����vlog

For more. Let's cross to Washington. Elizabeth Bra is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. Thank you for speaking with us here on France 24. Thank you. Uh The, this uh this report, what, what more do we know about what was leaked and how accurate it was? Well, we know that documents were leaked and that, that one, at least one of them uh is top top secret because it has the top secret classification on it. And what is so mysterious about these leaks is that uh the, the documents and they are, as you said on social media, Twitter and telegram um available for, for all to see at the moment. Um What's so mysterious is about about them is that they seem to be genuine, but at the same time, they uh parts of them have been doctors. So we don't really know how they, they were leaked from, from which institution they were leaked from, from which side they were leaked. It's clearly they relate to the Ukrainian War and American assessments. But were they leaked by somebody in Ukraine? Were they leaked by somebody at the Pentagon that we, we all don't know. And on top of that, some of of the content appears to have been doctored just to, to cause further confusion just to cause further confusion. So in whose interest would it be to cause further confusion? Well, the Ukrainians are saying that this is *** Russian intelligence operation um created to to sow division and discord within the Western alliance because the documents do discuss Western support that the extent of Western support money and so forth how much money has been allocated and will be allocated for various military donations. Um But we don't know any of that and what, what is so we don't know whether it is Russia or whether it's whether it's some, some *** lone wolf who has take objection to Western military aid to Ukraine or what, what the case is and what is so challenging as well is that in this war, we do have *** lot of independent outfits operating in support of one side or the other. And that's exactly the same challenge we've had with the, with the North incident, we don't know what the government that was behind it. Was it *** sort of *** freelance operation by, by um *** group affiliated or supporting *** particular side that we, we don't know, we just know that, that this is creating enormous confusion as to who, who uh as to the extent of Western support for Ukraine or, and in whose interest it was to to put this out there. So, Elizabeth, bro, when you wake up in the morning and you've had your coffee. Uh How do you sort the wheat from the chaff in this uh uh information war? That is *** challenge before I've had coffee and after I've had coffee and in fact, no amount of coffee will solve this dilemma. We have so much inaccurate information entering the bloodstream of, of the, the media environment in which we live. And the really challenging part of that is that even though there are fantastic disinformation reporters who scour the internet social media all day to, to correct falsehood. Even if they arrive the minute after that, that information has entered the, the, the the blood stream, it's too late in this information spreads very quickly often because it's so juicy that, that people get so excited that they share it before thinking about maybe trying to verify that even if they do try to think about verifying it, they don't have the skills. And that is really the challenge. Now, most of us are not information literate, but we are here in the information economy and spread information all the time as *** result, uh inaccurate or partly accurate or mostly inaccurate information continues to spread. And these documents are another example of that. The New York Times piece says that the documents were what some five weeks ago. So uh they were perhaps in part at least *** snapshot of what us, uh, Ukraine relations were like then, uh, on the battlefield, what, what, what have you gleaned? What have you learned personally? Well, it's, I, I think it's, it's, it's nothing surprising really. It, it, it shows, uh, Western commitment to Ukraine and it would have been much worse for Ukraine if they had, if these documents had contained us doubts about Ukrainian military capabilities or Ukrainian military abilities to, to productively use the weapons, the West, the West is donating. There's nothing scandalous in, in these documents. But what it does show is that, that it's, it's in somebody's interest to try to discredit this close cooperation between Western governments and Ukraine. And I think that what should worry and what does worry every Ministry of Defense and indeed every Western government at the moment is, is there somebody there who could be either motivated or maybe convinced by somebody else to leak similar documents? Maybe just as *** favor to somebody. This is *** classic intelligence. But in the past, if you leak the document to somebody that, that document, stay with that person, then they may give it to the government. Now it might immediately enter the, the, the massive circulation that is, that exists on social media. But we knew that more than *** decade ago with wikileaks that uh I I it's very easy in the uh in the digital age to, to, to send it all out to the on, on the internet Um When you look at uh for instance, those satellite images, the Washington post reported on from, from the the Russians digging in in Crimea, different analysts are drawing different conclusions. That's right. And this is another challenge. I think the the the fundamental challenge we have is that we live in an information area area era where there is *** lot, uh enormous amount of information and uh *** lot of it is accurate and we just need people who are skilled in interpreting that information to make sure that it it that the interpretation is accurate or otherwise we will have ***, *** total um total case us in the information interpretation. And that's what we are seeing with these documents too. Lots of analysts are trying to interpret us thinking, Ukrainian thinking based on these documents. But it's, it's not clear to anybody except the people with the highest security clearance who have seen the originals of these documents. It's not clear to anybody else, how much is accurate and how much is not. But yet now they are out in the public domain for available for everybody to interpret. But as you say, this problem goes back *** decade and it's *** great shame that we still don't have information literacy courses for every citizen. I think just as you need *** certification to drive *** car, you should need certification to share information on social media in the build up to what we anticipate could be *** spring offensive or counter offensive on the part of the Ukrainians in the coming days or weeks, *** top aide to the President Vladimir Zelinsky claiming Thursday that there's only five people who know the plan. Uh, we're still able, people are still able and we've seen it throughout this war to keep secrets. They are. And, and it really is incredible that, that the Ukrainians, for example, managed to, to keep *** secret, the exact location of where President Selin is going to be at any given time because he's obviously *** massive target and, and, and indeed, they have managed to keep secret their military plans uh until now, so credit to them. And this is of course, 11 of the areas where Russia uh fundamentally miscalculated. The adversary Russia thought Ukraine is, is *** pretty hapless country in terms of, of military strength and military coordination, military profession and, and boy were the Russia is taken. Um But yes, the, the Ukrainians have managed to, to keep *** very, very control over the information, which is why this, this leak is, is so disturbing and, and again, we don't know where the leak came from, but, and indeed what the motivation of the leaker is Elizabeth Bra, *** senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Thank you for speaking with us from Washington. Thank you.