Pentagon and DOJ investigating alleged classified US military documents leaked on social media

Farmers in central and eastern Europe protested this week against the impact of cheap Ukrainian grain imports, which have undercut domestic prices and hit the sales of local producers.

Protesters blocked traffic and border checkpoints with tractors along the border between Romania and Bulgaria in an effort to prevent Ukrainian trucks from entering their country, according to local news outlets.

Local producers say they cannot compete with the price of Ukrainian grain and have demanded compensation from the European Commission.

What led to the tensions: Ukraine, often called the “breadbasket of Europe” due to the vast quantities of grain it produces, had its Black Sea ports blockaded by Russia following the launch of its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Fearing the situation was “threatening global food security,” the European Commission set up what it called “solidarity lanes” in May to facilitate exports.

The Commission also temporarily eliminated all duties and quotas on Ukraine’s exports, allowing a glut of cheap Ukrainian grain to flow into Europe.

This has caused “huge market distortions” in neighboring countries, according to European farmers’ association Copa-Cogeca.

Plans for an extension: Anger grew this week after the European Commission announced a draft decision to extend duty-free and quota-free imports of Ukrainian grain until June 2024, prompting Polish agriculture minister Henryk Kowalcyzk to resign from his post Wednesday.

In Kowalczyk’s resignation statement, he said that the Polish government – along with those of Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria – had submitted a request to the European Commission to “activate the protection clause in the field of duty-free and quota-free imports of grain from Ukraine.”

Read more here.

Both the Pentagon and US Department of Justice are investigating leaks of a trove of apparent US intelligence documents that were posted on social media in recent weeks.

The investigation comes as new documents surfaced Friday covering everything from US support for Ukraine to information about key US allies, widening the fallout from an already alarming leak. The Pentagon said Thursday it was looking into the matter as reports emerged.

The additional leaked documents that open-source intelligence researchers surfaced Friday appear to have been posted online in the past few weeks. The documents appear to contain classified information on a range of topics, including:

CNN could not independently verify whether the documents had been altered. But they are similar to a tranche of classified documents about Ukraine that have been circulating online in recent weeks, which US officials on Friday morning confirmed to CNN to be authentic.

Much like those documents, Friday’s discoveries were photos of printed-out, wrinkled documents. All bore classified markings, some top secret – the highest level of classification. They also all appear to have been produced between mid-February and early March.

It is unclear who is behind the leaks and where, exactly, they originated.

“The Department of Defense is actively reviewing the matter, and has made a formal referral to the Department of Justice for investigation,” deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh said Friday.

A Justice Department spokesperson told CNN the department has “been in communication with the Department of Defense related to this matter and have begun an investigation,” declining to comment further.

Mykhailo Podolyak, the adviser to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on his Telegram channel he believes Russia is behind the purported leak.

Images of some of the documents – which include estimates of Russian casualties and a list of Western weapons systems available to Ukraine – were posted to the social media platform Discord in early March, according to screenshots of the posts reviewed by CNN.

Read the full story here.

Russian forces have used over 1,200 missiles and drones to attack Ukraine’s energy system, according to a statement from the Ukrainian energy company Ukrenergo.

Ukrenergo did not indicate a specific time period in its statement.

Since October, Moscow’s forces have launched hundreds of missiles and drones at energy infrastructure far from the front line, temporarily cutting off electricity, heat and water to millions.

Of the 1,200 missiles, 250 hit Ukrenergo sites, causing damage to 43% of Ukraine’s main power grid, according to the utility. All thermal and hydroelectric power plants sustained varying degrees of damage, the company said.

The cost of emergency repairs to the energy grid will reach more than $1 billion, the statement said, citing an estimate by the World Bank and United Nations Development Programme.

Ukrenergo said it has received almost 500 units of replacement equipment, and more is set to be manufactured and sent to Ukraine.

Supporters of Russian war military blogger Maxim Fomin, known under the pseudonym Vladlen Tatarsky, attended his funeral in Moscow on Saturday. 

Tatarsky was killed on April 2 in an explosion at a cafe in St. Petersburg where he was appearing as a guest of a pro-war group. Russian investigators formally charged anti-war activist Daria Trepova with terrorism offenses, claiming she was responsible for the killing.

Among those who showed up for the funeral was Wagner private military company head Yevgeny Prigozhin, who brought an engraved sledgehammer — a notorious symbol of Wagner that is used to execute deserters. 

The engraved writing on the sledgehammer read: “To Vladlen Tatarsky from PMC Wagner fighters. Your work will live on.”

Near the sledgehammer was an Order of Courage award signed by President Vladimir Putin, according to live footage from the funeral. 

Leonid Slutsky, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, said during a formal part of the funeral at the Troekurovsky cemetery that “the point of no return has long been passed.”

“We will win, including for the sake of Maxim. His whole life was like a bright flash,” he continued.

Some background: A video from the scene appears to shows Tatarsky and Trepova interacting with each other moments before the explosion. According to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, a witness said Terpova gave the statuette to the host, before moving to a different part of the room. The video itself does not show her handing the statue to him.

On Monday, Russia’s National Antiterrorism Committee accused Ukrainian intelligence and associates of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny of organizing the killing of Tatarsky.

Also, Russia’s independent news outlet Fontanka has reported that the cafe belongs to Prigozhin, citing a mention of the company Concord’s ownership on the cafe’s receipt. Prigozhin is the founder and sole owner of Concord, according to public records.

When asked to confirm whether he was the owner of the cafe, Prigozhin did not deny it. In comments published Monday by Concord on its VK social media page, Prigozhin said: “Indeed, I gave the cafe to the patriotic movement Cyber Front Z, and they held various seminars there.”

Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s head of the Office of the President, held an online conversation with human rights lawyer Amal Clooney to discuss protecting Ukrainian children and holding Russia accountable for its alleged crimes against them, according to a statement released by the presidency Saturday.

Yermak said he emphasized the “importance of getting all the deported Ukrainian children back to their homeland and punishing the Russian criminals.” Going forward, he said Kyiv would develop new methods for protecting children’s rights and preventing future attempts to harm them.

Remember: As CNN has reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government is accused of deporting thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia and operating a network of camps where the kids underwent “political reeducation.” The alleged scheme is the subject of International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Putin and another Moscow official.

More on the call: Clooney also reaffirmed her support for Ukraine, according to the presidency’s statement. The Clooney Foundation for Justice — which the human rights lawyer co-founded with her husband, American actor George Clooney — said it would “work to promote accountability and deliver justice for victims of international crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.”

The Ukrainian official thanked Clooney for the support, referencing a speech she gave at the United Nations Security Council shortly after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Russian air defenses have shot down a missile fired from Ukraine over the Crimean port of Feodosia on the peninsula’s southern coast, according to Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed head of the Russian-occupied region.

An adviser to Aksyonov said fragments from the explosion had fallen in a residential area but there were no casualties, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Pictures posted on social media show a large plume of white smoke rising from behind a hill, but the photos appear to have been taken from a location that did not allow sight of any point, or points, of impact on the ground.

Ukrainian authorities have not commented about a possible missile launch, and it is not possible for CNN to verify Russian claims of an interception.

Feodosia is at least 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) from the closest Ukrainian military positions, putting it well out of range of missiles known to be in service by Ukrainian forces, be they locally sourced or part of military aid transfers from the United States and others.

Weather the storm, exhaust the enemy and then strike back.

That has been the mantra of Ukraine’s military for months, one echoed by senior US and NATO officials since the winter.

But can it be executed? And if so, where, when and with what? Even the Ukrainian military leaders themselves may not yet know, as they study the 1,000-kilometer (about 620-mile) front line for Russian vulnerabilities, just as they did when suddenly launching the surprise September offensive in the northeast region of Kharkiv.

But they are aware it will be a crucial chapter in the conflict. Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, said in an interview last month that Russia and Ukraine will fight “a decisive battle this spring, and this battle will be the final one before this war ends.”

That suggests Ukraine may take its time to maximize capabilities. Predictions are a fool’s errand; there will be plenty of bluff and disinformation about intentions in the coming weeks.

But preparations are well underway.

Read the full analysis here.

Just four children are known to be still living in Avdiivka, one of the frontline towns most heavily under fire in eastern Ukraine, a local official has said.

Vitali Barabash said authorities know the location of two of the four children – a nine-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother – and said they planned a forced evacuation of them next week.

Barabash, head of Avdiivka’s military administration, alluded to the difficulties convincing some families to leave their homes, even those in places seeing the heaviest fighting.

“We cannot forcibly evacuate adults, so we just have to rely on their responsibility and their instinct for survival,” he told Ukrainian television Saturday morning.

Thirty-five people have been transferred to safety over the past week, making a total of more than three hundred in the last month, he said. About 1,800 people remain out of a pre-war population of 26,000.

“We are waiting for the opportunity to take the children out because there is a lot of shelling in the city, rocket attacks. We won’t put the children in danger,” Barabash said.

Some context: Avdiivka is near the besieged city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and has also come under sustained attack by Russian forces.

A Ukrainian soldier last month said that the situation in Avdiivka was “difficult,” as Russian forces have increased the number of airstrikes and have been able to cut off supply routes.

Russia’s campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has “likely” failed, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence said in an update Saturday.

Russia has been launching long-range strikes on Ukraine’s power grid since October 2022.

The relentless assault on the power grid deprived millions across the country of electricity, heat, water and other essential services as temperatures dropped, but as CNN has previously reported, Ukrainians have persevered.

Russia’s attacks violate international humanitarian law, which prohibits the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, according to the United Nations.

“Russia’s campaign to severely degrade Ukraine’s unified energy system (UES) within the 2022-23 winter has likely failed,” the MoD statement read.

According to the statement, the “large-scale attacks” on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have become rare since early March this year.

“Smaller scale strikes continue, but are highly likely having much less impact on the UES,” the statement continued.

Ukrainian companies are continuing to source replacement transformers and other critical components, however transporting and installing these components is a “major logistical challenge.”

According to the MoD, Ukraine’s energy situation will likely improve with the warmer weather, and “planning and preparations for next winter have likely already begun.”