US retired officer leaks classified data on war in Ukraine to lady on dating site

In the United States, a retired officer has admitted to passing classified information about Russia's war against Ukraine to a woman on a dating site. This was reported by The Associated Press

david Slater, 64, served in the US Air Force's Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. He had a top secret security clearance and pleaded guilty to one of the charges at a hearing on July 10 in exchange for the other two being dropped.

"I entered into a conspiracy to intentionally transmit national defense information to an unauthorized person," he wrote in a note.

Slater retired from the army as a lieutenant colonel in 2020, after which he worked in a civilian position in a secret room on the base from about August 2021 to April 2022. He was arrested in March 2024 .

The court found that the defendant attended "top secret" briefings on the Russian-Ukrainian war. The man admitted that he had conspired to pass the information he received there about military targets and Russian military capabilities to a woman from a dating site who claimed to live in Ukraine.

"He knew and had reason to believe that such information could be used to the detriment of the United States or to the benefit of a foreign power," the plea agreement says.

The woman regularly asked Slater to provide classified information and called him "my secret favorite informant" and "my secret agent. With love." And in one of the texts she wrote: "Dave, I hope NATO has a very nice 'surprise' for Putin tomorrow! Will you tell me?".

The woman's identity is not indicated in court documents, and it is not known whether she worked for Ukraine or Russia. The dating platform.

is also not listed

• on March 24, The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg reported that he had accidentally accessed a chat in the Signal messenger in which, in particular, US officials discussed strikes on the Yemeni Houthis. It was added from the account of National Security Advisor Waltz.
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