Egypt had planned to send as many as 40,000 rockets to Russia, which has depleted its weapons supply after over a year of fighting in Ukraine, leaked US intelligence documents revealed.
The documents, obtained by the Washington Post, detailed a plan by Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi and his senior aides to provide the weapons to Russia. They were among a cache of top secret Pentagon documents that were recently leaked online, first appearing on social media gaming platform Discord.
If the information in the documents proves to be true, it could prove a damaging blow to the relationship the US has with Egypt, one of its longstanding allies in the region.
The allegation has not been confirmed by the White House, the Fox News reported.
In January, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting with el-Sisi in Cairo. During the summit, Biden reiterated the country’s “solidarity with Egypt as it contends with the economic impact of Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine.”
One of the documents said that el-Sisi told senior military officials to secretly sell rockets, artillery rounds and gunpowder to Moscow. The plan was to be kept confidential in order "to avoid problems with the West," the Washington Post reported.
The document quoted official Mohamed Salah al-Din, the minister of state for military production, reassuring the Egyptian leader that he would "order his people to work shift work if necessary because it was the least Egypt could do to repay Russia for unspecified help earlier."