2023 Russia-Ukraine War Documents Leaked on Thug Shaker Central Discord

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Part of a series on 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. [View Related Entries]

About

2023 Russia-Ukraine War Documents Leaked on Thug Shaker Central Discord refers to an early 2023 leak of classified U.S. Pentagon documents regarding the Russia-Ukraine War on an American Discord server, which soon spread to a larger Minecraft Discord server. The documents were leaked by 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, a Texas-born member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, to a Discord server called Thug Shaker Central. The photographs of the documents spread elsewhere in early 2023, to 4chan, Twitter and Telegram where they were reportedly altered by Russian propagandists. A Discord user named Lucca in the WowMao Discord server was the first leaker reported on, but then Teixeira was arrested by the F.B.I., likened to be the original leaker. The leaks were condemned by the U.S. government months after their initial leak, inspiring viral discourse and widespread media coverage in April 2023.

History

On April 6th, 2023, the New York Times^[1] published an article that relayed statements from the U.S. Pentagon about sensitive documents that had been leaked online, citing their appearances on Twitter and Telegram. Among the documents were secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russian troops.^[1] Additionally, the leaked documents included estimates of total deaths on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.^[1] Upon discovering the leak, the Pentagon found a digitally altered document reportedly from a Russian Telegram user who changed the kill counts to reflect poorly on the Ukrainian military. The Times^[1] was quoted, writing:

…one of the slides said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian soldiers had been killed while Ukraine had suffered as many as 71,500 troop deaths. The Pentagon and other analysts have estimated that Russia has suffered far more casualties, with closer to 200,000 killed and injured, while Ukraine has had more than 100,000 killed and injured.

When the Times^[1] broke the story, information on where the documents originally leaked was unclear as the Pentagon had only found them on Twitter and Telegram. On April 6th, 2023, Twitter^[2] user @AricToler started a thread in which he tried to trace the leak's origins. His primary tweet gained roughly 1,900 likes in five days. In one tweet,^[3] @AricToler compared the photos of the altered and non-altered documents mentioned by the New York Times.^[1]

In another tweet,^[4] @AricToler did some digging in the 4chan archives, highlighting one American 4chan user (ID: CXWfLHRB) who posted to /pol/ ^[5]^[6]^[7] multiple times on April 5th with photos of the documents (screenshots shown below).

On April 7th, 2023, Twitter^[8] user @btr_fan21 tweeted at @AricToler four screenshots from the WowMao Discord server, showing a Discord user named Lucca that originally posted the dozens of photographs starting on March 1st, 2023 (images shown below). @btr_fan21's tweet received over 350 likes in four days and @AricToler QT^[9] gained over 460 likes in a similar timeframe.

Later on April 7th, Twitter^[10] user @AricToler posted a screenshot from Lucca's Discord server, showing them writing, "@everyone, ily bros, see you on the flipside" (shown below, left). In another tweet^[11] sent by @AricToler, he alleged (via messages in the server) that Lucca apparently got the leaked files from another poster on a Discord server called Thug Shaker Central, earning over 400 likes in four days (shown below, right).

On April 9th, 2023, The Wall Street Journal^[12] published an article on the document leak, stating that hundreds of the documents were leaked on Discord in March 2023, later spreading to a larger Minecraft Discord server, then to Twitter and then to Telegram where they were reportedly altered by the Russian propagandist.^[1] According to the report, that is when the U.S. government finally noticed the leak.

CNN^[13] also wrote about the leak on April 8th, 2023, and received a quote from James Clapper (former Director of National Intelligence under President Barack Obama) reading, "This appears to be a very serious breach of security, which is potentially very damaging both to the US as well as many friends and allies." CNN^[13] also got quotes from Aric Toler (@AricToler).

Overall, various reactions surfaced on Twitter^[14] about the leak between April 6th and April 10th, 2023.

WowMao's Response

On April 10th, 2023, YouTuber^[15] wow_mao posted a video that addressed the leaks that had occurred on his Discord server. He stated that he did not condone the leaks or know fully that they were leaked. He stated that Lucca (the leaker) was a moderator of the server. The video gained roughly 216,300 views and 23,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Jack Teixeira Arrested

At around 10 a.m. EST on April 13th, 2023, the New York Times^[16]^[17] reported that 21-year-old Airman First Class for the Massachusetts Air National Guard Jack Teixeira had been taken into custody to face charges for the leaking of classified documents in the Thug Shaker Central Discord server. The arrest was announced by Attorney General Merrick Garland and footage of the arrest was uploaded by the Times^[16] as well as published to YouTube^[18] by the channel of WTVR CBS 6 (shown below).

After Teixeira's arrest, multiple, verified Twitter^[19]^[20] users amplified the news, gaining thousands of likes on April 13th. Other viral discourse ensued on Reddit's /r/news^[21] and /r/OutOfTheLoop ^[22] subreddits. Many tweets included photos of Teixeira, such as a mirror selfie taken by Teixeira (shown below, left) and his official military portrait (shown below, right).

Online Reactions

Memetic online reactions to Teixeira's arrest predominantly centered on the oddity of "Thug Shaker Central" being discussed by mainstream news outlets. For instance, on April 13th, 2023, Twitter^[23] user @LookAtMyMeat1 tweeted a Tracksuit Joker meme about journalists having to utter the absurd server name, gaining roughly 11,300 likes in less than a day (shown below, left). On April 14th, Twitter^[24] user @ShitpostGate tweeted a screenshot of the Daily Mail UK's headline reading, "Jack the Dripper," earning roughly 45,400 likes in less than a day (shown below, right).