Group, told The Times of London: “Any compromise of secret material regarding their deployment or numerical strength is not only politically embarrassing but also militarily disadvantageous. It risks jeopardising the security and effectiveness of those operations and could put lives at risk.”

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson wrote on Twitter on Wednesday: “The widely reported leak of alleged classified US information has demonstrated a serious level of inaccuracy. Readers should be cautious about taking at face value allegations that have the potential to spread disinformation.”

Asked on Monday if the U.S. government feared more intelligence documents might turn up online, Kirby said: “The truth and the honest answer to your question is, we don’t know. And is that a matter of concern to us? You’re darn right it is.”

As for who is behind the leak, Kirby said the U.S. Justice Department had begun a criminal investigation into the incident.

“We don’t know who did this. We don’t know for what reason. And we don’t know … what else this individual or individuals might have or might release,” Kirby added.

Chris Meagher, a Pentagon spokesman, said it appeared some of the slides in the documents had been “doctored” and he urged people to be cautious about, “promoting or amplifying any of these documents.”

The documents first appeared on Discord when an unidentified poster shared them and posted their own thoughts.

The posts went unnoticed until The New York Times drew attention to them last week.

Echoes of WikiLeaks Disclosures

The most infamous example of leaked files that endangered U.S. national security and those of other nations was the publication in 2010 by WikiLeaks of thousands of diplomatic cables which had been leaked by Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army soldier.

Manning, who later self-identified as a woman and is now known as Chelsea Manning, was convicted in 2013 of leaking more than 700,000 government documents and was sentenced to 35 years in jail after a court martial.

U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning is escorted by military police as he leaves his military trial after he was found guilty of 20 out of 21 charges, at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, on July 30, 2013. Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The conviction was the longest regarding a leak of government files for the purpose of leaking them to the public in U.S. history.

In January 2017, shortly before he left the White House, U.S. President Barack Obama commuted Manning’s sentence and he was released four months later.

The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, was arrested in London in February 2019 after spending seven years in hiding in the Ecuadorean Embassy.

He was charged with conspiring with Manning to gain access to the Pentagon network and receiving and unlawfully publishing the names of classified sources.

Assange, an Australian citizen, faces up to 175 years behind bars if convicted.

In January 2022 the High Court in London ruled Assange could be extradited to the United States but that has since been appealed.

Last week a number of British and Australian politicians wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking him to drop the extradition request.

PA Media contributed to this report.