US, NATO military plans leak: Actual war strategy or Russian fake news?
- Reference: 1680905654
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/04/07/us_military_plans_leak/
- Source link:
The purported classified documents surfaced on Twitter and Telegram, and immediately sparked a US Department of Defense probe. Uncle Sam said it is checking out the blueprints, which may well be misinformation.
"We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the Department is reviewing the matter," a Pentagon spokesperson told The Register Friday.
[1]
The documents, if at all genuine, [2]appear to have been modified to, among other things, overstate supposed American estimates of Ukrainians killed, and understating Russian deaths, which could be a sign of a Kremlin-backed disinformation campaign, military analysts told The New York Times.
[3]
[4]
"I do believe it is an example of hybrid warfare meant to shake the faith of the Ukrainian population," Tom Kellermann told The Register . Kellermann is senior veep of cyber strategy at Contrast Security, and he has also held cybersecurity-related posts in the US government.
"Russia is the king of disinformation and hybrid warfare," he added.
[5]
By Friday, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the military plans "virtual fake leaks."
"Moscow is eager to disrupt [Ukraine's] counteroffensive but it will see the real plans on the ground. Soon," Mykhailo Podolyak [6]said .
Ukraine and its allies, however, aren't the only ones calling the shared blueprints bogus or misleading.
Down the rabbit hole
Gray Zone, a pro-Russian Telegram channel, [7]called the leaks "disinformation by Western intelligence in order to mislead our command in identifying the enemy's strategy in the coming counteroffensive."
The reaction to the supposed leaked papers from both sides of the war on Ukraine indicate a growing awareness of the role of online information operations during wartime. It's also worth noting the military plans surfaced about a week after another series of high-profile leaked documents made headlines, allegedly showing how [8]NTC Vulkan , a Moscow IT consultancy, supports Russia's military and intelligence agencies with cyber warfare tools including automated propaganda efforts.
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Google-owned Mandiant examined those documents, and [10]described one of the tools as "a framework used to control the online information environment and manipulate public opinion, enhance psychological operations, and store and organize data for upstream communication of efforts."
Winning the disinfo war?
Indeed, Russia has been waging a disinformation battle since its ground invasion of Ukraine began.
These [11]Kremlin-pushed false narratives have run the gamut from accusing Ukrainian "Nazis" of being the aggressors in this conflict and committing war crimes, to downplaying the effect of Western nations' sanctions against Russia. Kremlin-controlled news outlets, social media networks, and GRU-run Telegram channels amplify pro-Putin brainwashing.
"This is a very dangerous activity, fighting for the minds of people, and this is the game in which Russia won on their territory," Viktor Zhora, who leads Ukraine's cybersecurity agency, [12]said last year.
To be fair, Russia isn't the only country adept at information operations. [13]China , [14]Iran and even the [15]US and UK are [16]quite good at it, too.
[17]Leaked IT contractor files detail Kremlin's stockpile of cyber-weapons
[18]As Russia wages disinfo war, Ukraine's cyber chief calls for global anti-fake news fight
[19]Putin to staffers: Throw out your iPhones, or 'give it to the kids'
[20]Iran, China-linked gangs join Putin's disinformation war online
The most recent purported military leaks should be met with skepticism, John Hultquist, head of Mandiant intelligence analysis, told The Register .
"Russia has tried to undermine confidence in the Ukrainian military with disinformation delivered through a variety of schemes," he said. "They regularly leak realistic, but fake disinformation, like documents."
"On several occasions they have planted fabricated disinformation in real leaked data," Hultquist added, and this is important as analysts have notified that the supposedly new US and NATO documents appear to be modifications of original materials.
"In all cases, the goal is to launder their disinformation through careless intermediaries," Hultquist said. "We are very fortunate that this leak has received such a skeptical reception." ®
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[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/06/us/politics/ukraine-war-plan-russia.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/defensetechweek&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDDm4U-n8YtZ9JL@wMnmqgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
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[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/defensetechweek&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZDDm4U-n8YtZ9JL@wMnmqgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1644276030503256064
[7] https://t.me/s/grey_zone/18064
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/31/vulkan_files_russia/
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_specialfeatures/defensetechweek&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZDDm4U-n8YtZ9JL@wMnmqgAAAMs&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/cyber-operations-russian-vulkan
[11] https://www.mandiant.com/resources/blog/information-operations-surrounding-ukraine
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/22/ukraine_cybersecurity_chief_mwise/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/11/deepfake_news_anchors/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/04/microsoft_iran_charlie_hebdo_hack/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/25/twitter_meta_troll_accounts/
[16] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-propaganda-push-in-iraq/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/31/vulkan_files_russia/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/22/ukraine_cybersecurity_chief_mwise/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/kremlin_iphone_ban/
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/19/iran_china_disinformation_online/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Neither one nor the other.
The mere fact that the mainstream press is slobbering...
All perfectly normal. The usual suspects are acting as the usual suspects do, ie acting from the same hymn sheet. 51 current or former intelligence officers say this has all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not, maybe it's something NATO's leaked to feed misinformation to Russia. It's a game everyone's playing and both sides try to manipulate and control shape the narrative.
But from what I've seen, there are several versions of the documents floating around, usually photos of printed materials. Some do appear to have edited casualty estimates to favor one side, or the other. This is an interesting project-
https://en.zona.media/article/2022/05/20/casualties_eng
Mediazona, working with BBC News Russian service and a team of volunteers, continues to collect data about the casualties sustained by the Russian military in Ukraine. These numbers do not represent the actual death toll since we can only review publicly available reports including social media posts by relatives, reports in local media, and statements by the local authorities.
So a semi-open source project to try and provide estimates. Neither of the two partners are exactly neutral, or impartial wrt to the Russian government (or 'regime'), but the methodology appears sound. But the numbers diverge widely from 'official' casualty estimates given out by the US, UK, Ukraine, NATO or even the Institute for the Promotion of War. Casuality estimation is an inexact science though, because reports use different metrics, ie counting deaths, or counting deaths plus wounded, then differentiating between wounded that can rejoin vs those that can't.
There's also some common sense. If Russia's suffered 200k+ and Ukraine <50k, then.. how? Most of the conflict so far has been artillery driven, and Russia's outgunning Ukraine by 6-8x, and has significant numerical advantages in number of artillery pieces and volume of fire. It could be that Ukraine's artillery is much more precise and effective, or it could be the usual fog of war.
Hopefully both sides will come to their senses soon and there'll be serious attempts at peace negotiations. If not, actual casualty numbers are just going to keep climbing.
(oh, and I do not have any copies, won't link to any I've seen, or comment on any of the specifics. If they are classified docs, they're classified docs)
Neither one nor the other.
This "leak" is just as credible as the group of friends hiring a yacht and scooba gear. The mere fact that the mainstream press is slobbering all over it is testament to that.