U.S. spies caught Russia boasting of a new alliance with oil-rich United Arab Emirates, according to purported Pentagon documents released in a wide-ranging leak.
Russian intelligence officers had said they had convinced the UAE ‘to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies,’ according to documents viewed by the Associated Press.
The Emirati government on Monday dismissed any accusation that the UAE had deepened ties with Russian intelligence as ‘categorically false.’
But the report comes at a time of concerns that the U.S. is ceding influence in the Middle East to adversaries like China and Russia. Just last month China brokered a surprise peace deal with Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Other leaked documents revealed U.S. ally Egypt was prepping to ship arms to Russia.
Egypt, one of the U.S.’s closest allies and a recipient of close to $100 billion in U.S. aid over the last 50 years, recently ordered around 40,000 rockets to be secretly shipped to Russia.
Egypt, one…