Russia-Ukraine war live: Pentagon leaker reportedly worked on military base; World Bank to fund Ukraine energy repairs

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Russia has so far offered a muted response to the document leaks. The deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, suggested on Wednesday that the leak might be a US disinformation ploy. “Since the US is a party to the conflict and is essentially waging a hybrid war against us, it is possible that such techniques are being used to deceive their opponent, the Russian Federation,” Ryabkov told Russian news agencies.

The Ukrainian government is assessing the possible damage from the disclosures. The files give details of 12 newly formed brigades, equipped with western battle tanks and armoured vehicles, which are likely to lead the assault against dug-in Russian positions. “For sure, people are not happy,” one official admitted on Wednesday. “Ukraine was criticised last year for not being a trustworthy partner. At the beginning of the invasion, we weren’t provided with weapons because of this lack of trust. We lost a lot of territory and people as a result. This perception was wrong. And now this leakage happens from the US side.”

It was too early to say whether the leak would affect planning for Ukraine’s counter-offensive, now at an advanced stage, the official indicated. The attack is widely expected to take place in the south of the country, and possibly in the east as well. Ukraine’s goal is to break the land corridor connecting Crimea with Donetsk province and to evict the Russians from the occupied city of Melitopol and the port of Berdiansk.

World Bank announces $200m for emergency repairs energy infrastructure repairs

The World Bank said on Wednesday it would finance $200m to help fix Ukraine’s energy and heating infrastructure, with partners and others to provide another $300m as the project expands.

The $200m grant will be used to make emergency repairs to Ukraine’s transition transformers, mobile heat boilers and other emergency critical equipment, the World Bank said in a statement.

The World Bank has mobilised more than $23bn in emergency financing for Ukraine, including commitments and pledges from donors. More than $20 billion of this has been disbursed through several projects, it said.

Energy infrastructure has suffered $11bn in damage over the last year and is one of the most critical areas where Ukraine needs urgent support, said Anna Bjerde, World Bank’s managing director of operations, on Wednesday.

During the fall and winter months, more than half of Ukraine’s power infrastructure was damaged, resulting in countrywide power outages that contributed to food, heating and water shortages, the World Bank said.

There is increasing evidence that the intelligence leak was not an intelligence operation by a state actor aiming to discredit the US, but more likely the consequence of a Pentagon policy of granting top secret security clearances to huge numbers of service members, civilians and contractors. The number of employees and contractors in the entire US government with top secret clearance is about 1.25 million.

OG appears to have acted as a leader on a server originally set up in 2020 on the Discord messaging platform by a small group of gun enthusiasts and gamers. The group went by several names, but most often it was known as Thug Shaker Central. Starting last year, OG is reported to have posted the documents on a channel on the server he named “Bear vs Pig”, a reference to the Ukraine war but also a viral video showing pigs fighting off a black bear.

According to the teenage member of the group interviewed by the Post, OG “had a dark view of the government”, portraying the government, and particularly law enforcement and the intelligence agencies, as a repressive force. He ranted about “government overreach”.

The Post said details were confirmed anonymously by other members of the group, and that it had viewed a total 300 photographs of classified documents, three times the number previously thought to be circulating.

The origins of the leaks on Thug Shaker Central was first reported on Sunday by the Bellingcat investigative journalism group, which also interviewed the same member, who is under 18.

However, the Washington Post said the teen member, who had been in touch with OG “in the past few days” had yet to be interviewed by any federal law enforcement officials by the time of publication on Wednesday night, even though the justice department began a criminal investigation and an FBI manhunt was launched at the beginning of the week. The defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has vowed to “turn over every rock” in pursuit of the leaker.

Pentagon leaker reportedly worked on military base

The man responsible for the leak of hundreds of classified Pentagon documents is reported to be a young, racist gun enthusiast who worked on a military base, and who was seeking to impress two dozen fellow members of an internet chat group.

The Washington Post interviewed a teenage member of the group, who described the man, referred to by the initials “OG”, from their online correspondence, and shared photographs and videos. The Post also viewed a video of a man identified as OG at a shooting range with a large rifle.

“He yells a series of racial and antisemitic slurs into the camera, then fires several rounds at a target,” the report said. OG told fellow members of the same internet group that he worked on a military base, which was not named in the report, where his job involved viewing large amounts of classified information.

The leaked documents have laid bare secrets about Ukraine’s preparations for a spring counter-offensive, US spying on allies such as Ukraine, South Korea and Israel, and the tensions between Washington and allied capitals over arming Kyiv.

Opening summary

Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Sullivan.

Our top story this morning: the person who leaked US classified documents prompting a national security investigation is a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked on a military base, the Washington Post reports, citing fellow members of an online chat group.

And the World Bank has announced it will finance $200m to make emergency repairs to Ukraine’s transition transformers, mobile heat boilers and other emergency critical equipment.

Here are the other key recent developments:

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged international leaders to act after disturbing video emerged on Wednesday of Russian soldiers apparently beheading a Ukrainian prisoner of war lying on the ground. Ukraine’s president said the world could not ignore the “evil” footage, which has not been verified by the Guardian.

• Belarus has extradited a Russian man who was separated from his daughter and sentenced to two years in prison after she drew anti-war pictures at school. Alexei Moskalyov, a 54-year-old single parent from the town of Yefremov, 150 miles south of Moscow, fled house arrest last month, hours before a court handed him a two-year sentence for “discrediting” the Russian army.

• The EU has pledged to hold those responsible for war crimes in Ukraine to account, a spokesperson said, while the UN said it was “appalled by particularly gruesome videos” circulating on social media.

• The UK government has imposed sanctions on the “financial fixers” who have allegedly helped Russian oligarchs Roman Abramovich and Alisher Usmanov hide their assets.

• Britain is ready to provide an extra $500 million of loan guarantees to Ukraine, taking the total this year to $1bn, British finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Wednesday. Hunt said the British loan guarantees had been important to underwrite a broader $15.6 billion IMF four-year package of support.

• The US also imposed sanctions on more than 120 individuals and entities around the world over their ties to Russia’s war in Ukraine. The sanctions targeted people and entities across more than 20 countries and jurisdictions.

• Russia has hit 333 Canadian officials and public figures with sanctions in what it said was a tit-for-tat move in response to Canada’s sanctions against Moscow and support for Ukraine.

• Ukraine’s military has again rejected claims by Russia that Russian troops have captured more than 80% of the embattled city of Bakhmut. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern military command, insisted on Wednesday that Ukrainian forces controlled “considerably” more than 20% of it in the east.

• Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its forces struck Ukrainian army reserves attempting to break through to Bakhmut. It also claimed that fighters from Russia’s private Wagner mercenary group had captured three more blocks in their attempt to seize control of the city. The claims were not verified.

• Russia has tightened its conscription law, including introducing electronic military draft papers, before a widely anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive in the coming weeks. The lower and upper houses of parliament rushed through legislation that will make it significantly harder for Russians to dodge the draft while automatically banning registered conscripts from leaving the country.

• Russian-installed authorities in annexed Crimea and the city of Sevastopol have cancelled traditional military parades to celebrate Victory Day and May Day, the Russian-appointed leader of Crimea has said, citing security reasons. Sergei Aksyonov’s statement on Wednesday came a day after he said Crimea was on guard and that Russian forces had built “modern, in-depth defences”.

• Serbia has agreed to supply arms to Kyiv or has sent them already, according to a classified Pentagon document. Serbia is one of the only countries in Europe that has refused to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

• South Korea has reportedly agreed to “lend” the US 500,000 rounds of artillery, as Seoul attempts to minimise the possibility that the ammunition could end up in Ukraine - a move that could spark domestic criticism of President Yoon Suk-yeol.

• South Africa has said that an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine war was a “spanner in the works” before a Brics summit in the country in August. The Russian president is due to attend a summit of Brics countries but the host nation is a member of the International Criminal Court and would be expected to make the arrest if Putin steps foot in the country.

• The German government is very worried about the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s worsening health condition, a government spokesperson has said. Navalny’s spokesperson on Tuesday said he had lost 8kg in 16 days while in solitary confinement, and that he was not receiving any treatment.