The U.S. Air Force has temporarily suspended the leadership of a Massachusetts Air National Guard unit that was linked to the recent leak of classified documents associated with the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
21-year-old Massachusetts Air National Guard member Jack Teixeira was arrested earlier this month after authorities suspected him of orchestrating leaks of numerous classified U.S. military documents detailing the war in Ukraine. The Air Force is actively investigating how Teixeira could have accessed and removed copies of the documents.
Teixeira’s unit—the 102nd Intelligence Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts—is now facing a shake-up following the leak episode. Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told NTD News in an email that the commander of the Air National Guard wing has suspended the commander of its component unit, the 102nd Intelligence Support Squadron.
“Additionally, the detachment commander overseeing administrative support for Airmen at the unit mobilized for duty under Title 10 USC has also been suspended,” Stefanek said. “This means that both the squadron’s state Air National Guard operational commander and current federal orders administrative commander have been suspended pending completion of the Department of the Air Force Inspector General Investigation.”
Stefanek did not identify the suspended leaders by name.
She did, however, note that the suspensions are temporary while the Air Force continues to investigate the leaks. Along with suspending these unit leaders, the Air Force has also placed their access to classified information and systems on hold.
Since the intelligence leaks, Air Force officials have already reassigned the 102nd Intelligence Wing’s intelligence duties to other Air Force units.
“The 102nd Intelligence Wing is not currently performing its assigned intelligence mission,” Stefanek said. “The mission has been temporarily reassigned to other organizations within the Air Force.”
Scope of Intelligence Leak
The full extent of the U.S. Air National Guard intelligence leak still isn’t clear.
Many of the documents were shared earlier this year on the Telegram messaging app, the anonymous online forum 4Chan, and Discord—an instant messaging social platform popular with gamers. Days after officials revealed the first set of leaks, the New York Times reported discovering an additional 27 pages of classified U.S. intelligence documents.
On April 10, when asked whether the leaks had been contained, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “We truly don’t know.”
The authenticity of the documents appearing online can only be partially confirmed. Several U.S. military and intelligence officials have said at least some documents that have appeared online seem to have been altered.
Some of the documents appear to describe a timeframe for a “Spring Offensive”—apparently alluding to a Ukrainian counteroffensive against the Russian invasion forces that entered Ukraine in February of last year. That information could potentially help Russia prepare to fend off the counterattack.
Other documents appear to describe the rates at which Ukrainian forces are expending munitions for weapons like the HIMARS rocket artillery system—a detail the U.S. military has not openly disclosed. The timetables for training and supplying Ukrainian forces with new weapons and ammunition could also give Russian military planners clues about their opponent’s ability to defend itself.
Phillip Ingram, a retired senior British military intelligence officer, told The Telegraph that the leak of U.S. intelligence documents on the war in Ukraine appears to be the biggest intelligence breach since Edward Snowden exposed information about the National Security Agency’s widespread domestic surveillance operations in 2013.
Teixeira has been charged with violating 18 U.S.C. Section 793 and 18 U.S.C. Section 1924, which prohibit the unauthorized removal and storage of classified information. If convicted, the airman faces up to 10 years in prison.
