War Thunder welcomes Minecraft to the ‘gaming playerbases leaking military secrets’ club

April 11, 2023 9:00 AM

Over the last half week, the intelligence community has been reeling over a serious leak of military documents that apparently were promulgated through a Minecraft server before hitting 4chan and then going mainstream.

The documents appear to include legitimate US intelligence analyses of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and though much of it was already known to the public, there does appear to be some classified information in the mix – as well as plenty of fake info too, which makes the whole thing weirder.

And yes, since you’re wondering, it does look like an internet argument over Minecraft helped drive the drama back in early March. According to intel outlet Bellingcat,

“After a brief spat with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied ‘here, have some leaked documents’ – attaching 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which bore the ‘Top Secret’ markings.”

However, Bellingcat says it has traced some of the documents back even further, through a YouTube influencer’s Discord and then yet to another now-vanished conservative edgelord Discord server called – and we are not making this up – Thug Shaker Central.

As Kotaku notes, the most bizarre part is that the documents were openly shared on the Minecraft server and no one did anything with them for weeks.

“Apparently, these Minecraft fans can’t identify a federal crime if it took place in front of them. ‘This shit was sitting in a Minecraft Discord server for a month and no one noticed,’ an investigative reporter told CNN.”

War Thunder, which of course has seen so many similar (but far less impactful) leaks over the last couple of years, cheekily welcomed Minecraft to its rather dubious position in the gaming world. “For once, OUR player base did not leaked documents! I’m so proud of you all,” Gaijin wrote on Twitter.