Washington: The US Department of Justice announced on Saturday that it has started an investigation into a large number of leaked US documents that have been circulated online and are frequently related to Ukraine.

The hack appears to have exposed assessments and classified intelligence documents that cover not only Russia and Ukraine but also very private analyses of US allies.

A Justice Department spokesperson told AFP, "We have been in communication with the Department of Defense regarding this matter and have started an investigation."

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Numerous leaked documents and slides have recently been making their way onto Twitter, Telegram, Discord, and other social media and chat sites, and new documents are still coming out.

The Pentagon announced on Friday that it was "actively reviewing the matter" and that the Justice Department had been formally notified of the alleged breach.

While some of the documents appeared to have been altered, US officials told the Washington Post that many of them were in line with CIA World Intelligence Review reports that are circulated at high levels within the White House, Pentagon, and State Department.

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According to defence analysts, any disclosure of secret US internal documents would be embarrassing and potentially damaging. The leak would also be beneficial to Moscow because it would reveal the extent to which US intelligence had access to specific Russian military systems, according to US media.

Other documents appear to contain details about internal discussions taking place in the governments of US allies.

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The New York Times reported that discussions about South Korea's deliberation over whether to give the United States artillery shells for use in Ukraine were among the documents.