Well, Well, Well

It looks like Egypt was making plans to supply rockets to Russia.

It appears taht they were considering selling Sakr 45 rockets, which are compatible with the 122mm BM-21 Grad missile launcher. 

Egypt is denying these reports, and the source of these reports are the leaked files that showed up on Discord a while back, which the US is treating as an actual leak of classified information, so it seems that the credibility seems decent.

The question, of course, is why Egypt would take such a step when it has remained steadfastly neutral.

It's probably not money, an unguided Grad is rumored to cost about $1,000.00 on the open market, so the sale of 40,000 missiles would likely result in sales of only $40 million. (The roughly equivalent unguided M-26 for the MLRS costs about $40,000.00 each)

My guess would be that this was some sort of wheat deal, because the Egyptians are very well aware of the effects of food shortages and price hikes on political stability in the region. (The 2011 Egyptian revolution that turfed out Hosni Mubarak was largely driven by skyrocketing food prices).

President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi of Egypt, one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East and a major recipient of U.S. aid, recently ordered subordinates to produce up to 40,000 rockets to be covertly shipped to Russia, according to a leaked U.S. intelligence document.

A portion of a top secret document, dated Feb. 17, summarizes purported conversations between Sisi and senior Egyptian military officials and also references plans to supply Russia with artillery rounds and gunpowder. In the document, Sisi instructs the officials to keep the production and shipment of the rockets secret “to avoid problems with the West.”

The Washington Post obtained the document from a trove of images of classified files posted in February and March on Discord, a chat app popular with gamers. The document has not been previously reported.

………

In response to questions regarding the document and the veracity of the conversations it describes, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, spokesman for Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, said that “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.”

………

A U.S. government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive information, said: “We are not aware of any execution of that plan,” referring to the rocket export initiative. “We have not seen that happen,” the official added.

Moscow and Cairo have inked several significant deals recently, including an agreement this year for Russia to build a massive railway workshop in Egypt. Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, also began construction last year on Egypt’s first nuclear power plant.

Perhaps most importantly, after the war in Ukraine disrupted access to Ukrainian wheat, Cairo began relying heavily on purchases of Russian grain. The arrangement has helped Egypt avoid wheat shortages that could spark social unrest in a country where poverty is widespread and bread is served with nearly every meal. Egypt is eager to avoid an uprising at home, where an acute economic crisis, including a devalued currency, high inflation and soaring food prices — fueled in part by the war in Ukraine — are stirring up frustrations among civilians.

Assuming that the Discord leaks are real,, this would imply a strategic advantage that Russia has over the west, as hard as it is to believe, the fact that they are an agricultural powerhouse.  (Yes, this is a complete mind-f%$#, but Russia supplies about ¼ of the world's export market for grains.)

It could also be that this is some sort of counter-intelligence operation by the US intended to push Egypt away from Russia, or it could Egyptian disinformation that was fed to western intelligence agencies to mitigate suggested aid cuts to Egypt in response to El-Sisi's abysmal human rights record.

This all is a f%$#ing hall of mirrors, and about the only thing that is certain is that professional liars are involved.