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?
Concerning this leak, i would advise caution and skepticism, it is possible that it was a genuine leak but it is equally likely that it was deliberate and is part of the ongoing information warfare campaign waged by NATO and Ukraine. The constant talk about the counter-offensive is probably also part of this, but we as outside observers have no way of knowing. The Kiev regime regularly admits that the purpose of its media operations is twofold: one being to shore up internal support for the war, in Ukraine itself and in the broader West, and the other being to demoralize the Russian population. Everything that comes out of Ukraine and NATO must be viewed from this lens.
Agree. The wise thing to do when following this conflict is to look at what is happening on the ground. Literally no one involved offers reliable info and this is the first fully digitalized war - be sure that 99% of what you read about this war is either made up or a major exxageration.
specially the kind of “news” that is literally just “random guy in uniform that says stuff”
To me, it sounds like deliberate misinformation to downplay Ukrainian losses. The western media Russian losses aren’t fooling anyone who has reason to be critical of the reporting (like it not making sense) or anyone who is ideologically pro-Russian. So if they release something like this where the Russian number is in the ballpark of what makes sense, they can “verify” the other number.
I think this https://twitter.com/snekotron/status/1644158771155935233?cxt=HHwWgoC90Z7snNEtAAAA thread about the leaks gets it right. The documents themselves seem to be genuine, but the problem is that the NATO planners simply aren’t as omniscient as some people seem to think they are. It appears that they basically rely on a combination of OSINT and what the Kiev regime tells them about the war, which results in even US planners’ own internal documents containing absolutely ludicrous Ukrainian propaganda numbers.
I’m sure some of the people working in the Pentagon must know or suspect that the Ukrainians are feeding them bullshit, but the environment is such that you have to tell your higher ups what they want to hear.
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“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.”
it doesn’t need to make sense, the narrative has been built up since the second world war. Since the west decided to take the memories of nazi generals as historical sources, they conveniently found themselves with records written by people eager to make themselves look good - hence the “we were better in all ways but they just drowned us in manpower and shovels” narrative that is soooo prevalent in the current representation of the eastern front.
there is a lot more to say about it, but the notion that Russia has to go for quantity because they are only able to build crude and rudimentary technology is so old and prevalent that people pretty much internalized it. People see an outlandish russian casualty count and just assume it is true because they have been taught that that is just what russia does
As for casualty numbers: these are systematically undercounted and underreported for Ukraine, probably even in their and NATO’s own internal documents, because the Kiev regime regularly refuses to record their combat deaths as deaths in order to avoid having to pay out benefits. Instead they mark them as missing or, and this is my personal speculation, in some cases probably make sure that there is no record of some persons having been soldiers at all, especially if it’s people who belong to an ethnic minority that Ukraine is trying to wipe out like the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine, or the Hungarians and the Rusyn in the west who just get dragged off the streets.
Even before the Bakhmut siege Ukraine’s casualty numbers were well over 100k, the most credible estimates putting them somewhere between 100 and 200 thousand. Now it’s even higher. The Russian casualties are indeed probably between 20-25k if you include not just Russian regulars but also DLNR militias and Wagner. The reason why any claims that do not reflect such a disparity are simply not realistic is because we know that 90%+ of casualties in this conflict are caused by artillery, being that this is an extremely artillery heavy conflict, and Russia has a widely acknowledged ten to one advantage over Ukraine in this regard, as attested even by Western sources reporting the numbers of shells fired by each side. In addition Russia still actively uses its airforce.
roaming “neutral” subs on reddit is funny as shit because they just can’t accept the reality that artillery conquers, and infantry occupies. Since the battle of Bakhmut started, with ukrainian units being fired at by massive artillery barrages from three directions, they’ve been like “yeah being encircled is a 500 iq move by zelensky, he’s just grinding down russian troops”
which is hilarious in its own right, but it makes it even funnier that they think they are “grinding down” fucking RUSSIA of all countries. Like lmao buddy yeah, even Hitler couldn’t grind down russia and they were literally systematically killing as many russians as possible
I just imagine with all the population movements and bureocratic gaps since 2014 there might be even millions Ukrainains not accounted for oficially by now. Western propaganda will count them all as victims of Russia.
I have heard from someone i knew that was studying in ukraine prior to the war (not doxxing him, but it was an university in what is now russian Zaporizhia) that when they were evacuated as foreigners several female classmates of his just… were never heard of again.
After this war, ukraine will find itself with a lot of “missing” people - and western europe will find itself with a lot of scared and desperate ukrainian women roaming the streets at night
I can easily believe that. Even before the war, the number of Ukrainians legally employed in Poland was 1,4 million, mostly men, but it was estimated there is greyzone employment that might be few hundred thousands, mostly women illegally employed as housekeepers, care workers and prostitutes.
Ukraine was since 1991 main source of human trafficking in Europe, and every new crisis in Ukraine cause new wave of it.
i am a social worker in Switzerland, this is already a big issue. For every ukrainian entering the country “legally” and properly navigating the system, there are two that we find trading sex for a bed to sleep in. The reason why europe was able to absorb so many refugees without skipping a beat is often boiled down to “they’re white” - the reality is more complex, in that ukrainians often don’t look “foreign” and are easy to smuggle in as undeclared workers. For example africans are caught before they even get off the train because it’s so easy to spot them
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.
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Donbas republics asked for help.
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Zelensky threatening nuclear rearmament.
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Front line was practically inside Donetsk, the city would have been captured immediately.
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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.
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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
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