ALBAWABA - A prominent U.S. news outlet claimed that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi asked senior Egyptian military officials to produce up to 40,000 missiles to be secretly shipped to Russia. The Kremlin and Egypt denied.
The claim was published in the Washington Post, which said that plans were underway to supply Moscow with artillery shells and gunpowder to help boost its capability in its war with Ukraine. The newspaper, with a record of credible reporting, said the information came from a leaked U.S. intelligence document.
Egypt planned to covertly send 40,000 rockets to Russia: report https://t.co/S4J6T8AeD7
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 11, 2023
It said that Egyptian president instructed his officials to keep the production momentum and ship the missiles secretly to avoid problems with the West.
According to the newspaper, Cairo's provision of weapons to the Russian government may prompt U.S. sanctions on Egypt.
But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov debunked the report Tuesday, saying that the news is another American "fabrication."
"Such news is fake news, and there are a lot of them now," Peskov said in Moscow.
?BACK-TO-BACK Washington Post exclusives on the U.S. intelligence leaks:
— Washington Post PR (@WashPostPR) April 10, 2023
Egypt secretly planned to supply rockets to Russia, leaked U.S. document says, via @evanhill @missy_ryan @siobhan_ogrady https://t.co/J6G1n3WG8O
Egyptian media outlets also quoted an official Egyptian source as saying that this is "absurd talk and has no truth." The source asserted that his country "follows a balanced policy with all international parties," adding that "the determinants of this policy are peace, stability and development."
Dozens of top-secret documents belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense, the Pentagon, were recently leaked on social media.
An investigation is underway to determine how the documents were leaked.
