The title is a bit misleading. Yet the Pentagon is trying to identify the source of leaks on social networks of classified documents detailing the strategy of the United States and NATO allies to support Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, reports the New York Times. “We are aware of press reports regarding social media posts and the department is reviewing the matter,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.
Instead of “plans,” these documents, which date from early March, are more like daily briefings and war-related statistics and do not contain specific plans for upcoming military operations. They mention, for example, the rate at which the Ukrainian forces use the ammunition of the Himars mobile rocket launchers, or the timetable for the delivery of weapons or training provided by the West to the soldiers of Kiev. According to these leaks, twelve Ukrainian brigades are being formed, nine of which are trained and equipped by the United States, notes the New York Times.
A map tries to estimate the dates of the “rasputitsa”, a period during which due to the melting of the snow in spring, a large part of the flat land is transformed into a sea of ??mud under the action of water. The phenomenon particularly affects roads when they are not paved.
Reworked documents
But some seem to have been “photoshopped” to present the situation in a more favorable light for the Russians, in particular by minimizing the extent of their losses. As Wall Street Journal foreign affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov or Bellingcat’s Aric Toler point out on the pro-Kremlin accounts, the US estimate of 43,500 Russian military dead is down to 17. 500 dead, while 17,500 dead Ukrainians became 71,500 dead. Similarly, Russian vehicle losses fell from 6,004 to 600.
The Pentagon asked Twitter to remove posts containing the documents. Elon Musk, the boss of the social network, has a fairly clear opinion on the question: “Yes, you can completely delete elements from the Internet. It works perfectly and doesn’t draw attention to what you’re trying to hide at all. »
For his part, Oleksi Danilov, secretary of the Ukrainian national security and defense council, explained to Radio Svoboda that there are “no more than five people on the planet who have information about where, when and how the counter-offensive will begin”.
