Kenya may be on the brink of a diplomatic crisis following the leak of highly confidential documents from the US military’s secure registries. Reports from Infohub Kenya reveal that the leaks imply that at least one senior United Nations (UN) official harbors deep mistrust towards President William Ruto.
The leaked documents, known as the Pentagon leaks, appear to have originated from a man in his mid-20s with past experience working in a military base. The unidentified individual has reportedly been leaking data in batches since last year on a Discord group, where most members seemed unaware of the sensitive nature of the information shared.
Among the over 500-gigabyte document cache, a mid-February conversation between UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his deputy, Amina Mohammed, stands out. The contents hint that the US may have been spying on these high-ranking UN officials for an unspecified duration.
In the conversation, which took place after the December 2022 African leaders summit in Washington D.C., Mohammed allegedly described President Ruto as “ruthless” and expressed her distrust in him. The context of the comments remains unknown, as does whether the exchange represented a casual or formal dialogue between colleagues.
The revelation of these remarks may strain the already delicate relationship between the UN and Kenya after Ruto’s rise to power in the August 9, 2022, presidential election. The UN’s upper echelon now faces the challenge of addressing the US spying allegations while simultaneously managing the fallout and repairing relations with affected countries and leaders.
Moreover, Mohammed’s alleged remarks could be construed as the official stance of the UN, potentially igniting a significant diplomatic storm. Foreign and Diaspora Affairs CS Alfred Mutua has not yet responded to inquiries about Kenya’s diplomatic options in the wake of these developments.
The leaked documents also suggest that the US believes Secretary-General Guterres is overly sympathetic to Russian interests, exacerbating existing tensions between the two superpowers. This suspicion arose from Guterres’s role in negotiating the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a truce involving Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey that aimed to ensure safe food transport from Kyiv amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Additional leaks have revealed that Ukraine may have been planning an attack on Russia, with support from Western nations such as the US, UK, France, Latvia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, Egypt allegedly intended to secretly produce 40,000 rockets for Russia, while South Korea resisted US pressure to supply arms to Ukraine for fear of alienating Russia.