Archive Link: https://archive.ph/3mAVd
emphasis [mine]
WASHINGTON — Classified war documents detailing secret American and NATO plans for building up the Ukrainian military ahead of a planned offensive against Russia were posted this week on social media channels, senior Biden administration officials said.
The Pentagon is investigating who may have been behind the leak of the documents [find the snitch], which appeared on Twitter and on Telegram, a platform with more than half a billion users that is widely available in Russia.
So these leaks are real, and the Pentagon is looking for the mole.
Military analysts said the documents appear to have been modified in certain parts from their original format, overstating American estimates of Ukrainian war dead and understating estimates of Russian troops killed.
The modifications could point to an effort of disinformation by Moscow, the analysts said. But the disclosures in the original documents, which appear as photographs of charts of anticipated weapons deliveries, troop and battalion strengths, and plans, represents a significant breach of American intelligence in the effort to aid Ukraine.
Biden officials were working to get them deleted but had not, as of Thursday evening, succeeded.
So the only part they claim to be doctored is the estimates for the casualties in the conflict. They say the documents being leaked are significant, so much so that the Biden team is trying to get them scraped off the internet.
To the trained eye of a Russian war planner, field general or intelligence analyst, however, the documents no doubt offer many tantalizing clues. The documents mention, for instance, the expenditure rate of HIMARS — American-supplied high mobility artillery rocket systems, which can launch attacks against targets like ammunition dumps, infrastructure and concentrations of troops, from a distance. The Pentagon has not said publicly how fast Ukrainian troops are using the HIMARs munitions; the documents do.
One aspect of the pro-Ukraine casualty estimates that never made sense was how so many Russians could be dying from Ukraine’s lack of artillery, to maintain this narrative the Pentagon never talked about how many shells Ukraine launches per day.
One of the slides said 16,000 to 17,500 Russian soldiers had been killed while Ukraine had suffered as many as 71,500 troop deaths. The Pentagon and other analysts have estimated that Russia has suffered far more casualties, and that closer to 200,000 soldiers on each side had been killed or wounded.
Nonetheless, analysts said parts of the documents appeared authentic and provide Russia with valuable information such as the timetables for the delivery of weapons and troops, Ukrainian troop buildup numbers and other military details.
These estimates seem a little low balled, analysts such as Col Macgregor put Russian dead in the 20-25k range and Uke dead in the six digits. This seems more like the values pre-Bakmut siege. BBC calculated around 16k from Russian obituaries so maybe they were closer to reality than given credit for, or the numbers in the document are confirmed KIA only and MIA is not included. The document in question. More from: https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1644122549909848070?t=J87R-_jIb11q9sFMfcB-XQ&s=19
The leak is the first Russian intelligence breakthrough that has been made public since the war began. Throughout the war, the United States has provided Ukraine with information on command posts, ammunition depots and other key nodes in the Russian military lines. Such real-time intelligence has allowed the Ukrainians to target Russian forces, kill senior generals and force ammunition supplies to be moved farther from the Russian front lines, though U.S. officials say Ukraine has played the decisive role in planning and execution of those strikes. [“plausible” deniability]
But early on during the war, Ukrainian officials were hesitant about sharing their battle plans with the United States, for fear of leaks, American and European officials said. As recently as last summer, American intelligence officials said they often had a better understanding of Russia’s military plans than of Ukraine’s.
The intelligence sharing between Ukraine and the United States loosened up considerably last fall, and the two countries have been working closely on options for a Ukrainian offensive.
So now the US is running the show. I wonder if the mole is related to Sy Hersh’s source on Nord Stream?
I do have to wonder why the SMO was approved, if an offensive was planned. An attack by AFU would’ve made for better press for Russian government, surely? And since Russian cities and towns are getting shelled anyway, what would it change?
Do you mean why did Russia attack first? This leak is for the upcoming offensive preparation (2023), not the original goal to retake Donbas in 2022.
Donbas republics asked for help.
Zelensky threatening nuclear rearmament.
Front line was practically inside Donetsk, the city would have been captured immediately.
Ukraine started it before SMO. Putin put another public statement supporting Minsk 2 on Feb 15th. Shelling starts on the 16th hitting Donetsk center. The attacks are seen through multiple analysts’ as preparatory for an offensive. The same day Putin sends Biden an ultimatum for his security agreement that has Ukraine following Minsk 2 (along with freezing NATO and returning to INF treaty talks). The next day Biden says Russia will invade. Two days later Zelensky threatens Ukraine rearming if they don’t get NATO guarantees, shelling ramps up, LDPR asks for military alliance, evacuates citizens, and the rest we know. Biden knew that Putin invades if he doesn’t reply, so he didn’t, and from that moment Biden won the battle over narratives. It wouldn’t really matter if the SMO waited for self defense, they’d lose the narrative battle anyway, but they prevented Donetsk from being taken and Crimea was protected.
If you know an attack is coming you don’t wait for your enemy to make the first move and give them the initiative. Also, Russia would still be seen as the aggressor as soon as they moved in to defend the Donbass republics because the West through its control of the media will have portrayed Ukraine’s attack on the Donbass republics as acting according to their legitimate right to re-establish control over their own territory. There is no winning the narrative when your enemy controls the media. So you might as well act in the most militarily expedient way.
Besides, Russia has managed to make its case pretty solidly to the rest of the world for the SMO. It may not seem that way if you only pay attention to western media but most of the global south is sympathetic to Russia. And ultimately the most important group to win over and convince of the necessity of the SMO are the Russian people, and that by and large has succeeded, despite some initial difficulties.
Russia would’ve been portrayed as guilty regardless. So at that point they were better off taking the initiative instead of waiting for Ukraine to be spoonfed more military aid