How do you imagine this going down otherwise? Do you want them to declassify the name of the source, or just the department where he works?
But yes, I would probably want some form of intelligence briefing being declassified in paper form before pointing the finger at a nuclear adversary. That ol' extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence thing.
Or do you think that some spy in Russia, telephoned a guy in the pentagon, that telephoned a guy in the whitehouse, that setup a press conference and then telephoned a guy to brief him about something he should say, that may or may not help to provoke a war?
Seems a bit far fetched.
>Russia is planning to stage fabricated attacks by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces as a pretext for a further invasion of Ukraine.
As far as really important stuff (perhaps this isn't a good example?), they could actually just reveal everything, after all having an informed public seems pretty important in a democratic society. Does that ever happen? Get all the secret agents out and just blow the lid? It would have to be going-to-war level stuff though.