Btw, below either a fake-out or double, or triple fakeout, describing parts of war planning that ought not be discussed in public. If what is being discussed is true, might be the case that should Team Russia wish to enlarge the war scope just found causes.
… and I thought ‘they’ already put Assange on ice?
Perhaps there are more Assange-esque folks out there?
Or the fakeout plan was deliberately released?
Agnostic. Waiting to see.
zerohedge.com
'The Internet Is Forever': Musk Mocks Pentagon Demand To Delete Leaked Classified Docs
US officials say they are racing to scrub a leaked trove of classified defense documents which appeared on the internet, but as Elon Musk reminds them, the internet is forever.
This as Twitter confirmed the Pentagon is requesting that it act fast to remove posts containing the highly classified documents, including photos of charts of anticipated arms deliveries, about the war in Ukraine...
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The New York Times revealed the surprising development Thursday evening, leading to a frenzy of speculation: "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 documents were posted on Telegram and Twitter accounts, without the Times specifying on which accounts they originated, in what's being widely described as a major breach of American intelligence.
According to more from the Times, "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."
This particular assertion - that the documents may reveal something important regarding discrepancies in war dead on either side - and the fact that US officials have highlighted their anxieties over potential 'manipulated' classified documents is far and away the most interesting disclosure.
The sources quoted in the report first admit the authenticity of the classified leak, and then pivot to the claim that Russian intelligence likely already digitally altered some documents as they circulate, warning the public not to view them as they may contain "Kremlin’s disinformation".
Per the NY Times, the below is what the Pentagon is most worried about [emphasis ours]:
"Whether these documents are authentic or not, people should take care with anything released by Russian sources," said Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va. 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.
The report notes the information goes up to March 1: "The leak documents do not provide specific battle plans but they offer a snapshot of time — the American and Ukrainian view, as of March 1, of what Ukrainian troops might need for the campaign," according to NYT.
By January into early February, US and allied officials began claiming about 200,000 Russian war deaths, an estimate which was immediately subject of widespread scrutiny and doubts by independent observers.
The geopolitical blog Moon of Alabama previously commented (in a February post) on the problems underlying US officials' public pronouncements of "200,000 Russian war deaths" in the following insightful excerpt...
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I find these claims of high Russian casualties laughable because we know that the Russian artillery is firing several times more shells per day than Ukraine's army can provide. Artillery is the big killer in this war.
There are often claims from amateur 'experts' that the defender has the advantage in urban warfare and less casualties than an attacker. Both claims are simply wrong:
The idea that urban terrain favours the defender, a common claim by today’s urban exceptionalists, is incorrect. In the 1980s the UK’s Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) showed that urban terrain was not a defender’s paradise. The opposite was true. The attackers almost always won, and in almost all cases for which detailed data were available, the defenders suffered high casualties. Notably, the deciding factor in urban operations was good training and supporting fires from armoured vehicles. Based on comparing historical analysis with trials using the Berlin Brigade, further research confirmed that urban operations usually, but not always, ended badly for the defender for very easily understood reasons. Skilled urban defences were rare and required pre-planned counterattacks best supported by armour. Yet more evidence was apparent from work done by Christopher Lawrence, who confirmed the DERA findings.
...
Even a cursory analysis of commonly available data tends to support the above. For example, the Battle of Marawi saw 150 days of fighting where the defenders lost catastrophically, suffering a KIA loss rate of 6.52 per day compared to the attacker’s 1.12 KIA per day. Fallujah 2004 was fought over 50 days and saw the US attacker suffer 112 KIA at a rate of 2.24 per day while the defender suffered an estimated loss rate of 40 KIA per day. Operation Protective Edge in 2014 saw 49 days of fighting, with the IDF losing 67 KIA, so a casualty rate higher than Marawi at 1.3 KIA per day, but only very marginally.
The fight for Bakhmut is way more intense than the above mentioned battles.
The Russian forces are attacking urban conglomerations while having absolute artillery superiority and lots of ammunition and armor. The Ukrainian army is defending the cities mostly with little trained territorial brigades on foot while keeping its better trained and equipped regular units as backup. There is also an acute lack of armored support on the Ukrainian side.
But we know from military history and science that the defender will usually have have multiple times more casualties than the attacker. We also know that good training and armored support is key for the defending side. The Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut have neither.
Ten days ago the well informed Col.(ret.) Doug Macgregor put the numbers ( video) of dead on the Ukrainian side at 122,000 killed plus 35,000 missed in action (presumed dead). The number of dead Russians (including Wagner forces and Donbas militia) is at 16,000 to 25,000 with 20 to 40,000 additionally wounded. The numbers have since increased with the Ukrainian ones several times those of the Russians.
Despite that we are to believe that Russia is losing many more men men than the Ukraine? No one should be that stupid. |
