What did 14 April 2023 reveal about the war?

What did the war in Ukraine look like on 14 April 2023? It was a day in which the violence on the ground and a leak of secrets about that violence ran side by side.

On 14 April 2023, a Russian missile strike on Sloviansk, in Donetsk Oblast, killed at least eight civilians and injured 21 others. The attack was part of a pattern of strikes on civilians that had continued in the preceding days.

Five days earlier, on 9 April 2023, a Russian missile strike on Zaporizhzhia had destroyed a residential building and damaged dozens of other buildings. Two civilians were killed and another was injured. Russian attacks were also reported that day in other settlements, including Orikhiv and Huliaipole.

A second front of information

Away from the front, a different story was developing. On 8 April 2023, two sets of classified U.S. documents relating to the war were leaked online. They also contained intelligence the United States held on other nations, including North Korea, China, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.

On 10 April 2023, U.S. officials confirmed that top secret government documents on the war had been leaked on social media. As reported at the time, the documents revealed details of Ukrainian military vulnerabilities. The Pentagon referred the leak to the Department of Justice, which opened a criminal investigation.

Two kinds of exposure

Set side by side, the events of those days show two kinds of exposure. Civilians in Sloviansk and Zaporizhzhia were exposed to missiles that struck homes and neighbourhoods. Ukraine's military, meanwhile, was exposed through the disclosure of sensitive information about its weaknesses.

The two were different in kind and in human cost. By 14 April 2023, the toll in Sloviansk was at least eight dead, and a criminal investigation in Washington was under way over the leaked papers.