According to one of the leaked US Intelligence documents, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi was planning on selling 40,000 rockets to Russia. The delivery and production was to be covert, allegedly according to Al-Sisi to “avoid problems with the west”. The document came to light with the recent discord document leaks.
The document reports on a conversation reported to be between President Al-Sisi and several high ranking Egyptian military officials.
The document was dated February 17th. US officials in their limited comments on the issue have said they “are not aware of any execution of that plan”.
“We’ve seen no indication that Egypt is providing lethal weapons capabilities to Russia” said John Kirby, US National Security Council Spokesman. He further added Egypt was a “significant security partner” for the US in the Middle East.
Egypt hasn’t given many comments on the issue, but has denied the documents claim, stating it was “informational tampering that has no basis in truth”. Spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, said “Egypt’s position from the beginning is based on noninvolvement in this crisis and committing to maintain equal distance with both sides, while affirming Egypt’s support to the U.N. charter and international law in the U.N. General Assembly resolutions”.
Notably, Russia has also denied the documents claim. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated it was “another lame duck in the Western mass media”.
The potential sale would have, of course, come while Russia is invading Ukraine.
