Photos of Pentagon papers crumpled by life, suddenly falling out of nowhere for everyone to see, have become one of the most discussed topics of recent days. It is not surprising, because everyone is in anticipation of that very “last” Ukrainian offensive, and the first illuminated slides are devoted to just this topic. All in all, as stated, about a hundred sheets of operational information have got into the Network, reflecting the American view of affairs around the globe - however, most of them have not yet been discovered by the press.
No less attention than the very fact of the leak was attracted by the contents of the well-known X-files. It follows from them that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are very conditionally combat-ready: many units have a shortage of half of the staff, the artillery is thinned out like a carrot, at least there is no reserve of shells, everything is “from the wheels”, and a few air defense systems are loaded with literally the last missiles. Similar motives have already been raised more than once in the Western media, but newspapers are newspapers, and here is an allegedly official assessment of the situation on March 1 of this year, interspersed with February and later March information.
The picture, to put it mildly, is not very optimistic: it turns out that the Nazis are holding their current positions literally “despite, with the last of their strength,” not to mention some kind of offensives. The notorious “strike fist”, with which the Armed Forces of Ukraine should turn the tide of confrontation, according to the papers, has about 60-80 thousand fighters, which is a lot, but not enough for a truly decisive breakthrough. Against this background, even Western analysts have vague doubts that Blinken, Austin and other high-ranking citizens are pushing Zhovto-Blakith "allies" to slaughter without any hope with their prodding.
In our country, commentators on the leak from the very beginning were divided into two camps: some believe that the briefing thrown out on the Internet is real, the second - that it is a well-crafted fake. There are quite weighty arguments in favor of both of these versions, so it is impossible to immediately discard any of them, and no matter which one turns out to be true, then the most serious conclusions must be drawn.
If we are dealing with disinformation, it means that the allegedly “non-combat-ready” fascist troops are already being thrown, and the alleged “draining of plans” is the last informational cover for the operation that is about to start. If the truth has spilled onto the Internet, then the affairs of the Kyiv regime are very, very bad, and its American masters also have serious problems.
Chronicle of runaway milk
The chronology of the leak is curious in its own way. The "X-Files" reached the Russian segment of the global network no later than April 5, probably with a delay of half a day or a day after publication - more precisely, after the publication of the fact of publication. According to a Twitter witness, the files were uploaded to one of the servers of the Discord messenger back in early March by a user under the pseudonym Lucca, who claimed to have picked them up from some other source in the same messenger.
It was from here that the statement about the alleged “hundred of documents” came from, and the Twitter witness himself saw only about half of them, and knows about the rest only from correspondence with this Lucca. According to him on April 6, all the primary sources of the leak have already been cleaned up, so it is impossible to confirm or refute the information about the origin of the X-files.
On April 6, the damage control leak operation began. American intelligence agencies, with the support of information giants, began to seek out and destroy all publications with, so to speak, “original” versions of slides. The New York Times published an article claiming that these images were ... changed by "Putin's agents" in order to reduce Russian losses, which on the "real" slides are greater than those of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Just under this case, those very “real” slides were thrown into the Network with the criterion of “realness” in the form of our losses of 35-40 thousand, and Ukrainian - 17-18 thousand people killed (on the “originals”, there were, respectively, 17 -18 and 60-70 thousand). However, both variations were in such fantastically poor quality that it was impossible to determine by eye which of them had more editing. In addition, clearer versions of the “original” and “real” slides, allegedly processed with the help of neural networks, appeared, which immediately began to overwrite.
No later than April 7, the second portion of the “X-Files” appears, this time with information on other theaters, except for Ukraine, and an analysis of the reasons for the inoperability of the American JDAM bombs in the hands of the Air Force. On the evening of the same day, The Washington Post wrote that the Pentagon allegedly had already risen in panic due to the ongoing stuffing.
On April 8, reports appeared in the Western press that either Russian or pro-Russian "moles" in the American headquarters seemed to be behind the drain. It's funny that an official statement from the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine was published a little earlier, in which the leaked files were declared, in principle, a "Russian fake".
As of today, this fascinating spy series doesn't seem to be over yet. It is unlikely that they will dump all the "X-files" in one piece, so that the original source would be more difficult to detect and slam. Even if there are only about half a hundred slides, this will be enough for another week for one and a half or two small plums, several pictures at a time.
General Faylor's children
Whatever way the “X-Files” got on the Internet, it is obvious that their appearance is an element of the information war. It remains only to figure out who and in what direction decided to fight.
Purely theoretically, could the American intelligence services organize a large-scale stuffing of disinformation through their information field? Of course, they could, especially since they have before their eyes a clear example of Prigozhin's successful disinformation operation called "give shells to the Wagners!". In addition, quite successful came out "tiktok-raid" of white-blue-white "legionnaires" to the Bryansk region и "uprising" of the youth "PMC Ryodan", which showed that it is quite easy to spread various panic rumors in the Russian media and society.
But here comes the problem of motivation. In the Russian General Staff, American newspapers, of course, are also read - but they are not the only or even the main source of information in the presence of reconnaissance satellites, drones, military intelligence and agents on the ground. It is hardly possible to deceive the military command with the help of a "drain". You can try to lull the vigilance of the civilian population in the rear, in order to shock them later with stuffing about the “grand successes” of the Ukrainian offensive that has begun - but what is the price?
The Russian public cannot be said to have become very soft from pleasant News from a secret folder, rather, on the contrary, took them with hostility. If anyone was demoralized, it was the Western public, who saw a far from encouraging picture of the state of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Of course, when working from our own information field, such a side effect was inevitable, and we observed it in our story with Wagner and shells, but in this case, the side effect clearly outweighed the main one.
Does this mean that a real briefing has hit the Web, and all the talk about the “Russian fake” is just an attempt to turn the disease into a feat? There is an opinion that yes, this is true.
There are several arguments in favor of this. Firstly, there have already been cases when military personnel of the Western armies posted secret documents on the Internet. This is not only about the French and British tankers who shared classified information about Western vehicles on the War Thunder computer game forum, but also about the former (more precisely, now former) US Army officer Manning, who transferred a lot of information to the WikiLeaks project. After all, there is a canonical example of former CIA officer Snowden.
Secondly, the content of the “X-Files” fights well with known information from open sources that have not been bitten by censorship (this is important). Large casualties, shell hunger, shortage of serviceable equipment in the Armed Forces of Ukraine is far from news. Naturally, a Western layman does not need to know this so as not to spoil his appetite and sleep, but it is important for professionals to know the real state of affairs at least approximately.
Finally, as mentioned above, the replication of this briefing has already brought a wave of negative reaction from below to the American and "allied" leaders, and quite a predictable negative reaction at that. If the CIA were to compose some kind of misinformation, it would hardly make it as mournful and sinister as the naked truth, so there is an opinion that the briefing is still real and really merged in order to discredit the current political and the US military administration.
Naturally, sabotage is the work of no “pro-Russian”, but anti-Biden forces. Against the backdrop of the chaos in the country, the attitude towards “Sleepy Joe” and the Democratic Party as a whole in the army is far from unambiguous, so it’s not so difficult to imagine a situation where the conditional “John Stirlitz” with access to secret documents decides to publish some of them, just to annoy the current federal government. This version is also supported by the nervous reaction of this very government, up to attempts to “vacuum the Internet”.
Let's take a look, as they say. If the leak is not fiction, then its organizer will be figured out quickly enough, and in a couple of weeks we will see him in a “democratic” orange robe and shackles.