A significant number of classified US intelligence documents on South Korea, which were leaked in recent weeks along with others, have been “forged”, the South Korean presidency claimed on Tuesday.

This leak, which according to the Pentagon creates “very serious” risk to national security of the United States, caused embarrassment at the diplomatic level. Some of the leaked documents do seem to show that Washington is gathering information about its allies, such as Israel and South Korea.

According to press reports, some of the documents refer to the concerns of high-ranking South Korean national security officials, who fear seeing weapons and ammunition produced in their country end up being used in Ukraine. Doing so would be a violation of Seoul’s policy of not selling any weapons to warring countries.

In today’s phone call, the defense ministers of the US and South Korea estimated, however, that “a significant number of the documents in question have been forged”, according to a statement from the South Korean presidency.

Dozens of document photos have been circulating for at least weeks on social media and messaging services such as Twitter, Telegram and Discord.

The Pentagon said it was trying to determine whether the documents were indeed authentic and said at least one of them appeared to have been forged.
The leak prompted US officials to reassure allies such as South Korea, which provided humanitarian and non-lethal aid to Ukraine after the Russian invasion of the country began in 2022.

The revelation of alleged talks about Ukraine between high-ranking national security officials has sparked criticism in South Korea over the vulnerability of communications within the country’s key administrations, such as the presidency.

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s office said today, however, that “security has been tested” and that the wiretapping allegations are “absurd lies.”
Yun is due to pay an official visit to the US this month.