In an unusual twist, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) accidentally released a secret NATO report pertaining to the war games “with codewords, ciphers, co-ordinates, radio frequencies and a host of other “special instructions” for huge war games under way around Scotland.”

An MoD official mistakenly circulated a manual for planned air operations during major military exercises involving more than a dozen countries. Joint Warrior 161 is currently being played out around Scotland, while Griffin Strike 16 is taking place around the southwest coasts of England and Wales.

But instead they were given technical details of aircraft “killbox” target areas, code decryption tables, radio jamming rules and authentication protocols. As well as dozens of codewords, call signs and map co-ordinates, the report includes long lists of phone numbers, email addresses and military facilities.