(Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, visit missile cruiser Moskva in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia, back on Tuesday, August 12, 2014. (Photo provided by Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Many United States (U.S.) government documents were recently leaked and shared on various social media sites, detailing U.S. intelligence on its allies and foes amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among them, however, was a document that stated that Egypt was planning on secretly selling thousands of rockets to Russia.
These highly sensitive documents have gotten media attention after spreading to sites like Twitter, Reddit, and Telegram over the past few days. It’s been theorized that they could have been floating around for weeks or even months beforehand. This could prove to be a “very serious” threat to national security, according to the Pentagon, so the Justice Department has officially launched an investigation on the matter. While most of the documents had to deal with secret information about Ukraine and other U.S. allies, a particular one stood out, which was later reported on by the Washington Post.
Dated February 17, the document alleged that there was a conversation between Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and a senior Egyptian official, in which they discussed plans to produce about 40,000 rockets for Russia, along with some artillery rounds and gunpowder. The reason for this, as stated by the document, was that the unnamed official had described it as “the least Egypt could do to repay Russia” for unspecified help they had received earlier from the country. Moreover, Sisi reportedly told the official to keep the plan secret to “avoid problems with the West.”
“Egypt is one of our oldest allies in the Middle East… If it’s true that Sissi is covertly building rockets for Russia that could be used in Ukraine, we need to have a serious reckoning about the state of our relationship,” stated Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
Egypt is one of the U.S.’s closest and oldest allies in the Middle East, and it also supported the United Nations (UN)’s condemnation of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, which makes the whole situation even more bizarre. Along with the fact that it also depends on Ukraine for about 80% of its grain imports. However, this may be due to declining relations between the U.S. and Egypt.
In September of last year, the U.S. said that it would withhold its annual $1.3 billion security fund to Egypt on account of Cairo’s poor human rights record. Feeling frustrated at the U.S., Egypt might have turned towards other global powers, such as Russia, to gain more leverage over the U.S.
The unnamed Egyptian official made a statement, calling the original report by the Washington Post on the leaked document “informational absurdity” and that Egypt follows a “balanced policy” with all international bodies. Russia’s Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also called the information just “another hoax.”
“It looks like another hoax, of which there are plenty now. This is how you should treat such publications,” said Peskov.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/11/africa/egypt-russia-weapons-leak-intl/index.html
The Snapper 