Ukraine

[LFC]

Russia continues to not learn.

MarkHertling
Follow @markhertling

At the beginning of Russia’s invasion, I noted the RU Army was violating every one of the 9 principles of war.

Now in Bakhmut - w/ a lack of coordination between Prigoyzhin, Shoigu, Gerasimov & Putin - it appears they are especially violating one: Unity of command. 1/

Unity of command describes a unity of effort & unity of purpose that occur when all - govt, people, soldiers, commanders, units - understand what they are trying to achieve & how to do it. Clausewitz called this the Master Principle of War'. 2/

Soldiers thrown into a fight where there is no “unity of purpose” suffer the most when this occurs.

The opponent - in this case, Ukraine - rejoices, as a lack of unity of command creates enemy dysfunction & countless offensive opportunities. 3/3

[LFC]

Ukraine needs shells, shells, and more shells. The EU is finally starting to move, even though this has been a known approaching issue for over 6 months.

So desperate is Ukraine for ammunition, it is firing considerably fewer artillery shells than it otherwise would, its defense minister says.

But it is still going through shells faster than the West can produce or supply them, and making more shells is expensive. If arms manufacturers are to increase production and build new factories, they want large orders with guaranteed money — and those factories can take two to three years or more to come online.

Hoping to address these problems, the European Union’s defense ministers will gather on Wednesday in Stockholm to consider proposals to use the E.U. budget to order and purchase up to one million shells for Ukraine at an estimated cost of four billion euros.

It is an approach the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, likens to the one used by Europe to secure vaccines early in the Covid-19 pandemic — pooling resources to offer more money up front to encourage manufacturers “to invest in new production lines now” for the “standardized products that Ukraine needs desperately.”

With that in mind, Prime Minister Kaja Kallas of Estonia, with support from Ms. van der Leyen and the E.U. foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, made her ambitious proposal to buy up to one million shells for Ukraine.

Short of that, Mr. Borrell has proposed spending €1 billion in the next few months to help reimburse countries that donate artillery ammunition to Ukraine, while pushing member states to place fresh joint orders to replenish and expand their stocks, which are running precariously low.

[LFC]

Russia launched another massive terrorist missile and drone attacks on civilian areas. Here's the outcome:

Olga Tokariuk
@olgatokariuk

A massive Russian missile attack on Ukraine this night. Five people were killed in Lviv region, two wounded in Kyiv, two in Kharkiv. 40% of Kyiv residents left without heating. In Kharkiv, metro stopped working. Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was disconnected from energy grid

Interesting that Russia used some very expensive ammo for this attack.

NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
@noelreports

"6 Kinzhal missiles were fired across Ukraine, this was the first time," said Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat on the telethon.

The Kinzhal is a nuclear-capable, Russian air-launched hypersonic ballistic missile with a range of 2000km and it can reach a speed of mach 12.

[LFC]

More details on the attack.

NOËL 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
@noelreports

Numbers published by Ukraine on overnight's attack.

81 launches in total:

28 Kh-101/Kh-555
20 Kalibr
6 Kh-22
6 Kh-47 Kinzhal
2 Kh-31P
6 X-59
13 S-300
8 Shahed-136/131

34 out of 48 Kh-101/555/Kalibr cruise missiles (71%) and 4/8 Shahed-drones (50%) were shot down. Due to countermeasures all 8 Kh-31P/X-59 did not reach their targets.

[LFC]

There are problems with support from the West. The Russian attack is an existential threat to peace in Europe and Russian control of Ukraine's grain is an even bigger threat to peace. Sadly some leaders just don't seem to get it.

🧵Recently a parliamentarian from #Ukraine said to me: "You give us enough to defend ourselves, but not enough to win." Too true. No war can last forever, no nation has infinite resources or stamina. In the end one side breaks. 1/

Wars are decided not just by resources, planning or morale. There is a temporal factor when all elements come together. We are at such a moment in this war when #Ukraine - if given MBTs, long-range fires, aircraft and munitions can defeat the Russian forces on its territory. 2/

I have to ask myself why so many governments in the West continue to delay, debate, hesitate and then send only a few tanks, howitzers or limited shipments of ammunition that will arrive at some later date? Why with our stocks depleted we are not moving to wartime production? 3/

It's apparent that while countries along the Eastern flank feel the threat and understand the stakes, those EUR states further West lack the same sense of urgency and purpose. Democracies are unbeatable when mobilized around a common goal, but they need to know what it is. 4/

To get #Ukraine what it needs to win takes leadership. Leaders across Europe need to articulate clearly to their citizens what is riding on this war, both on the continent and globally. That Ukrainians are fighting against tyranny, defending not just themselves but Europe. 5/

Let me restate it then: In Putin's narrative, Russia is not fighting #Ukraine but the entire West and what our civilization stands for. If Russia wins, it will be civilizational win for Moscow. It'll place the RUS empire directly on our frontier-empowered and self-confident.6/

Moscow and Beijing will be convinced the West lacks the staying power to stop them. Putin will rearm, rebuild his land forces and in 3-4 years he will move again. Furthermore, should #Ukraine be defeated because of our hesitation, internal acrimony could fracture @nato. /End

[LFC]

More details on the mobiks from the further edges of Russia who have been sent to be slaughtered.

1/ Mobilised Russians from at least 16 regions of Russia have posted videos in the last few weeks complaining about poor training, lack of equipment, brutal commanders, mistreatment, and being used as "meat" for suicidal assaults on Ukrainian positions. ⬇️



2/ Anyone who has been following @wartranslated (if you don't, you should) will have seen many of these videos. The independent Russian news outlet Verstka has been analysing them and has identified where the people appearing in them came from.

3/ As the map at the top of this thread shows, they are from places across the European and west Asian regions of Russia. Notably, though, they are fairly peripheral regions; the wealthiest parts of western Russia do not seem to be represented. Verstka summarises:

[LFC]

Prigozhin continues to whine about ammo. The Russian MoD continues to ignore him. I wonder how much of this is a hatred of Prigozhin and how much of it is that they just don't have the ammo to send.

1/ Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is complaining that the Russian Ministry of Defence is ghosting him – it's not picking up his phone calls and his representatives' passes have been deactivated, to stop him nagging them for ammunition. ⬇️

2/ In response to a question from a Russian news outlet about whether Wagner's ammunition shortages have been resolved, he has posted an audio reply on his official Telegram channel. Translation:

3/ "No, it didn't get any better with ammunition. Basically, nothing has changed at all. But there are indeed changes.

4/ In order for me to stop asking for ammunition, all special telephones were turned off for me in all offices, in all departments, etc. Another important thing they have done is blocked all passes to all the agencies that have to make decisions.

5/ I will not name them, so as not to discredit them in any way. So now I can only ask through the media. In fact, that's probably what I'll be doing. But it's not all bad. There are positive aspects, of course.

6/ Kudos to the industrialists, Denis Valentinovich Manturov and Igor Nosenko and all those who work with them and rivet these shells. Profuse thanks very much from everyone." /end

[LFC]

Yes, the international community needs to move in to prevent a disaster. A zone around the nuclear power plant should be staked out and all fighting forbidden, with threats to the Black Sea Fleet, Kaliningrad, and anywhere else that will get Putin's attention. It is in nobody's interest, not even Putin's, to have a major nuclear incident.

[LFC]

Difficult to excerpt but the upshot is that the political battle between Wagner Group's leader, Prigozhin, and the Russian Ministry of Defense is in full swing and the result could be the destruction or near destruction of Wagner forces. It may be that Prigozhin pushed too hard to secure himself a place in Putin's good graces, didn't deliver, and then tried to blame the MoD. If he had taken Bakhmut all this positioning and posturing might have paid off, but he didn't and now he's in a position where the people he depends on aren't very fond of him.

[LFC]

This is troubling, moreso than Bakhmut.

[indy]

Here is a good thread on Russia's mounting tank problems. Basically it suggests that they have lost half or more of their fleet of the more modern T-72 tanks that were in operation pre-war while also suggesting they only have around 1500 stockpiled, some number of which are probably not usable. Potentially they have lost two-thirds of the T-72s that were already in service or can be recovered from storage.

ETA: I just noticed WaPo has picked up on this today as well: www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/16/russia-army-tanks-ukraine-losses/

[andydp]

As we know, any of these figures have to be taken with a big grain of salt.  

Whatever models of tank the Russians may have in strategic storage are probably only good for spare parts. Even when they're in storage vehicles like those need to be maintained.  From what we have seen, their maintenance routine is likely nonexistent.

Since they are older generation platforms, they will also be much more vulnerable in the battlefield.  I've outlined their shortfalls before:  range finders, targeting capabilities, crew survivability just to name a few.  Older Russian tanks have manual transmissions.  I remember reading drivers are issued hammers to help change gears.

[LFC]

I've read multiple times that this is a war of logistics. Either the West will supply what Ukraine needs and enough of it or Russia will swallow up another chunk of the country.

[andydp]

Time for an update on the latest UKR military moves.  Proving once again a $5K - $10K weapon can do a world of hurt.

Article could be a bit better, but the slide show is pretty informative.  If you read the article, you can gather this systems has the capability to ID and provide targeting data for multiple strikes while in flight to a primary target

Ukraine’s new drone just destroyed $50 million worth of air defense systems


www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-new-drone-just-destroyed-50-million-worth-of-air-defense-systems/ss-AA1977de?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0848567fc0744e909e8017aa9bc64b97&ei=13&fullscreen=true#image=18

[LFC]

Russia was caught making a fake video that was apparently so bad it would only fool Tucker Carlson's viewers.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry has been forced to delete its latest dubious evidence of “Nazis” in Ukraine after the video was revealed as a poorly staged fake—by one of the propaganda outlets that first began circulating it.

The two-minute video served as the outrage of the day for the Kremlin’s numerous mouthpieces Monday, where it was touted as irrefutable evidence of Ukrainian troops abusing civilians who dared to speak Russian.

In the clip, filmed on a woman’s dash-cam, a vehicle with a Ukrainian flag on the back pulls up before two men in camouflage jump out with rifles and one of them begins cursing out the woman before appearing to fire at her car while a child sits inside it.

“Once a Nazi always a Nazi,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry captioned the video on its official Twitter account. “This is the kind of terror Ukrainians are living in: witness Ukrainian military berate and shoot at a mother with a child in the backseat, calling her ‘pig’ & ‘scum’ simply for… speaking Russian. No Nazis, they say…”

Unfortunately for Russia’s diplomats, if the overacting in the clip wasn’t enough of a red flag, the video was almost immediately geolocated to an area deep in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Moreover, dash-cams have been banned on Ukrainian territory during the war.

Even pro-Kremlin Telegram channels admitted the video was a clumsy fake.

“The video is fake. Our [guys] are clumsily practicing. In carrying out such information operations, our [guys] still have to learn and learn,” wrote the pro-war channel Notes of a Veteran, one of the first to begin circulating the clip.

[LFC]

Gee, what a great way to gain support from female medics you desperately need in your military. The Russian military in Ukraine is overflowing with sick, twisted, sadistic f***s who absolutely should die.

Russian troops in Ukraine have allegedly been coercing their own female medics into acting as sex slaves for high-ranking officers—and punishing them if they don’t submit to the twisted arrangement.

That’s according to a Russian service member who is back home recovering after she says she witnessed a string of horrors committed by her fellow troops.

In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the woman, identified only as Margarita, says female medics assigned to her regiment were coerced into becoming “field wives” for platoon officers—a job that required them to cook and clean for the men, while also “pleasing” them sexually.

Margarita says the medics were shocked by what they found when they arrived in Ukraine. “When we went there, no one, of course, knew what was going on. And when we understood, there was no turning back,” she said

She said she refused to go along with the arrangement, but then learned commanders had been ordered to “severely punish” her for the refusal.

“For a month I just lived outside. When others spent the night in tents and houses, I slept on the ground, near the road, in a small forest… They wanted to break me so that I would agree to sleep with [the colonel],” she said.

According to her, another woman who had been coerced into serving as the “field wife” to a platoon officer had been left permanently disabled after the officer drunkenly shot her.

“They arranged it to look like the Ukrainians had done it. He shot himself in the arm, as if he were [wounded] defending her, and after three weeks somewhere he returned back from the hospital,” she said.

Margarita said women were assigned to different units, “one for reconnaissance, the other for tankers, the third for infantry.” Other female service members had been forced to sleep with multiple men.

“They gave Alina away back in September. Just presented it to her as a done deal: You will be with this guy, he likes you,” she said of a colleague from her medical unit who had allegedly been “passed around” and never sent back.

After that, Margarita said, an officer had quipped to her: “‘We cashed in on Alinka, so let’s cash in on you too!’ But I looked at him in such a way that he immediately added, ‘Fine, I’m just kidding.’”

Women aren't the only ones abused.

In addition to forced sex, she said, she’d also witnessed officers routinely shoot at and abuse subordinates. One common practice was locking troops who didn’t want to fight on the frontline in cold basements filled with rats—and leaving them there naked.

“They’d force them to dig their own graves. They’d dig a hole, and force them to lie down there. Then other guys, at gunpoint, would sprinkle dirt completely on top of them. Not even their heads were left out… Then the platoon leader or company commander would move away and shoot at random around the grave. Goodbye to anyone he hit, and anyone who survived is already crawling out of this hole like a fool,” Margarita said.

It's a prison rules military structure.

[indy]

Sounds like the vaunted Russian military machine. Not much has changed there since WWII.

Of course, we have our own issues, like why we not only tolerate it as we line up children to be mowed down in front of AK-47s but actually seem to think this is a necessary price of 'freedom', at least in a significant section of the population. So, yeah, it's hard to get too high and mighty about it.

[LFC]

Ukraine just hit a major railway hub in Melitopol that is important to the Russians for effective supplying of the southern front.

Ukraine struck a railway depot and knocked out power in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol deep behind the front line on Wednesday amid growing talk from Kyiv of a counterassault against Russian forces worn out by a failed winter offensive.

Unverified images on the internet showed explosions lighting up the night sky with streaks of contrails in Melitopol, base of the Russian-controlled administration in Zaporizhzhia, one of five Ukrainian provinces Russia claims to have annexed.

Ukraine's exiled mayor of the city confirmed there were explosions there. Russia's state TASS news agency, citing Moscow-installed officials, said a railway depot was damaged and power knocked out to the city and nearby villages.

Melitopol, with a pre-war population of around 150,000, is a railway logisitics hub for Russian forces in southern Ukraine and part of the land bridge linking Russia to the occupied Crimea peninsula.

There was no public information about the weapons Ukraine might have used for the strike. The city is at the far edge of the range of Ukraine's HIMARS rockets and within reach of newer weapons it is said to be deploying, including air-launched JDAM bombs and ground-launched GLSDB munitions promised by the United States. Russia said it shot down a GLSDB on Tuesday, the first time it has reported doing so.

The strike could hamper Moscow's rear logistics at a time when Kyiv has suggested it could soon mount a counterattack against Russian forces who have secured no big victories in a months-long offensive despite the war's bloodiest fighting.

Meanwhile Russia isn't really getting anywhere with its offensives.

Ukrainian forces have stuck mainly to the defensive since their last big advance nearly five months ago. In that time, Moscow has launched a winter assault using hundreds of thousands of reservists and tens of thousands of convicts recruited from prisons for its Wagner private army.

But as the winter turns to spring, questions hover over how much longer the Russians can sustain their offensive and when the Ukrainians will strike back.

There are clear signs the Russian assault is flagging. The average number of daily Russian attacks on the front line reported by Ukraine's general staff has declined for four straight weeks since the start of March, to 69 in the past seven days from 124 in the week of March 1-7. Just 57 attacks were reported on Wednesday.

Reuters journalists near the front lines west of Bakhmut and further north also reported a notable decline in the intensity of Russian attacks last week.

A sense of anticipation ahead of the counteroffensive is building inside Ukraine.

Not reported here but in the past two days they also hit 6 other Russian bases and supply depots in the Zaporizhzhia region including Berdyansk, a major ammo and equipment hub along the coast to the NW of Melitopol. It should be noted that Melitopol and Berdyansk are out of HIMARS range, so it appears that some of the longer range equipment promised by Biden is arriving in Ukraine. This could be the precursor to a major counteroffensive. A lot has been written about the importance of Crimea in particular and Ukraine may have decided that attacking here is strategically the smartest thing to do.

[andydp]

I'm sure you're aware of the recent leaks concerning the UKR and RUS war.  Not to be outdone, Tucker C has managed to tweak the news to coincide with Russian propaganda.  Where would a US journalist get erroneous pro Russian figures ? From the Russians !!

Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures from 'leaked intelligence' to argue Ukraine is losing the war


Fox News host Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures about the Ukraine-Russia war.  He cited numbers from "leaked intelligence" to argue that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia.  Actual leaked US intelligence documents paint a very different picture.

The document suggests that Russia has suffered between 189,500 and 223,000 casualties with up to 43,000 troops killed in action, while Ukraine has suffered between 124,500 and 131,000 casualties with up to 17,500 soldiers killed in action.

The leaked document was subsequently altered and shared around Russian Telegram accounts to falsely show the reverse: that Russia had suffered fewer casualties. But even those faked numbers were still lower casualty rates than what Carlson referenced.

A representative for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Friday.

However, Carlson did say "Ukrainian air defenses have been utterly degraded," which matches more closely what the leaked intelligence claims.

Ukraine's air defenses, bolstered by Western equipment, have effectively countered Russia's attacks throughout the more-than-year-long war in Ukraine. However, there's evidence that Ukrainian air defense systems have been seriously degraded.

At the current rate of use, according to the leaked US documents, Ukrainian air defenses will "be completely reduced" by May 23, The New York Times previously reported.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tucker-carlson-shared-made-up-casualty-figures-from-leaked-intelligence-to-argue-ukraine-is-losing-the-war/ar-AA19S9iy?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a32cbeead1a423aaea30a204889041b&ei=10

[goldenvalley]

Apr 15, 2023 19:42:28 GMT andydp said:

I'm sure you're aware of the recent leaks concerning the UKR and RUS war.  Not to be outdone, Tucker C has managed to tweak the news to coincide with Russian propaganda.  Where would a US journalist get erroneous pro Russian figures ? From the Russians !!

Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures from 'leaked intelligence' to argue Ukraine is losing the war


Fox News host Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures about the Ukraine-Russia war.  He cited numbers from "leaked intelligence" to argue that Ukraine is losing the war with Russia.  Actual leaked US intelligence documents paint a very different picture.

The document suggests that Russia has suffered between 189,500 and 223,000 casualties with up to 43,000 troops killed in action, while Ukraine has suffered between 124,500 and 131,000 casualties with up to 17,500 soldiers killed in action.

The leaked document was subsequently altered and shared around Russian Telegram accounts to falsely show the reverse: that Russia had suffered fewer casualties. But even those faked numbers were still lower casualty rates than what Carlson referenced.

A representative for Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Insider on Friday.

However, Carlson did say "Ukrainian air defenses have been utterly degraded," which matches more closely what the leaked intelligence claims.

Ukraine's air defenses, bolstered by Western equipment, have effectively countered Russia's attacks throughout the more-than-year-long war in Ukraine. However, there's evidence that Ukrainian air defense systems have been seriously degraded.

At the current rate of use, according to the leaked US documents, Ukrainian air defenses will "be completely reduced" by May 23, The New York Times previously reported.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tucker-carlson-shared-made-up-casualty-figures-from-leaked-intelligence-to-argue-ukraine-is-losing-the-war/ar-AA19S9iy?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a32cbeead1a423aaea30a204889041b&ei=10

So is Tuckums doing this ala` Trump...parroting stuff he's picked up somewhere without much understanding of what he's doing beyond a vague knowledge that it might help him look good to someone out there? Or does he know exactly where the info is coming from and is using it intentionally to please Putin?

[LFC]

Apr 16, 2023 19:19:54 GMT goldenvalley said:

So is Tuckums doing this ala` Trump...parroting stuff he's picked up somewhere without much understanding of what he's doing beyond a vague knowledge that it might help him look good to someone out there? Or does he know exactly where the info is coming from and is using it intentionally to please Putin?

I choose Door #2.

[AnBr]

Ditto.

[LFC]

This is a well made case that if you are for peace, the only real solution to that end is arming Ukraine. I've agreed all along. Anything that ends in less than total Russian failure means they'll be back at it again once they rearm. History tells us this, and it's not just Putin. If they have a toehold in Ukraine (including Crimea) and Ukraine is not part of NATO, they're doomed to be attacked again.

Today, hardly anyone in the world supports Putin’s war in Ukraine. Since its start, I have had many discussions with senior Biden administration officials, including with President Biden himself. They want this war to end now. NATO leaders also want this war to end now. In fact, I cannot think of a single world leader who wants the war to continue. Those who believe that the Pentagon wants to use this “proxy war” to weaken Russia, or that Beijing wants to use this “proxy war” to deplete American military supplies, are wrong. And no one wants this war to end more than President Zelenskyy himself. Nothing is harder personally for Zelenskyy than getting the daily reports of new deaths of Ukrainian citizens who he feels he failed to protect.

I doubt there are many Russians left that support this war’s continuation. Recent polls, however imperfect, show that Russian society wants peace over war. Most business elites stayed quiet but detested this war from the beginning. As human and economic costs continue to rise, we get hints that some in Putin’s inner circle want this barbaric invasion to end, too.

There is one person, however, who clearly wants this war to continue – Vladimir Putin. If you really want peace in Ukraine, then you must either convince Putin to end his invasion or compel him to stop fighting. Right now, I don’t think that diplomatic overtures will stop Putin. Instead, more and better weapons to Ukraine, and more and better sanctions against the Russian economy, especially Putin’s inner circle, will compel Putin to stop fighting. Tragically, it’s that simple.

My critics call me a warmonger and a Russian hater when I make this argument. They say, ‘you can’t be for peace and advocate for more weapons to Ukraine.’ They say, ‘you can’t like Russians and push for sanctions that will hurt average Russian citizens, including those opposed to the war.’ I take these arguments seriously. As someone committed to peace as a goal and diplomacy as its means, I feel uneasy arguing for more and better weapons for Ukraine. The same goes for sanctions, knowing they will impact common Russians more than Putin and his circle. Right now, however, I don’t see any realistic or moral alternatives.

[andydp]

Apr 15, 2023 19:42:28 GMT andydp said:

I'm sure you're aware of the recent leaks concerning the UKR and RUS war.  Not to be outdone, Tucker C has managed to tweak the news to coincide with Russian propaganda.  Where would a US journalist get erroneous pro Russian figures ? From the Russians !!

Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures from 'leaked intelligence' to argue Ukraine is losing the war


www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tucker-carlson-shared-made-up-casualty-figures-from-leaked-intelligence-to-argue-ukraine-is-losing-the-war/ar-AA19S9iy?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a32cbeead1a423aaea30a204889041b&ei=10

A follow up to the above is this article from Foreign Policy"  I've clipped out some relevant paragraphs but this article needs to be read in its entirety

How Gamers Eclipsed Spies as an Intelligence Threat

This leak is not a strange one-off but a harbinger of a future where secret statecraft meets an online world in which, for many people, the virtual is replacing the physical as a source of companionship, camaraderie, and social clout. This online world is fast replacing traditional espionage as a source of intelligence leaks—a shift that has profound implications for the future of spycraft, especially counterintelligence.

The leaked documents—containing, among other things, highly classified assessments of Russian and Ukrainian losses, information on some 100 Western special operations troops deployed in Ukraine, and information on arms deals between foreign countries—made their way across an archipelago of niche servers on Discord, a platform for private online communities that particularly attracts video games enthusiasts. They began their journey on Thug Shaker Central, a Discord server moderated by Teixeira dedicated to military-themed video games, cool guns, and other shared interests. His group of 20-odd members had previously broken away from a larger server dedicated to a popular military YouTube influencer with the pseudonym Oxide.

From there, the documents hopped to a forum for fans of YouTuber wow_mao, and to another online forum called Minecraft Earth Map, where they were used by an anonymous user to own an opponent in an online argument about the war in Ukraine. Other users then took the documents out of the Discord realm, spreading them to other hubs of the chronically online. These forums included 4chan—the anonymous message board notorious for intentionally shocking photos, cyberpranks, and viral memes—as well as pro-Russian channels on Telegram.

This slow creep took several months—the opposite of a viral, targeted intelligence leak. Teixeira, under his username OG (short for “original gangster,” internet slang for “old-school”), seems to have dropped documents into Thug Shaker Central at a steady clip. But only after three months or more did the classified documents finally come to the attention of Western media outlets and bewildered intelligence agencies. In the early days of OG’s posting, his chat companions on Thug Shaker Central kept his spilled secrets among themselves.

This slow creep took several months—the opposite of a viral, targeted intelligence leak. Teixeira, under his username OG (short for “original gangster,” internet slang for “old-school”), seems to have dropped documents into Thug Shaker Central at a steady clip. But only after three months or more did the classified documents finally come to the attention of Western media outlets and bewildered intelligence agencies.

foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/15/ukraine-leak-intelligence-discord-espionage-gamers-internet-online/

[goldenvalley]

Apr 19, 2023 18:45:32 GMT andydp said:

Apr 15, 2023 19:42:28 GMT andydp said:

I'm sure you're aware of the recent leaks concerning the UKR and RUS war.  Not to be outdone, Tucker C has managed to tweak the news to coincide with Russian propaganda.  Where would a US journalist get erroneous pro Russian figures ? From the Russians !!

Tucker Carlson shared made-up casualty figures from 'leaked intelligence' to argue Ukraine is losing the war


www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tucker-carlson-shared-made-up-casualty-figures-from-leaked-intelligence-to-argue-ukraine-is-losing-the-war/ar-AA19S9iy?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=0a32cbeead1a423aaea30a204889041b&ei=10

A follow up to the above is this article from Foreign Policy"  I've clipped out some relevant paragraphs but this article needs to be read in its entirety

How Gamers Eclipsed Spies as an Intelligence Threat

This leak is not a strange one-off but a harbinger of a future where secret statecraft meets an online world in which, for many people, the virtual is replacing the physical as a source of companionship, camaraderie, and social clout. This online world is fast replacing traditional espionage as a source of intelligence leaks—a shift that has profound implications for the future of spycraft, especially counterintelligence.

The leaked documents—containing, among other things, highly classified assessments of Russian and Ukrainian losses, information on some 100 Western special operations troops deployed in Ukraine, and information on arms deals between foreign countries—made their way across an archipelago of niche servers on Discord, a platform for private online communities that particularly attracts video games enthusiasts. They began their journey on Thug Shaker Central, a Discord server moderated by Teixeira dedicated to military-themed video games, cool guns, and other shared interests. His group of 20-odd members had previously broken away from a larger server dedicated to a popular military YouTube influencer with the pseudonym Oxide.

From there, the documents hopped to a forum for fans of YouTuber wow_mao, and to another online forum called Minecraft Earth Map, where they were used by an anonymous user to own an opponent in an online argument about the war in Ukraine. Other users then took the documents out of the Discord realm, spreading them to other hubs of the chronically online. These forums included 4chan—the anonymous message board notorious for intentionally shocking photos, cyberpranks, and viral memes—as well as pro-Russian channels on Telegram.

This slow creep took several months—the opposite of a viral, targeted intelligence leak. Teixeira, under his username OG (short for “original gangster,” internet slang for “old-school”), seems to have dropped documents into Thug Shaker Central at a steady clip. But only after three months or more did the classified documents finally come to the attention of Western media outlets and bewildered intelligence agencies. In the early days of OG’s posting, his chat companions on Thug Shaker Central kept his spilled secrets among themselves.

This slow creep took several months—the opposite of a viral, targeted intelligence leak. Teixeira, under his username OG (short for “original gangster,” internet slang for “old-school”), seems to have dropped documents into Thug Shaker Central at a steady clip. But only after three months or more did the classified documents finally come to the attention of Western media outlets and bewildered intelligence agencies.

foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/15/ukraine-leak-intelligence-discord-espionage-gamers-internet-online/

Seems like we've been primed by spy novels and movies to expect some sort of evil genius bad guy to be behind something like this. But here we get a stupid gamer showing off his access to classified docs to other stupid gamers. Eventually it moves out beyond the original group (OG!) into wider distribution where it can do real damage.