A Telegram channel called Donbass Devushka (“Donbass Girl”), which played a key role in spreading classified Pentagon documents on the web, was run by former US Navy soldier Sarah Beals. On this subject writing The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
According to the newspaper, the Dobnass Devushka telegram channel, to which more than 65,000 people subscribe, covers the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine from the Russian side in English. At the same time, accounts with the same name appeared on other online platforms.
According to the WSJ, the Donbass Devushka account network also sells merchandise with PMC images of Wagner and the Russian military, and promises to send the proceeds to “our people at the front.” Additionally, Dobnass Devushka hosted podcasts in which guests advocated the cessation of US military assistance to Ukraine and expressed support for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The newspaper writes that on April 5, Donbass Devushka released four supposedly secret American documents. Subsequently, according to the publication, they were discovered by several major Russian social media accounts, after which the Pentagon began investigating the leak.
The WSJ discovered that the Telegram channel was administered by former US Navy avionics technician Sarah Beals, 37, who retired from military service in November 2022. In a conversation with the newspaper, the woman said confirmed his involvement in the management of the Telegram channel, but added that Donbass Devushka has 15 directors in total. According to Beals, the Pentagon documents were not published by her, but by another author. The woman also noted that it was she who later deleted the message containing secret data.
At the same time, there is no evidence that Beals, who had access to classified data during his Navy service, was able to steal some of the documents, writes the WSJ. However, according to Rachel Stevens, a former Navy colleague of the Beals, someone with such a rank as the Beals usually has a top secret security clearance.
Beals herself claims that Donbass Devushka did not “disclose” classified documents. She also said she was aware of the secrecy of these documents, but noted that she did not understand how authentic these documents were.
The secret Pentagon data leak became known in early April. The first photos of the documents were published in early March on the Discord chat platform, then they spread through Internet forums, Twitter and Telegram channels. The “leaked” documents, in particular, contained information about the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, preparations for the Ukrainian Armed Forces counter-offensive, as well as the situation in China and the Middle East. On April 13, in a getaway case, the FBI arrested 21-year-old Air Force National Guard pilot Jack Teixeira. According to the American press, it was he who was able to start posting secret documents in a private Discord chat from February 2022, after which one of the chat participants posted them in the public domain. Teixeira was taken into custody and had access to the unauthorized storage and transfer of secret documents. The pilot himself does not admit his guilt.
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