Classified military intelligence documents, detailing Ukraine’s combat readiness, substantiate the claim that Ukraine’s ability to launch a Spring counteroffensive depends upon the readiness of a fourth Ukrainian army.
In an article published on April 6th, 2023, entitled “Ukraine War Plans Leak Prompts Pentagon Investigation,” the New York Times claims that the documents display the results of manipulation. In its claims of manipulation, the NYT claims a) “military analysts” analyzed the documents, whereas b) their analysis indicates modifications of the “original format.” Neither of these claims appear with even so much as a shred of evidence. The NYT neither names the “military analysts” nor their analyses for a). While the NYT’s remarks on modifications provide proof for the authenticity of the documents, the NYT’s claim of modification is without support for b) There is no evidence of modifications.
It is unclear whether the military analysts are from the Pentagon or a part of its alleged investigation into the leak, as the title of the article would suggest. It is not a straightforward inference to assume so. Since the photographs, which are widely circulated throughout the Internet, appear to be the same photographs appearing on multiple news media channels, especially the Russian Information Agency (i.e., https://www.ria.ru), where they are shown in a video, there is no reason to consider modifications. The video is available at: https://player.smotrim.ru/iframe/video/id/2593835/start_zoom/true/showZoomBtn/false/sid/vesti/isPlay/false/mute/true/tid/2368/?acc_video_id=2768754
Furthermore, the New York Times claims that the documents leaked to the public are “slides,” suggesting that the ultimate source of the information’s medium appeared to have been electronic software. While there is no doubt that the original documents are the result of electronic software, the images of the leaked documents obtained by the author do not appear to be electronic software. They are not slides from a slide deck in an electronic file format. The bundle of documents are printouts.
What appears to have leaked to the public are photographs of a set of documents. Based on a careful analysis of the photographs, five or more documents appear to have been folded into a single bundle. The five documents, which are listed below, have a major crease roughly within the centre of the page. The documents are printed in landscape on ordinary printer paper (i.e., on an 8.5 inch x 11 inch piece of paper). The documents appear to have been folded in half longwise with the topmost part of the document folded downward towards the bottom. A second fold is visible where the documents appear to have been folded in half again but short wise with one side folded to the other.
The distinction is important. If the the ultimate source of the information’s medium is electronic software, one could claim with reliable certainty that the leak arose form a breach in cybersecurity. It doesn’t appear as though there has been a breach in the cybersecurity designed for the protection of the classified information in the documents. The leak appears to be based on personnel, since the leak are photographs of a set of documents. These are actual pieces of paper.
The NYT suggests that the leak may have arose from contact with high ranking American personnel at Wiesbaden, Germany. The document document labeled “top secret” offering the “Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar,” analyzed here below, appears to have corresponded with the day that Ukrainian officials were at Wiesbaden, Germany for a war games sessions.
The fact that these are actual pieces of paper suggests that a person who may have attended one of those sessions received the bundle. It could be that the recipient photographed copies of the bundle he received, at which point his or her phone may have been subjected to a cyberattack, stolen, or leaked. Whatever the case may be, the photographs are photographs of actual pieces of paper.
The documents obtained by the author from the photographs are the following: 1) Russia/Ukraine | Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar (S/RELIDO) with a center aligned subtitle stating, “TOP SECRET HCS-P/SI-G/TK//FGI//RSEN/ORCON/NOFORN/FISA,” 2) US. Allied & PARTNER UAF Combat Power Build with a right aligned subtitle stating, “SECRET//REL TO FIN. UKR. FVEY. NATO,” 3) Russia/Ukraine Joint Staff J3/4/5 Daily Update (D+370) with a right aligned subtitle stating, “SECRET//NOFORN,” 4) Ukraine | Free Favorable to Vehicle Maneuver (~ 16 INCHES) Projections with a center aligned subtitle stating, “SECRET REL TO USA. FVEY,” 5) Advanced Russian IFO Attack Plan : Donetsk Axis, 6) Assessed Operations in the South with a subtitle stating, “TOP SECRET”. The dates on the documents range from February 28th, 2023 to March 1st, 2023. The lowest numbered page appears to be page 7; the highest numbered page appears to be 24. If the total number of documents leaked is more than the five released to the public, 19 more documents have yet to be released.
The NYT stated: “The analysts warned that documents released by Russian sources could be selectively altered to present the Kremlin’s disinformation.”
These documents do not appear to be modified in anyway. At least as far as the creases on the actual papers are concerned, the documents do not appear to have been manipulated at all. The documents with the creases display no modifications.
NYT further stated the estimates of Ukrainian war dead were the result of “overstating,” while those of Russian troops were that of “understating,” for neither of the claims do the authors of the article provide any evidence whatsoever. Despite the NYT’s claims, there are significant theoretical reasons to believe that the statistics on “war dead” from the classified documents are more likely to be authentic than not.
In a section entitled “TOTAL ASSESSED LOSSES” from the document entitled “Russia/Ukraine | Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar (S/RELIDO) with a center aligned subtitle stating, “TOP SECRET HCS-P/SI-G/TK//FGI//RSEN/ORCON/NOFORN/FISA,” the causalities for Russia are listed as 16,000 to 17,500, while the same for Ukraine is listed as 71,500. The New York Times claims these statistics are the result of selective alternations or modifications. These claims, however, do stand upon further examination.
The statistics from the documents are plausible. Recognition of the importance of Clausewitz’s contention that defense is a stronger form of war than offense is key here. Clausewitz’s argument, which is supported by three interlocking propositions (namely, that war is an extension of policy (or politics) by other means; that policy both affects and is affected by the course of armed conflict; and that policy affects the attacker more than the defender), leads inevitably to the conclusion that defense results in far fewer causalities than offense. The widely held ratio, which is derived from Clausewitz’s argument, is often described as a ratio of three to one.
A comparison of the Ukrainian “war dead” to that of the Russian conforms to the ratio. Kiev’s armies have been engaged in offensive actions, since the September counteroffensives. Since the statistics correspond to that ratio, there is absolutely no reason to believe the New York Times.
What the documents do prove, however, is collusion. The documents are proof that the Ukrainian armed forces are not only under the direct command of the United States but are nothing less than a proxy whose sole aim is to execute war plans designed, distributed, or dictated by none other than the United States. The United States does not, as the NYT has claimed, “[lack] a clear picture of Ukraine’s war strategy,” as an article’s title from June 8th, 2022 suggests. The United States is responsible for and executes on behalf of Ukraine its own war strategy for what is nothing other than a proxy.
These documents have already had an effect on the Russian ruling elite. Dmitry Peskov, the Press Secretary for the Kremlin, for instance, registered the documents as–without a doubt–a clear indication that “the United States and NATO are directly involved in the conflict,” as stated in an article entitled, “В офисе Зеленского назвали утечку секретных документов Пентагона уловкой,” published on April 7th, 2023 with Russian Information Agency.
With the leak of these documents, which provide incontrovertible evidence of the United States’ and NATO’s culpability in the execution of a proxy war of aggression, the risk that the conflict may expand beyond the borders of Ukraine heightens.
In addition, the documents provide proof of what is the fourth Ukrainian army. In one of the documents, there is a summary of 12 combat brigades that are being assembled right now for an eventual Spring counteroffensive, nine of which are apparently being trained, supplied, and equipped by the United States and other NATO allies. Of those nine brigades, the documents said that six would be ready by March 31 and the rest by April 30. Since a Ukrainian brigade has about 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers, the rough estimate of the number of Ukrainian troops in the fourth Ukrainian army amounts to anywhere from 48,000 to 60,000 troops, the vast majority of which are fresh recruits, conscripts, or recent volunteers.
These figures are likely exaggerated. It is more than likely that Ukrainian armed forces have managed to assemble less than half of the estimated number of troops listed in the documents. In what may be described as Ukraine’s last assemblage, the likely number of troops falls between an amount ranging from 24,000 to 30,000.
The Ukrainian armed forces’ General Staff has reacted with cynical comparisons to Soviet espionage. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Head of Office of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, decried the leak as “photoshop” in a statement he made on Twitter on April 7th, 2023.
Podolyak followed up his comments about the allegedly “photoshopped” documents by stating that the Ukrainian armed forces are planning on launching their long planned Spring counteroffensive “soon.”
A close reading of these documents purport to support Podolyak’s claim that Ukraine’s soon-to-be Spring counteroffensive aims at Zaporizhzhia and Melitopol where Ukraine’s General Staff seeks to sever Russia’s land bridge.
The New York Times’ reporting has likely done more preparatory work for this claim than even the Ukraine military, especially in the month of March. In report after report, the New York Times has in one way, shape, size or form repeated the claim.
- In an article published in the New York Times on March 8th, 2023, where the authors claim “Bakhmut is [the] Mercenary Group’s ‘Last Stand” in Ukraine, the authors say the “campaign will likely focus on the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukraine is building up forces, [as] Col. Roman Kostenko, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament who is serving in the country’s military, told Ukrainian television on Monday.”
- Published on March 13th, 2023 in an article by the New York Times, “Kyiv Seeking to Evacuate a Town It Controls,” the logic, the authors write, is to capture “territory around Melitopol,” so that “Ukrainian forces [may] sever a Russian line of control from the Crimean Peninsula to the Donbas region.”
- On March 14th, 2023, the New York Times in an article entitled, “Russian Attacks Yield Little but Casualties in Wide Arc of Ukraine’s East,” repeats: “the Ukrainians, anticipating a big influx of Western weaponry and fresh troops in the coming weeks and months, are widely expected to mount a counteroffensive. Analysts, Ukrainian officials, and even Russian commenters have suggested that it would come on the southwestern part of the front, with the Ukrainians [attempting] a push east from Kherson and south from Zaporizhzhia toward the city of Melitopol, hoping to sever the land bridge the Russians have seized that links the Crimean Peninsula to the eastern Donbas region.”
- Ukraine’s singular goal, we are told in an another article published on March 21st, 2023 with the title, “Little Time on the Battlefield to Dwell on Notions of Peace Talks,” is to bide time until Kyiv’s troops retake the initiative in the war. The “moment,” the authors explain, “remains unknown outside the close circle of the Ukrainian military high command.”
The attempt to portray the Ukrainian armed forces as capable of a counteroffensive is bound up entirely with the desire to delay, or rather, “bide time” for as long as possible, at least, that is, until “the moment,” which is none other than the day when a NATO country’s ground forces enter directly into the conflict against Russia. The collapse of Ukraine’s last assemblage, which shall mark the long anticipated “moment,” now portends the outbreak of a Third World War, the greatest tragedy of the 21st century, if not the history of mankind.