If you want to understand how a collection of highly classified documents could be removed from a secure facility and wind up being distributed to the public, let me introduce you to a CAOC. I know that CAOC sounds a bit like CHAOS, but that is just a serendipitous coincidence. While the following images are real (they were taken at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar about four years ago) this particular CAOC has nothing to do with the operation underway in Ukraine. I am using it as an example of what the U.S. European Command is doing in Germany to coordinate U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine.
A Joint EUCOM, NATO, Ukrainian Operations Center would include U.S. and NATO personnel from all member countries, as well as representatives of Ukraine’s military, carrying out activities such as collecting and distributing all relevant intelligence, liaison officers who coordinate activities, such as drone Intelligence, Surveillance & Reconnaissance aka ISR, operations planning, communications and logistics.
The following paragraph and photos come from a U.S. Central Command website for United States Air Forces Central and illustrates the actual look and complexity of a Joint or Combined operations center.
The Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) commands and controls the broad spectrum of what air power brings to the fight: Global Vigilance, Global Reach, and Global Power. Located at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, the CAOC provides the command and control of airpower throughout the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility; a 21 nation region stretching from Northeast Africa across the Middle East to Central and South Asia. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jessica Montano)
There is a room separate from what you see in these photos where the TOP SECRET information is handled. There are no photos of that room. TS material is NOT, I repeat NOT, allowed on this floor, because you have representatives from different countries working side by side. While there are some desks on this floor that handle SECRET NOFORN reports and documents, it is on screens and the personnel cleared for that sit in a separate section of the main room.
I learned today from media reports that some of the leaked information is classified as TOP SECRET because it reports on intercepted phone conversations between South Korean officials. That explains why the overall report, which contained some documents marked SECRET or SECRET NOFORN, carried the overall classification of TOP SECRET. Just because the parent document is TOP SECRET does not mean that every intelligence report in that publication is TOP SECRET.
Let me try to dispel some of the myths and falsehoods circulating the web about how this classified material made its way to the light of day.
First, no foreigners are allowed in the TOP SECRET SCIF (pronounced “skiff”). Only American citizens who hold a TS SCI clearance.
Second, the only way for that 100 plus page classified report to leave the SCIF is that it had to be printed and then physically carried out of the room (for the purpose of discussion I am assuming that the leaked material came from Operations Center that had access to the report). There is no way for anyone to take any kind of camera into a SCIF and then stand around snapping photos of classified documents. Just does not happen. Given the importance of the Ukraine mission for the U.S., the SCIF would be staffed with dozens of enlisted, officers and contractors who held TS clearances. The days of being able to copy material to a thumb drive ended thanks to Edward Snowden.
Third, it is not abnormal to print off briefings inside a SCIF. In fact, it is routine. What is not routine is that someone folded the report and hid it in some fashion to get it out of the SCIF. I have worked in SCIFs where you could bring in your backpack. So it is feasible that the leaker stuffed the report into his or her backpack and casually walked out when their shift was over. It also is possible that the person who purloined the documents folded them up and put them in a burn bag, which is routinely removed from the SCIF for shredding and destruction, and then recovered the document before it was destroyed.
Fourth, there is no way to “hack” a TS or S computer from the outside and remove material without setting off alarms.
My reason for delving into so much detail is to help you understand that when you have a leak of TS material that appeared on social media last week, it means it originated with someone in the U.S. military, the U.S. intelligence community, or a U.S. contractor working for one of those organizations (again, watch the Oliver Stone movie about Edward Snowden to gain some appreciation for the difficulty of taking highly classified printed material from a SCIF).
While the Russians have robust intelligence capabilities, I do not believe they are capable of fabricating these documents with this level of detail unless they had a recruited spy in the SCIF. If the Russians had that kind of access, why would they put out this kind of material and risk the exposure of that asset?
Many pundits and bloggers who have focused on what they consider “errors” and “falsifications” labor under the delusion that because something appears in a classified report it must be true. Not so. It is not uncommon for inaccurate or misleading information to appear in a classified document. How so? If the “intelligence data” you are reporting came from Ukrainian sources and is not fact checked against other intelligence, then you wind up presenting the ultimate Rosie Scenario.
One example of this is the claim that Russia has committed 97% of its Army to Ukraine. Congrats to Alex Christoforou who recalled in one of his recent strolling chats that the U.K.’s Defense Minister, Ben Wallace, was touting those number on February 14, 2023:
Wallace simply repeated information that was being briefed to the NATO alliance in February 2023. That does not make it true. What is not revealed in the release of the classified documents is the actual source for that information. This is one example of how garbage information makes its way into a classified report.
One final point. The information in those documents is a snap shot of what the U.S. and NATO believed as of March 1st. That does not mean they continue to accept as true data from the 1 March time frame as of 10 April. Do not fall into the illogical trap of assuming that what was written on 1 March still applies. The war in Ukraine is a dynamic affair and the plans outlined in the leaked documents probably are no longer feasible.
I think the docs are “sell sheets”. That is, they’re full of BS in order to sell the idea of more weapons and more war to 1st tier Western European leaders. The US is not worried about secrets being exposed. They’re worried about the lies.
You have no evidence for that. Just your opinion. What is your explanation for how these documents were created?
Something’s not clear to me. What’s the purpose of being able to print out docs in a SCIF if they can’t be removed from the room without hiding them?
Or, they can be removed from the room but need to be checked and logged at the door before removal. (Duh, just answered my own question I think).
Reasonable question. At times it is easier to work on a computer by having a written document to reference. Or your commander asked for a hard copy. Lots of possibilities.
Fundamental Flaw in U.S. Military. Hidebound Bureaucracy.
How many groups/acronyms does it take to share information? Apparently, the more the better.
Whatever happened, this leak probably came from someone important inside the office, someone that has the necessary clearance to leave the place without extrem surveillance.
Yes, of course my opinion. I also think the US created them and were leaked just as you wrote. That doesn’t contradict my thought that we created them as propaganda sell sheets…misrepresenting to our allies about UKie chances. Heck, we probably derived the required number of tanks based upon what we knew was available in Europe.
I think you give “them” too much credit….
……and that raises another question. You log in via an ID to access documents I assume. Then isn’t it easy enough to see who pulled up and printed out all the said documents plus maybe more for obfuscation purposes, unless it was done over time and even then, it would still narrow the candidate field I’d assume. This is beginning to intrigue me.
Don’t discount the possibility that the leaker asked someone else to print the briefing.
Given your descriptions of security clearances, SCIF security, the limited number of people with access, the specific dates of the documents – one would think it would easy to quickly create a short-list of potential leakers.
Kim Iversen just show us some documents that are photographs of the documents and she said that in this forme the leak come….so your point with you cant photo them is out Larry….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTFzW2aXM3s
Ok. But, asking as an outsider, if I was not complicit and I innocently printed out the doc for the leaker, would si or would I not now be telling on the leaker to whom I have the docs?
I could see how doing that still gets me called out on the carpet or otherwise disciplined. And wouldn’t the investigators still come to me – innocent or not – and interrogate me over my printing actions?
Or, what am I missing?
Steffen, it is possible that someone took the documents out of that room but didn’t want to hand them over to whoever they wanted to leak it to.
After all, I have no idea if the originals are watermarked in some way, but that possibility might worry the leaker.
So take the documents out of the secure area, bring them to a safe place, photograph them and then shred the originals.
The more interestring question, I believe, is “why?”. Why they were leaked at this particular time, in the midst of allegations about the much hyped “counter-offensive”, which is supposed to happen “any time now”? Or, even better, why they were leaked at all?
After I’ve learned about those documents, I’ve tried to answer the proverbial question “cui bono?” in the context of this leak, but to be honest, I can’t imagine who benefits from it.
It’s most definitely not the americans, unless the documents are officially sanctioned fakes for the purpose of misinformation (like the WW2 operation Bodyguard, for example); the documents look genuine enough, even if a little bit outdated. But the americans can’t be that naive to think that the russians are going to fall for it (from their perspective such documents would look “too good to be true”).
I can’t imagine that the russians are behind it simply it doesn’t make any sense – any leak of this magnitute would trigger counter-intel measures for sure and would jeopardize any HUMINT or ELINT assets they may have in place.
A third party, may be? One, that’s considered an “ally” to the US, and which has an asset in that operations center? Such assumption, however, raises another question: why an US ally would want to embarass the US with this kind of leak?
Docs were floating around 4chan for a month, and no one noticed until NYT and Bellingcat shown a bright searchlight on them.
I vote an intelligent US faction that doesn’t want a serious war with Russia.
Umm…Gen. Milley? Cui bono indeed.
Ray McGovern gave an answer to this question on Judge Napolitano yesterday. He said that its possible that whoever leaked these docs was trying to show that our top govt and military officials are lying to congress and the American people, which will hopefully reduce or eliminate the momentum that’s been building for a massive escalation by NATO. He compared it to the set of leaks during Vietnam where the top brass were claiming the Vietcong were less than 300k strong when they were more like 600k. Westmoreland was lying and demanding a couple hundred thousand more US soldiers be sent to Vietnam based on the lie that there were only 300k enemy and the 200k would win the war, when he knew very well they had 600k and expanding the war at that point would’ve just resulted in many more dead American kids. The leak, which occurred just before the Pentagon Papers leak, and which motivated Ellsberg to leak those docs, crushed Westmoreland’s insane attempts to widen the war and ultimately led to us leaving Vietnam. Perhaps this leaker is hoping to have a similar effect and avert a nuclear holocaust.
There is one piece of information in those documents, which is definitely false.
According to one of the docs, the bulgarians have offered their MiG-29s to the ukrainians. This one is definitely false, according to my acquaintances in Graf Ignatievo air base, where BgAF MiG-29s are stationed – nobody ever offered MiG-29s in flight-worthy condition to the ukies simply because such an act would represent a national treason under the bulgarian constitution (one of the few felonies, which still carries death penalty in BG). Offering airframes, which aren’t flight worthy is kind of meaningless – those were cannibalised for years for spare parts and won’t fly unless completely rebuilt. BTW, it’s pretty much the same situation with the bulgarian Su-25s stationed at Bezmer.
So, the piece of info about bulgarians offering aircrafts to the ukies – definitely false. Not that there wasn’t a pressure from the ukies and their US sponsors, but, fortunately, our current president is a former air force major general, and the caretaker government adhers to his instructions.
Doesn’t the difficulty in purloining the info increase the odds that it was purposely released by the US to misdirect?
Misdirect? How so? Some of the info released shows the US is spying on allies. How does that help Washington?
My theory is not exactly fully baked.
The US ‘theory’ on the NS blasts is pretty half-baked too, so you’re in good company. 😉
“Some of the info released shows the US is spying on allies. “…
“Allies” ? Vassals sound better appropriate .
Anyway, well deaf and blind “allies” living on Mars or on the Moon, not to yet know or imagining of that (and not capable even to remember the notorius Merkel’s evesdropping scandal… that produced absolutely no change at all in german vassallage, for example).
“How does that help Washington?”…
as a subtle show of intelligence and power to its vassals of who is in real charge: could help Washington quite a lot indeed.
Must keep the miserable little toadies in line by any and all means.
Do US allies really have the same belief as that naive young man who thinks he married a vestal virgin but was actually the varsity “joy”?
In other words… would US allies really be so shocked to learn that Americans listen to their conversations? Would that make any difference beyond just being more careful?
I think at most they would say something like “gotcha, now you owe me a favor” and that would be it.
It is well known that the US does indeed spy on its allies, so no real damage showing this again in the document … while at the same time doing so lends more credibility it being legit, along your very line of reasoning, thus giving the opportunity to misdirect.
In the end, however, considering all the bits, and the lack of any obvious misdirecting elements, it seems to be legit.
Was Merkel not bugged? This is all old hat.
The questions to ask are as usual, why this? why now?
Personally 4chan could put together a more accurate report on the state of Ukraine and russia and do it nearly for free, you Americans are getting ripped off.
personally I think the US is making way to much information top secret and overclasifies everything.
yes unfortunate for the security state it got leaked, im laughing because of how trashy the data was, its almost embarrassing.
I cant really speak for people in the system, but I guess some people in the deep state dont really care the system any more and are happy to let it burn.
unsure how the state can regain there compliance, possibly not using lawfare against prior elected officials to prevent them participating in elections, stop using the states power to suppress the will of the people?
I worked on some technology development under those kinds of security controls and the first thing you see is that it’s really difficult to have all the possible leaks covered. Another thing that struck me was the organization required to keep mission alignment is staggering. We don’t actually have a culture of discipline to keep ducks-ass water tight information control. I’m surprised leaks like this are not more frequent.
Having written about Operation Doublecross and the Red Orchestra back in the day I can tell you that much of what is shared in intelligence reports is nothing more than rumor and gibberish.
Agent Garbo who fabricated entire networks of agents out of his head and a map of london comes to mind.
I’m a simple guy, Vietnam War Navy Security Group Command 68-72. I don’t really care about anything but the following, given the historical rot of the leadership of our Country – The Destruction of Amerika led NATO, and that’s what’s going to happen as the Russians aren’t going to be taking any prisoners, they’ve had enough, per my read of their news. Long overdue in my estimation, given the Warmongers run amuck politics of the West!
“the Russians aren’t going to be taking any prisoners, ”
I agree but I think they don’t want to take on the burden of supporting the useless corrupt regimes of Europe or their people and from now on will only deal with them when it’s to their own benefit, and there’s very little Europe has that can provide any benefit at all. Perhaps they’ll take the cream of German engineers offering a life with better prospects for their families in new Siberian cities?
I’m waiting for the Russians to offer all of the Dutch farmers that the Netherlands government is forcing out of business in the name of Climate Change free passage and land to all of them plus their livestock…..
💯%
This makes a lot of sense and I am annoyed with myself for missing it. Thanks, Larry. BTW I was one of the ‘hack’ proponents, but can see I was wrong in this case
(I still think Russian and in particular China have thoroughly infiltrated the American natsec/military though).
It’s a leak of genuine documents, either from a disgruntled insider, a spy, or by the US administration itself. Just my opinion, but I wouldgo for the latter – mainly because the leak has been transmitted via regime media propaganda outlets, suggesting collaboration and careful messaging.
The key question seems to be ‘why?’. I note Andrei Martyanov has an excellent piece up at his blog, that strongly indicates it may all be either an imecilic attempt by Biden’s clowns to ‘hoodwink’ the Stavka before a Ukrainian offensive and/or a desperate attempt to create an ‘off ramp’ / pretext to get out of Ukraine either before, during or after NATO/Ukraine’s counter offensive is smashed to pieces in epic fashion – see http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2023/04/lol-and-change-of-plans.html
If true, the arrogance of the likes of Jake Sullivan (hopelessly out of his depth) in thinking that the Russians can’t immediately see what is going on, and that somehow this is some genius ‘western’ plan that the vodka-swilling peasants sitting on the Stavka can’t discern, is mind-boggling.
The Russians know exactly what is going on. They are also ready for any counter-offensive. Their line is fortified to the hilt and they have artillery, tanks, aircraft, choppers, drones, missiles (inc hypersonic), subs, naval assets and not to mention 500,000 plus troops massed at strategic locations to the north, south, south-east and west of the main war zone. Essenitally the Russian posture seems to be – ‘bring it on.’
If the Ukrainian ‘counteroffensive’ is launched, the world may well see the true capabilities of the Russian military. While the outcome can never be predicted, based on the devastating impact of Russia’s limited operation thus far, it won’t be a pretty sight for Ukraine – but the epic debacle may finally force the penny to drop in Europe (and maybe even in the US), that they have been defeated, lost their way, and the world has changed.
👍
Europe, possibly, but the current US regime will never admit defeat…
Hi Larry,
Thank you for the background info. Leaving aside how it got out, could you perhaps write a piece on your assessment of the contents? In particular, it suggests high-level penetration of the Russian military. Your thoughts?
Oh, Larry. Not this again. You just won’t leave this shit alone. It’s nothing, man. It’s a distraction. Big Serge said the same thing.
One day, maybe it will show back up in a Hague Court, or the US government will immolate itself on it. Maybe they will find another patsy to pin it on, another Julian Assange.
But until then the main event is underway. Remember the Fall of Bakhmut? The collapse of the Ukrainian military. Then it’s either a full on direct involvement by the United States because they can’t just run home across the ocean again. Or its the Russian military taking full control of Ukraine. Either way it’s World War III.
Great information for people who haven’t worked in Secret or TS(SCI) SCIFs. I like your comments that just because it’s in an intel report doesn’t mean that it’s true. Also for briefings politics and agendas are added to influence people getting briefed.
This makes me sick to the core … this manifestation of US power projected across the world; herding the subservient poodle countries to do its bidding; ready to coerce and bully anybody, anywhere to bend the knee …
I thought I was adequately aware of the nature of the ‘beast’ but this brings another dimension of understanding … thanks Larry.
It’s a positive feedback loop (not a good thing!) where decades of bullying leads to more an more resistance/backlash leads to more and more bullying – “national security” dontcha know!
The amount of ink devoted to this “story” is mind-boggling. I have begun to think its merely designed to drown-out the new revelations from Seymour Hersch.
Another educational moment!
The plot appears to be thickening, by Friday it will be an Irish stew. Whatever it was, it’s not now and has become the new nothing balloon.
Meanwhile…
“Macron the money changer,” is behaving like a frog. Follow the money straight to China Town. That is going to be the biggest Ukie story if it breaks. Death nail in NATO and EU. It’s all speculation but never the less, Putin will be blamed for everything.
Macron’s visit to China is very very telling, in my humble opinion. I tend to interpret it as a sign of a undeniable growing rift developing in the EU over the US-GB desire to continue the Ukraine war at all costs and drag everyone else along with it. Macron knows he is hanging on by a thread to power in France and more than likely will be given the boot one way or the other shortly. When your citizens set fire to Blackrock’s office in your country, you should know they aren’t kidding around anymore and know full well who is pulling your strings.
Spot on.
Apparently he went back to France with a huge contract for AirBus planes. That should thrill Biden no end.
I cannot confirm that information and have not seen it anywhere else. If it is false it goes to prove me right about the web being nearly all lies. You know the thing…
Bad actors deep diving, as they are unpacking their sanctions on the table.
You are however 98% correct about his career prospects. Same goes for the Germany sausage man. (The 2% is for stolen erections.)
RT or Sputnik says in the latest polls over 50% of Germans think the Russians are also correct about the SMO.
LOL a tad later for seeing the light.
I can confirm the contract with AirBus. It’s been reported in a host of aviation-military trade magazines in the last few days. A meager victory for Macron. Of course, however, this will burn Biden’s onion, his administration’s and that of Boeing’s corporate board. Let them all pound sand!!!
Do the NATO bugs under every seat come standard or at extra cost?
I think little Napoleon is also in Panic mode
So he tries to save his butt with business
Actually probably the only thing that can save him
https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/airbus-open-second-china-assembly-line-finalises-jet-order-2023-04-06/
Airbus doing quite well actually in China
BlackRock unloaded a mess of bad paper on French pension funds, no? It did so because it’s under duress, and one cause is the Chinese rentier class pulling its funds out of BlackRock as quickly as it can. Chinese (including party members) were a major customer base and BlackRock curried much favor with the CCP to build that base. That relationship is ended as it seems the CCP is repatriating capital to the mainland, leaving BlackRock in the lurch.
To recap: CCP induces funds to be withdrawn from globalist BlackRock because of economic stress within PRC; BlackRock unloads its losses on French pension funds; the French protest; the globalist President of France goes to PRC and brings back a contract for Airbus planes which PRC doesn’t need and cannot really afford.
This comment ie Jim S, ike,Bugs bunny, and old Peppe
is why I enjoy Larry’s blog. Smart folks with snippets of info and facts at the ready. You know the thing..moving the conversation along, education never stops.
A interesting fact I learned 48 years ago from a Aussie nuke warfare lecture..Quote “if a nuclear strike is anticipated, rapid digging is recommended.’ Soil absorbs radiation apparently but steel and concrete, well I would rather not go there!
But Australia is going there today. Coming soon “South Pacific Ukraine,” let’um burn over there and not here on the West Coast of the United State of America. Talk about black rocks.
Perhaps why Russian fallout shelters in schools are covered with a mound of dirt, and grass so that kids can use them as slides in Winter. Interestingly, they were all “renovated” starting in 2014 “for educational purposes”. To answer Sting, “Yes the Russians love their children too”.
@Aaron
It does seem like GYSAKYAG time. I read your comment on LJ’s most recent piece and I have to ‘fess up that I’m guilty of having prognosticated the war would be over by now. You takes your licks and you learns your lessons, hey?
To clarify a couple points I made above (for my own sake):
Chinese investors have been closing their accounts with BlackRock, making the fund somewhat illiquid. Next, some of BR’s bad investments became exposed (securities of things which oughtn’t be securitized), but because BR was struggling with liquidity it didn’t have the resources to deal with this new problem quietly: its solution was to park these bad securities in the accounts of French pension funds. Rather than address this specifically, Macron chose to work on extending retirement ages (a globalist target), effectively both covering for BlackRock and making the pension situation worse.
PRC is desperate for funds because: 1. internationally, US-China decoupling, economic stagnation in the West, and the rising attraction of South/South East Asian countries as manufacturing hubs all constitute heavy blows to its export-oriented economy; and 2. domestically, nearly 3 years’ Zero-COVID havoc on local economic activity, the land-to-real-estate growth engine’s grinding to a halt, and Beijing’s tightening fist around the neck of the corporate sector have all throttled the prospects of a consumer-driven economy. On top of this China suffers from nearly unchecked industrial pollution and climactic changes complicated–if not caused–by vast and reckless damming of its rivers, including the horrendously ill-advised Three Gorges Dam. Will the CCP blame the US for China’s poisoned earth and water? If it acknowledges the poisoning, doubtlessly, for it will not and cannot accept the least amount of blame.
Comrade Winniepooh thinks he can tighten China’s belt while he restructures its economy, but he’s wrong, and it’s the Chinese people who will suffer for his failure.
Thanks for the clarification, Larry.
I just find it interesting that NYT, WaPo and CNN are all wringing hands over these leaks. None of them followed up the Nord Stream accusations until the Yacht cover story was ready to be released.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/09/us/politics/leaked-pentagon-documents-ukraine.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/04/08/intelligence-leak-documents-ukraine-pentagon/
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/07/politics/pentagon-leaked-ukraine-documents/index.html
As all 3 IC assets are with Team Biden, is this the ‘final straw that breaks the camel’s back’ and shuts down free speech and blogs like Seymour Hersh and yours?
If that happens, a final thank you again for sharing your thoughts with us.
All I can say is, if that CAOS starts flashing this on its screens, I’m on the first flight to Argentina.
https://giphy.com/gifs/matthew-broderick-war-games-fuck-yeah-the-80s-jjYGVvxgQSTsc/fullscreen
There is a great restaurant outside of Buenos Aires. SIGA LA VACA. Translated, Follow the Cow.
https://sigalavaca.com Good to know.
V de vaca o B de burro? If they have a sister restaurant near the Hill, I’d guess it’d have to be ‘follow the burro’ (or maybe: ‘follow the cash cow’) 😉
That reminds me of the first time I drove into Mexico through Laredo on the way to Mexico City, many years ago.
We stopped at the first little village’s restaurant and I was all a’twitter about ordering some authentic Mexican chile con carne. So I ordered and wondered what that perplexed look on the waitress’ face was. Ten minutes later, she brings out a plate of carne asado and a side of chili peppers. That’s when I learned that chili con carne was invented in Texas.
“… chili con carne was invented in Texas..” It’s called Tex-Mex cuisine.
the Brits also said the Russians are low on ammo, running out of missiles and fighting with shovels. maybe they got that info from these classified reports. so their intel are the best. top-notch.
There has been, over time, recurring chatter within the 5-sided building by the river about opposition to the direction of the OTAN proxy war and the dangerous inplications of the continual escalations Some sanity, at some levels seems to remain. The doc drop’s likely source as Larry lays out seems to confirm that the source is part of the sanity group.
The long-term plan for this insane adventerism, I refuse to call it a strategy, goes back to the ‘exceptionalism’ triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet state. It took decades, and two colour revolutions to finally install the 404 Nazi wReck in the fertile preparred ground and provoke what the neo-perps thought would lead to a fatal and easy dismantling of the RF and a Mackinderization of the Heartland before the next push into China.
Best proxy arrmy ever! OTAN prepared, armed and integrated! Won’r even much ammo – sanctions will do it, and do it quick!
The doc drop show a 404 Nazi collapse that can’t be propped up long. Does it seem odd that while precise RF unit force structure, placement and numbers are shown the 404 deployments are vague. Does OTAN even know, or want to know what the reality on the ground is, or it disinformation?
No matter, there is still no Obergruppenfuher Stiener coming to to save the p—s piano player in Kiev. The final collapse seems not that long away. OTAN has no wunderwaffen, dwindling stocks of arms and munitions left to feed into flames; and no industrial capacity to produce enough to replace what has been expended. And the Polish regime can’t be that far gone to ignore the RF forces positioned in Belarus, can they?
Sanctions seriously, rebounded destroying the sanctioners economies. What a surprize! Why, there have sanctions for over 70 years against North Korea and looked wwht happened to them! Err, what’s that, North Korea is still in North Korea? They just fired some more test missles and developed and test their own poseideon-like torpedo? O…..K….. Well forget about the other sanction examples I was going to mention then….
The $$$ hegemony is swiftly fading, new multipolar realignments are taking place.
What’s left? Oh, yeah, https://www.loc.gov/item/2009632038/ and https://www.history.com/news/duck-cover-drills-cold-war-arms-race
What’s next? Was the doc drop a warning before too late? Will it be heeded? If not? Yeah, interesting times.
US and Nato are only exceptional at destroying mostly defenseless counties with no regard for innocent human life and no plan for what to do after. Western corrupt regimes only now one solution to all their problems. That is pouring money created out of thin air to please the masses. They all are doomed anyway. What they do now is dragging out that failure and total collapse of their economies and societies as long as they can.
What a shame for them. Lying, cheating and stealing. That is how you create “wealth” in a world where you point your armies at some countries and dicate your terms. That time is over. Now they have to go through Russia and China and they won’t let them. The sooner the west sufferst that lesson the better for all of us. We will see.
Yeah, that’s the sad truth.
We’ve gone down this ugly path with the “best and the brightest” running the hegemonic show to the present time when, as Andrei Martyanov points out, we have morons on our team who have no clue what they’re doing but consider themselves geniuses, a la the three stooges, or Wynken Blinken and Nod as Seymour Hersh and others say.
A kindergarten child with an internal sense of right and wrong would be horrified by what they do to use/abuse our military to wreak havoc and destroy the world as we know it.
And as someone said here, maybe the point of the leak was to show how dumb and out of touch with reality we really are and they are disgusted by what has become of us and wishes to expose the Emperor as naked, untrustworthy and foolish.
The whole apparatus in DC misdirects our resources and is undermining our stability – all to boost the ego of an ambitious sycophant serving the powerful greed wagons who prosper by raping and pillaging….and they’ve bitten off more than they can chew and the chickens are coming home to roost whether they can understand it or not.
The sadder thing is, that you require people to make all of that possible. People who will do the “dirty” work for those who decide and so on. So you have some nutcases running that whole charade and a lot of their henchmen doing the “bad” thing. Cutting of the “brains” will not make it stop. Those henchmen are the problem. They like what they do. They don’t especially want to be in charge. They just want some of that power and the cover to follow their own agenda. Some are just inapt and don’t see the big picture and some simply don’t care as they get paid well to do what they do. In my opinion we a talking about a big apparatus that is not going to stop and fight to the end. This will get very ugly, I believe.
Those bend over, grab your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye drills! LOL!
In this case the degree of incompetence is several million times higher. I always thought that everything say mentally retardeds like Liz Lettuce or Ben Wallace it was pure propaganda to manipulate and engage public opinion. Just thinking that Wallace really believed that 97% of the Russian army was committed to Ukraine I don’t even know what makes him! I already wrote here that I was sure he couldn’t drive from London to Moscow but now I’m starting to believe that someone also has to wipe his ass when he goes to the toilet. Like Biden! And perhaps there has never been a disinformation campaign, much less an Orwellian dystopia. It’s just them who are so stupid they couldn’t organize a 3 car funeral like Larry says!!!
And they believed that 97% of Russia’s army was in Ukraine why didn’t they try to take Russia’s resources through Siberia? Scared of bears? 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Simply Unbelievable!
Silliest thing I ever heard, 97% of Russia’s army. They either think their audience is all idiots or they’re all idiots.
Maybe they ran out of fingers and toes and it threw their ciphering off.
This is the level of stupidity of the ruling classes that is so one cannot believe it. During the COVID mess there was a similarly hilarious thing with then German Secretary of Health Jens Spahn. He proudly said ( no exact quote, just the sense of it): Today we´ve already vaccinated 1/4 of the population. And this will go further quickly and in some days we will have managed to have vaccinated even 1/5 of the population!
And he looked into the camera proud like mama dog of her puppies….
LOL
I can only guess that Kamala Harris was Spahn’s math teacher!!!
Next step is to study calculus in the Paw Patrol University…..
Pathetically woke!
Mediocracy rules!
Because the remaining 3% would still beat British Army, with shovels.
Don’t joke about those shovels. In the old soviet days, they’d make those spades out of titanium.
Indestructible.
Or slap them. Possibly even some hard pinching.
If a US person with access effected the sharing of this material on social media; it’s obvious that doing it again would be extremely difficult. However, the next questions to ask are:
1) What else is out there hiding out in the open and 2) What were the motives?: a) Concern that the ‘truth’ be known?; b) To send a cause and effect message to some country(not necessarily related to Ukraine)?; c) to deliberately target someone or some operation in a negative way?, or d) to stir up public opinion in the manner that Ukraine is in such dire straits that it’s necessary figuratively to ‘damn the torpedoes and send the fleet’? Apparently, this event might have begun last year, meaning whoever had access would have to be a ‘regular’ so as not to have stood out doing anythig out of the ordinary. If an ‘inside job’, the benefit to the Pentagon is a mystery since the usual propoganda (Russia is losing big time!) is called into question.
This is a head scratcher. I guess it boils down to whether it was a staged leak, though one has to contort a bit to see the logic, or someone trying to make a difference somehow.
On the one hand the leak is embarrassing to the US, on the other, after Ukraine falls there’s a cover story for no counter-offensive and a pivot point for a narrative on why it’s too late to bail them out. Could this be part of a bigger plan to create an exit story/strategy to try and save face knowing they’re losing? Could it be an attempt to expose faulty planning?
Larry points out the documents are real. Printed and smuggled out, so print logs will show when they were printed, and I assume there’s a record of who was in the room in that time frame. We should hear something fairly soon as to a suspect, given the press and embarrassing nature. No news within the next month would be suspicious as they should be able to narrow it down fairly quickly.
You need to remember there are many of these joint centers, not to mention other DOD and CIA offices with access, that could have printed the brief. Very hard to pin that down.
Looking at that photo and reading about “garbage information” making it into their official assessments, no wonder the US army has never won any conflict in decades. They should have taken all that defense money and build themselves a better healthcare system or repair their infrastructure to avoid all those train derailing or whatever is necessary. The US army is really on the ropes. Inapt bunch of monkeys parroting some wishful BS calling it intelligence or even strategy.
Oh BTW, every system can be hacked. I would never discard that alternative. Computer systems are designed by people and they are hacked by others simply by finding weak(-er) spots in those systems. I have been there. People are no geniuses and others always find a way to enter a system, that is just a matter of time and dedication. Russia has had access to many US system for years without them knowing. All thanks to microsoft’s disaster they call an OS.
US making statements to defend Taiwan with American soldiers is just another BS “leak” to intimidate China. Open statements like that tell everyone of interest exactly the opposite. US is simply fearing a second front with China, after their nightmare in Ukraine. No ammo, mostly useless weapons systems and a peer army that knows very well how to handle their enemy in a direct clash … the US army is way over their head in here. Leaking supposedly top secret information is the least of their problems in my opinion.
“They should have taken all that defense money and build themselves a better healthcare system or repair their infrastructure to avoid all those train derailing or whatever is necessary.”
True words bro!! When my family has to pay an assisted living facility in the US over $15,000 per month for my elderly cognitive-impaired parents to reside in without any government aid whatsoever, your “system” has essentially gone full-scale rogue. Contemptuous uncontrollable greed at its best!!! On the other hand, here in Europe, I wouldn’t have to pay more than 2.000 euro per month for the same service with the government paying a good portion of that!!!!! This is the sole reason the US is so intent on destroying Europe.
For computers to be hacked, they have to be on line! Top Secret stuff are usually on computers isolated in a Bank-like vault, with no connection of any sort to the outside world, and with access limited to only those with TS clearance (with a log of who entered, when and left, when). Storage devices like thumb drives and cameras etc. are not allowed and usually no printers. All TS work must be done inside the vault. So it is impossible to take info out the vault. You can try to memorize some stuff but what good does that do?
People use all sorts of drives to transfer data back and forth and so on. So you have that. Most of the time the “human” is the weak spot. And once there even was a virus that used the attached computer speakers and mics with high frequency tones to communicate with other computers not altering network intrusion systems. The tones were too high for the workers to hear. People can be very creative bypassing all sorts of defenses.
My statement is, if such a system is designed by people then it is hackable. At some point you have to connect that system to a network or transfer data in and out in some way. There is always a way in and out. The only unhackable system is one that you don’t turn on and don’t use.
I myself was hacking Software (mostly) just for fun in the 90’s. Ok, I did not hack the pentagon, but still, I was shocked how bad people designed that stuff. Today we have encryption and a whole field dedicated to digital securities. Software/systems are much more secure but still not 100%. Like I said, the weakest spot are the humans.
Oh BTW, anyone know what happened to the TG channel Donbass Devushka? I was following them in the browser preview but that channel seems to have been abandoned all of the sudden. Thanks!
Donbass Devushka is still posting prolifically although they did say there was a channel ripping off their content they were trying to get closed down.
The ripoff channel is called “DonbassDevushka” (ie without the space)
Maybe you have been following that without realising?
Thanks a lot! Yes, that one I did follow. I got the link from Intel Slava long time ago. They posted a lot of links back then to inform their followers about other similar channels. Thanks 🙂 I could not figure that out so quickly by myself.
It’s still there
https://t.me/s/DDMultipolar
https://t.me/s/donbassdevushka
https://t.me/s/DDMultipolar
Here’s the true channel:
https://t.me/s/DDMultipolar
As another poster indicated, the fake channel is:
https://t.me/s/DonbassDevushka
As of a couple of days ago, the phony channel was emptied of the true channel’s content and replaced with a handful of posts, the first of which points to a furries discord server. One post later, there’s a short gif of a huskie eating popcorn on a couch. That’s how you know you’re in the wrong place.
Amusingly, the phony channel is picking up a few followers, possibly confused patrons who previously followed the phony channel in error and are confused as to what happened.
It’s the Ukies at work, in between burning down churches and kidnapping priests for hostages.
Am I kidding? You figure it out.
Alex Christoforou speculates that the impending exhaustion of Ukraines s300 air defence capability, is borne out by them going all over the place trying to secure supplies of more s300 missiles. He mentions Greece.
Why should this confirm authenticity of the documents leaked? I imagine they are also touring the world looking to source peas for their pea shooters…_
Here’s my leak theory out of left field, so far out that its probably gone over the edge but anyway let’s assume that the alleged Russian hypersonic missile attack that allegedly destroyed a NATO command and control bunker killing a couple of hundred officers really did happen. It could be plausible that amongst the rubble and during the immediate chaotic aftermath a large number of documents, classified and unclassified that had been secure inside were found amongst the ruins, maybe by a first responder who folded them and then hid them inside his coat and from there the documents found their way to the internet!
Yeah expect that strike was likely after these documents had already been posted on Discord.
I can’t recall the timeline other than these docs appearing recently and the alleged missile strike occurring about a month ago. A highly unlikely scenario for sure but from what l understand these docs came from a highly secure level where leakage was not meant to be possible.
Does Wallace(and worse if true, all Nato countries DOD), really believe that 97% of RU army is involved in Ukraine? Even a child would not believe that.Where are they?Strangely the BBC journos (certainly not pro Russia), visited all cimeteries in the entire Russia and found something in the 20-30 kia including or not dpr lpr but not wagner).
Ritter and Macgregor are talking about 250/350 ukies ‘losses’ if not more?How can these politicos believe their own lies or Zelensky lies? This is very dangerous if confirmed because they take their strategic decisions on lies and fake nrs from Kiev, it can have catastrophic consequences for all of us to one point.
Wallace is another overpaid moron. He got pranked by Vovan and Lexus in a phone call last year at the start of this Russo-American Proxy War, where they posed as Ukrainians and got him to blab about all kinds of military information. It was astonishing how easily he spoke about such things. It is about 15 minutes long but has been edited down to about 3 minutes by frazzled DC, EU, and NATO warmongers. With some searching the original is out there somewhere.
The greatest Arrogance ever in humanity started its own downfall, and no one can stop it, the essence of the USA is Arrogance and that is its greatest sin in the history of the world, that Arrogance is not a common evil, it is like a law unto itself and must deserve the fate that will to destroy Arrogant’s favorite razor 1 ever in humanity, and to shrink it in size and restore the world to balance.
Anyone here can access formerly classified documents on the CIA website. Anyone who reads enough of that material will easily disabuse themselves of the notion that everything in them was true when the document was created. Much of it simply fits the convenient narrative of the time.
No need to overthink any of this. The leaker was apparently OK embarrassing the US but made sure nothing really dangerous got released. One piece of news that is not stale though is that Ukraine’s air defense is on the verge of collapse. I am no expert but it is hard to imagine the lasting value of a Ukrainian offensive after which the Russians will be able to regroup and strike back with total air superiority. What stops the Russians after that?
I wonder if the leak is related to someone (or more than one person) having had just enough of where the US is heading with the Nashville shooting, Trump indictment, Jan 6 videos, etc. Time to tell on what is really happening in Ukraine and what the Empire of Lies is up to. Someone trying to stop this train wreck.
People often say that this is misinformation in order to mislead someone – I mean, a lot of bits of this information are showing entire West including UKR in extremely bad light – just imagine them saying that RU side is having 200k dead, and then seeing their top secret report where they put the range in 35-45k (which is also probably overestimate). It proves that they are openly lying all the time…
What was the reason, the motivation to leak such information in the first place? To mislead the Russians? Certainly not. It would be utterly stupid to assume that Russian intellingence would fall for mainly OISINT and would not have ISR better than that on their own. People with such clearances don’t make such idiotic assumptions and take these enormous risks going along with high treason, which the the process of the leak constitutes in effect.
My best guess would be that higher echelons in the US/NATO military are softly preparing the mass media for the inevitable UA defeat and maybe attempting the Neocons to abandon this entire projects.
In the Russian segment of the information field, the leak of secret documents caused a very sluggish reaction, and they were indifferent to “secret information”. Why?
Even from my layman’s point of view, classified information seems like a Polichenel secret – nothing new. In any case, the information does not change anything either in the plans of the Russian command or on the battlefield. We continue what we started and how we planned.
After considering what all of you have said on this subject, my best guess is that a person with access collected these docs and routed them to the publishing entity for their own personal reasons. Certainly one of their objectives appears to be discrediting US military/intelligence/diplomatic agencies. Yet that destruction of reputation has some additional goal which is undoubtedly the primary purpose of the document release.
I have no clue as to what that primary purpose may be. It hurts my brain trying to think that through. Non-linear differential equations are easier to wrap your mind around than this skullduggery.
Remember however, that Americans hold views that make a neat split into two opposing camps impossible across the multi-dimensional space of political, ideological, religious, ethnic, etc. variables. I may wholeheartedly agree with you on some particular issue, and be your ally in achieving our goals in that regard, but when you and I disagree on something of great importance to me, we instantly become visceral enemies with all that entails.
One thing is clear: we Americans need to find a way to get to some broad common ground, or our nation will fall apart. I suggest our first objective should be wide spread prosperity.
How is the US intercepting communications in between South Korean officials? Is it done remotely because they are using android/iphones? Or do they need somekind of local system?
Dear Don Larry.
If I wanted to FUCK a very specific (excuse my rudeness) person, wouldn’t it be by posting these reports? It doesn’t have to be one person necessarily, it can be even more people.
This is common in the private sector. Why does it have to be different here now? It smells like revenge to me. Someone wants with all his might to reach the top.
Fuera de Buenos Ayres se come una excelente carne y a buen precio, Larry tiene razon. En Argentina la carne lo es todo.
Si eres de origen alemán o centroeuropeo, en Villa Belgrano (mas o menos cerca) comerás mejor comida alemana y beberás mejor cerveza alemana que en Alemania.
Salud
Oh why must you and Larry torment my taste buds with these recommendations for excellent food in Argentina?
I can barely scrape up enough money for dried pinto beans to subsist on for the rest of the month., much less a plane ticket to Argentina. 🙂
To me, the destruction of Libya and assassination of Gaddafi was even a bigger crime than the current destruction of Ukraine. Libya had the highest UN Human Development Index in all of Africa, and higher than Ukraine and also China and Russia when it was destroyed a decade ago.
https://www.sott.net/article/479187-How-Barack-Obama-Bombed-the-Paris-of-Africa-into-a-Hell-Hole-of-Murder-Slave-Trade-Sex-Trafficking-and-Mass-Starvation
The first set of docs were originally uploaded to a Minecraft game data server (around Mar 4) and languished there and were (either simultaneously or later) posted to a now dead Twitter account (@MrLucca) where they likewise went unnoticed for 4-5 weeks until Apr 5 when they were posted by an “Anonymous” on 4chan. From what I can tell, DonbasDevushka was the first outlet with a sizable following to give them an airing, but that was followed swiftly by the NYT and the WP.
Isn’t all that a little odd?
The NYT and WP are the heavy artillery on the information front. Shouldn’t their jumping on it with such gusto give one pause as to what is really going on here? After all, they downplayed the event and utterly ignored Hersh’s exposé of Nordstream’s destruction. They likewise ignored first Merkel’s, then both of Hollande’s revelations that the 2014 coup and subsequent events were all about the West using Ukraine to goad Russia into war. Given that both say nothing when so instructed, why were they allowed/requested/ordered to bring the “leak” and its contents into public discourse?
As for the documents themselves, yes they show that the AFU is a spent force with a snowflake’s chance in hell of getting out of the mess they’re in half alive, but why the gross (and gratuitous) errors re: casualties and eqpt losses? Why the discrepancy between the detailed account of the disposition of Russian forces in theatre (down to precise locations and names of battalions/brigades/etc) and the vagaries regarding the same of UA’s forces? Why the disparaging remarks about Russian combat and operational performance? Why repeat the old trope that Russia’s purpose in invading was to gain territory?
If one can understand making such “errors” in creating a tale for public propaganda purposes, one can’t understand it for presentation to professionals who know, or need to know the facts. Ritter says Zaluzhny informed Milley that the AFU has suffered >250k KIA with about 80k MIA. That means somewhere north of 300k KIA. The 17k mentioned in the documents isn’t an error in any normal sense, and it wouldn’t fool anybody that needs to be fooled.
The smell emanating from this pile makes my eyes water to the point where its hard to say what I’m looking at. The documents’ originally intended audience was obviously one that didn’t need the facts and for which a politicized message was required. Who the leak’s intended audience is remains puzzling.
HMS raises a point that struck me as well, and I never saw commented?
Ursula von der leyen in November said that there were around 100 kIA ukrainians and 20 k civilians death (it was a speech intended to say russians are really bad and need to be sued by a special court, which doesnt prevent to say the day before and after, that there is only 20 KIA ukrainians and ukraine is winning, the number is just an abstract thing to illustrate the point made during the speech).
Reluctantly, the overall MSM press had to accept this new value (which was in the ballpark of russian MOD estimates), by stating of course that the number of russians KIA must be roughly the same. Anyway…
In the world where I leave, numbers of KIA can only go up, until some woke people proves me wrong, death is an irreversible operation.
There has been much fuss and discussion on how the numbers of KIA had been inverted 1771 to show better results, either for the ukrainian side, or the russian side. But nobody seemed to explain how this number (whatever side we choose to attribute them) can be so low compared to previous aknowledged truth?
Has anyone a good explanation for that? Ot is this number for year 2023 alone, which would be scary in only 2 months.
If these docs are legit, does NATO staff really believe and guide their planning based on these kind of numbers?
As another one said, the comment section on larry’s blog is one of the very few I scroll because I find it of value, so I hope someone will react and give me a good explanation.
Regards to all, and keep on the good work Larry. Thanks to share your experience.
Nicolas
“If these docs are legit, does NATO staff really believe and guide their planning based on these kind of numbers?”
The problem for me was the clash between real-looking intelligence & analysis and Western propaganda narratives within the same set of documents. While the casualty and eqpt loss numbers indicate that US/NATO planning and action is guided by an utterly dysfunctional intelligence apparatus, the detailed makeup and disposition of Russian forces within the battle zone indicates the apparatus is well oiled.
Meanwhile, the documents’ treatment of the makeup and disposition of Ukraine’s forces is peppered with “estimates”, “likelihoods” and other vagaries. One wonders what the final force assessment that concluded that the Ukrainians are as “combat ready” as the Russians was based on. Surely not the vagaries presented.
Issues like that and its rather too “artsy” Powerpoint presentation style suggest it was prepared for a non-military audience such as a House/Senate Committee, an internal State Dept conference, or some internal political/policy conference at NATO. IOW, the intended audience was political, and what they got is some real data and analysis, sexed up with dollops of confirmation bias to keep ’em on on the rails. The NYT & WP immediately served to cement their confirmation bias in place. The inconsistencies and non-sequiturs would fly right past such an audience and protect the people who’ve been lying to them and the rest of us.
This was great education. Thanks.
I suppose there’s food served in these places. So obviously the perpetrator must have been … drum roll… the butler! And the documents were taken out under the dome cover of that steak he had served.
The document seems genuine, yet completely useless. An eye opener on the relevance of US intelligence services.
The butler did it. “Given the importance of the Ukraine mission for the U.S., the SCIF would be staffed with dozens of enlisted, officers and contractors who held TS clearances.” Somebody has to clean up after those dozens so someone printed them out, got preoccupied with something else, forgot about printing them out and left for the day. By the time they returned the next day, the documents were gone. Now they are too embarrassed to tell anyone.
In my working life, working three different shifts, I found a lot of very personal papers left on printers when I went to use them. I always kept my mouth shut about it except for if the person was identified on the paperwork, I discreetly gave it to them or I informed them I destroyed (shredded) it and discarded the waste in three separate containers. Just guessing like everyone else here and elsewhere.
Regarding secure sites. Back in the 90s I worked for a govt contractor who was developing a secure computing platform for the armed forces. A few things happened. One, the contractor’s staff connected to “the Internet” in such a manner that any savvy eighth grader could log on to the Internet gateway without a password, as administrator. Since there was a trust relationship between the gateway and the internal network, they could also go inside the facility as admin, without a password. This was not a SCIF but had elements requiring a clearance. Secondly, the 300 person development team, trying to develop code on a secure system, found it was *much* easier to make things work by turning off *all* security features of the system (B1/CMW) so that all users had admin privileges, the platform after that was completely insecure. I’m pretty sure they were never able to retrofit security (pretty much impossible). Turdly, the software manager declared, we have to win the contract with this demo. I don’t care how the code is constructed, as long as it appears to work OK for the client. Garbage code, short cuts, fakery abounded. After the demo won the contract, the manager declared, “lets just use all this code it’s perfectly good”, and the garbage demo code became the foundation for the product. Typical practices for the 90s folks. Oh … I mentioned some of this to the security officer on site. He started asking questions and immediately was transferred out , was it to Greenland? Someplace like that. I felt pretty bad about that. So when I read how China downloaded all our secrets in the 90s I can imagine how (probably assigned eighth graders to the task).
“Typical practices for the 90s” – I can attest that the practices are the same in 2020s.
A mite cynical perhaps but, after a mispent career in the civil service, my advice is to never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
The vehemence of the denial is also useful as grading as to how important the arse-covering is to higher ups.
Dunno how it’ll play in Peoria but this one will run & run.
My opinion is that the docs are leaked by us intelligence community at the time that the russians have recovered the MQ9 drone in the Black Sea and now have access and the Russian defense department became the owners of invaluable information about the characteristics of a number of critical electronic components of the MQ-9 Reaper.
In these way the US is shifting the focus to something that have no value, or have no imminent value, but can cover this other big problem. And to use these episode of leaked docs to change all the security protocols now that the russians have full access to turret multispectral optoelectronic complex AN / AAS-52, and the complex (container type) of surface radar reconnaissance AN / APY-8, and telemetry and secure satellite communications stations, and the terminal of the Link-16 data exchange system used by this particular drone
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/david-stockman-imperial-washington-new-global-menace
David Stockman. Imperial Washington Is The New Global Menace.
He is right yah know
C’mon guys! Most of you posting in the comment sections seem to be intelligent, well experienced individuals. This is one of the few sites where I usually do routinely read the comments with interest. Nothing wrong with questioning anyone’s opinions.
But….. while Larry does speculate about some things, he usually says he doing so. In the case of these documents he’s quite certain. That should tell you something. He has his own professional experience and that of a network of Intelligence professionals he’s accumulated over the years. If he was wrong, one of THEM would have pointed out his error and he would have listened… most likely before posting his views.
I’m convinced these documents are real. There’s plenty of room for speculation on who got them and how and why, what they mean… what the reactions of populations will be not only in the Ukraine theater but…. like, let’s say, the Israeli’s reaction to reports of Massad supporting rallies against their government, etc.
when this all unravels, the biggest impact of the documents will be that they prevent US from denying deep participation in the operational planning. I.e. USA eats crow over this, which substantially further weakens stature of US intel/milops on world stage. remember, just a couple of months ago there were major reporters still denying that this was any kind of proxy war.
I heard a new one on the radio yesterday.
It was reported that the documents were firstly released in january on a gaming plattform somewhere in Asia. Then it took till march until the attention to this docs reached the mainstream. No further comments and no further information available and this claim could not be examined.
So the average listener is made to conclude that the docs must be fake, because the docs show dates from february and march.
This, to me, is a hint that the docs are legit, because a story like this can only be meant to mislead, or the source of this first release would have been mentioned.
Nevertheless many people in Germany will be willing to believe this story.
I saw in your other posted article, that you were considering this to be a “Russian” leak, for the legal purposes of a “paper trail” as hard evidence of US/NATO on the ground involvement?
I stated then that I agree. Given your detailed analysis regarding chain of intelligence, I now am considering a bigger picture.
What if this isn’t a “leak” at all, but a “hack”. That the entire “SKIFF” central center was “hacked” and troves and troves of documents were downloaded & this is just the first batch?
Whoever had this material had time to photograph and even photoshop/rearrange the data . I’m guessing none of those folks are allowed cell phones or devices, also, would have instantly been detected.
Since it was first circulated on Twitter & 4chan like sites, guessing NYT was told to pick it up & run a “leak” story.
Bottom line, SKIFF and the like were “hacked” … a serious sophisticated breach, by a serious sophisticated opponent. This “leak” is MINIMAL information compared to information that I believe was hacked. Just a warning.
This is a war. A lot of factions at play. We have far, far too many “dual” citizens from many countries in the most sensitive & “secretive” as well as power positions in the US. Most of them would sell their mother for a price.
But I digress.
Soon, Nordstream? Yup… just awhile longer on that one…part of war crimes tribunals .
It cannot be hacked. The TS is a closed system. It is not connected to the internet.
Larry,
For your readers’ understanding, you might describe (in broad, general terms, of course) how NSA “secures” that global, closed network for the entire U.S. government information infrastructure, via its primary role of providing encrypted systems and platforms. (Interception of data/information being NSA’s other role.)
– Harry
US Embassy in Ukraine? Embassy could be hacked, seems like info. That would be most useful from/to there.
Even if established, assembled in closed loop, with no internet, could still have certain files transmitted/shared, otherwise who would see them other than TS folks?
Honestly it’s silly to think in information sharing there’s no internet usage. I can see highly secured dedicated lines, but all of them are “hack able”.
Simply think problem is not some lone “want the war to end”, need to ruin Biden guy, or unpatriotic sap, or hate the USA sap, that took pictures and “leaked” info.
Nice story, but not buying it.
Think problem is much worse, it’s only an opinion.
“It cannot be hacked. The TS is a closed system. It is not connected to the internet.”
That used to be true. It no longer is.
Air-gapped systems (of various kinds/dimensions/levels of security) can be hacked. Potentially. This does not mean that all are, just that the technology exists.
Not being connected to the internet, doesn’t mean it can’t be hacked. Everything can be hacked. At some point there is acces to some sort of a group network. And so forth. At some level there are hacked systems. The hack spreads over the physical network and by means of copies of data that are tranfered in between those layers. It just needs time and interaction. The whole job of a hacker is to find weaknesses and use them. Hacks don’t have to be sophisticated. They have simply to work.
Here is Big Serge’s analysis of this leak: https://bigserge.substack.com/p/russo-ukrainian-war-leak-biopsy
My opinion is that everything is leaking in NATO and the Pentagon, as well as in the EU-USA and the UK, a decline is inevitable, I said about that in the previous comment.
There exists at least a possibility that the real reason behind this document dump had nothing to do with the Ukrainian war directly but instead was used to insert a targeted message or reveal certain NOFORN information hidden among these documents that most would not pick up on but the foreign target. For example, a huge outcry has risen in Israel over one of these documents which purported to reveal that US Military Intelligence believed that Mossad was supporting the recent Israeli protests against the government. What if the person leaking these documents had in mind getting that message to Netanyahu in a way that would not imply that the US was publicly taking sides? In and of itself you might say that is not such a big deal – such accusations are made all the time – but not if the accusation is being made by a TS NOFORN US Military assessment giving it some measure of credibility. It could be that the leaker (the Biden Administration or the CIA) wanted to drive a wedge between the Israeli Government and Mossad. The Biden Administration are more than capable of doing such a thing in order to cause more turmoil in Israel. Why would they want to cause trouble in Israel? Because the Israelis are still refusing to send deadly weapons to Ukraine; therefore, shouldn’t they be punished?
I know. I know. Preposterous!
Reviewing Larry’s points First through Third regarding how documents may have been removed from SCIF, I am reminded of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in which Peter Guilliam removes a document from the files via gym bag.
Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.
From today’s NYT:
Are the documents real? Yes, officials say — at least, for the most part. Some of the documents appear to have been altered, officials say…A few details in the documents also seem to be false or doctored, such as overestimates of Ukrainian casualties in the war. It’s possible Russian officials or others altered the documents before posting, or reposting, them on social media platforms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/11/world/pentagon-documents-leak-impact.html
So they’re real, but altered, so not real, according to “officials”.
Uh huh.
Ambiguous nonsense.
What’s real is that the NYT only publishes what they’re instructed to publish. So this all comes from the puppet masters.
Who knows what they’re trying to accomplish with this. It certainly seems to have had the effect of distracting us and getting a lot of people chasing their tails trying to figure it out.
My guess?
It was Colonel Mustard with the Candlestick in the Ballroom.
Here in the EU, propaganda through mainstream channels in reporting on this conflict is such that it exposes deep influence by our Government’s, or part of them. Stupidity and bad faith couldn’t explain it.
As for Macron, is he having his De Gaulle call at last in a desperate effort to save his and his country’s reputation of not being a complete vassal of the US? Or is he merely expressing again his confusing bipolar moments and need for mere existence, let alone grandeur?
Smelling the blood might also have helped …
When everything is classified, nothing is classified. Very difficult to keep a handle on that much information, the vast majority of which is unimportant. People get complacent and sloppy. Further as I have harped about on here before, people are flat out incompetent. In any large organization these days, incompetence is the rule, not the exception. See the recent Bud Light tranny fiasco as an example. And it isn’t punished, its rewarded.
The system across the world is entering an entropic stage where failure is cascading at exponential rates. I’m not sure Russia and China are all that much better off. They might not be infected with the peculiar rot plaguing the West right now, but I imagine they have their own to worry about.
End Times it be.
You’ve hit the nail on the head, Totila, it’s not only the sheer amount of information of which most is junk, it’s also the massive number of people involved in collating it, just look at the picture, hundreds of operatives, all making judgements upon the raw information or on the judgements of others, who can digest the stuff effectively if the picture changes daily if not hourly, when a crisis hits, as it did with the Twin Towers attack the system convulses, the response is anywhere near what those setting the system up hoped it will be.
The US has seventeen intelligence agencies employing close to a million people and yet the Saudis that flew the planes hitting the Twin Towers had not been spotted until they accomplished the task.
The biggest drawback of the info gathering is the enormity of the set-up, it’s more a hindrance than a trump card.
People are sick & tired of endless wars have all the reason to leak the docs. I am in south east asia. Most people here see America as the biggest war monger & threat to world peace. I’m not surprised if people from other parts of the world share this sentiment of the US addicted to violence & wars. Your politicians know nothing about diplomacy. All they do is bomb & kill innocent people one country at a time in the name of “peace”. When they’re done with one, they move on to the next. They haven’t even finished with fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian, they’re thinking of fighting China to the last Taiwanese. Hopefully they get to taste defeat in Ukraine & eat a slice of humble pie!
Shah, we are also sick and tired of nonstop wars just because they can, but the problem is that we have no say, and worse still, we have no statecraft that would rein in these maniacs. They act like they are being eaten alive by rabies.
Our State Department is run by well connected dunces who have no concept of history, and who abuse our military in all its forms to get whatever they covet, wherever that may be. Same for all the warmongers festering in that town. They fancy themselves intelligent and upper class but they are reckless, ignorant gulpins who have send at least a hundred thousand people to early and violent deaths in just a year. And they make things worse by sending mentally unstable mercenaries who thrive on bloodlust for thrills. That was really cheap. And they leave everyone else to clean up their mess and pay for all the damages. “You break it you pay for it” is gone, they break it and we pay for it. Their European sidekicks are no better.
There was absolutely no good reason to spend years planning and provoking this completely avoidable war other than pure greed. Educated and seasoned diplomats would have seen the danger but alas, our diplomats are nothing of the sort. And why would they worry, it being a bloodfest that will never touch them in any way except maybe their bank accounts might take a small dent. After this they will just move on to another target, confident that as always they will never have to answer for anything, they won’t even lose their cushy assigned parking spots.
If this war produces nothing else it should mark the end of NATO. They have been driving that overrated gravy train too long and too fast fueled by a 70 year farce, they smashed it headlong into the Russian front, then they ran like scalded dogs because they couldn’t fight in the war they had provoked, and now it is time for the scrap yard. Violent welfare queens can’t drive. Enough is enough.
Reminds me of the movie set for ‘Fail Safe.’
It seems the wheel has turned and we are back in the day of ‘Domino Theory’ (1954), ‘Fail Safe’ (book 1962, movie 1964) and ‘On the Beach’ (book 1957, movie 1959).
The difference between today and the 1950’s is there was societal memory of WWII and a competence in how to approach conflicts. I do not think the solutions were correct but at least there was awareness of alternatives. Unfortunately the minds of the 1950’s that prevailed then empowered their spawn to continue down the wrong path.
After 13 months of SMO and 38 months of plandemic I have realized – as many others – that nothing is published on the media that the deep powers do not want to.
In my opinion, the focus should therefore shifted from the content and truthfullness of the leaked documents, to the reason they are given so wide diffusion… heck even local newspapers are writing about it.
Cui prodest?
Perhaps this is event 404
>be me
>make and chitpost a meme bout changing dna to improve humans, only to find out those who do are no longer human and no longer qualify for salvation, big letters with roaring flames for background
>couple years later find out event 201 is going down, gather receipts
>clearly see a bioweapon is fixing to be released on the world
>after not only surviving yet also thriving in the 2014-2017 meme wars, realize I may soon be dead
>plandemic happens shortly after event 201, turns into huge nothingburger unless you were old and let your governor murder you via old folks homes, and similar techniques such as Dr’s blowing your lungs out with ventilators
>survivor 2020-2022 vaccine wars patch goes here
>2023 comes and I have survived multiple psyop wars and mass gaslighting on a galactic scale and genocide to boot (so far)
>growing smiley face goes here 🙂
>still 2023 and chitpost green text story bout event 404 on Larry’s site
>sad face pops up when I realize that green text story does not work outside of the A–h-le of the internet 🙁
It didn’t have to be this way
Nothing ever happens
(until it does)
This is an interesting event. There is a high probability that this information was not a deliberate US Intelligence leak. A compelling reason is that as things are now; the visual form at of how things are presented is now everywhere. That means, if someone so wished, they could reproduce ‘fake’ reports (give it the look and insert the numbers, etc). Then it would be a full time effort to disprove ‘fake intelligence’. What is also interesting is how did some US person with, presumably some sort of clearance, make these copies, over time, and not get noticed, even after they were published on social media. Especially, if the person copying the documents was the same one who was posting. Bizzare. Otherwise, there must have been a document transfer to somone who was willing to post despite awareness that to follow would be a reception ala an Asange or a Snowden. Bizzare.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/leaker-damaging-u-intelligence-files-092932954.html
Just to shed a bit more light on handling of classified material…anytime a person removes classified material from a SCIF, the removal must be recorded on a CLASSIFIED DOCUMENT ACCOUNTABILITY RECORD. That record shows exactly who removed the document(s) from a SCIF and when the documents were removed. Every branch of the military as well as intel agencies require use of an ACCOUNTABILITY RECORD.
It is possible to remove a classified document from a SCIF without making an entry in an ACCOUNTABILITY RECORD but very difficult–especially SECRET and TOP SECRET documents. I am assuming whoever removed the recent barrage of classified documents did so covertly (and at great risk or via an approved breach) e.g. he/she did so without annotating the removal on an ACCOUNTABILITY RECORD…otherwise it would be easy to trace who removed the documents right–just look at the ACCOUNTABILITY RECORD.
Also…it is possible to trace what PC/Terminal and printer were used to print all documents…that is simple IT security procedure. For example, an IT security analyst can pair the print batch job/number to a specific person, time, date, document etc…for my part, that would be the easiest way to catch the culprit.
Given the ease at which IT personnel can narrow down the list of suspects, something is just not adding up here. I don’t doubt the voracity of the documents–I think they are legit but by now a list of only a handful of suspects is known–or should be known.
My theory for what it is worth leads me to believe that the document leak was DoD/Intel Agency intentional…the timing of the leak is suspect too…just before the anticipated UAF Spring Offensive.
I have more questions than answers.
👍
Why do we still use “documents” at all? Maybe higher ups need executive summaries, true. But a roomful of administrators like this don’t. Seems best to have all individual granular “data points” all separate and on a database. So nobody, but nobody ever gets a nice pretty report consolidating things. Only the data points you need, with each requiring permission. I work in manufacturing (engineer), in addition to making trucks, we made vehicles for Iraq. At that time ITAR protocols kept data points separate, and few engineers got the whole picture. The first breech here to me is the utter ridiculousness of compiling a document with so many data points in the first place, making the loss footprint huge. This is a damn Power Point it seems assembled for executive levels too lazy to tolerate a slower feed. My argument is that a document such as this should never have been created in the first place if it’s so TS. Lawyers like documents I guess is the reason.
You can always steal something, and you can always kill a man. The trick is surviving those acts. I am one that is more interested in the motivation than the procedure. Somebody had an axe to grind, but who? Very important timelines are approaching.
Like it or not, the US is still the insane serial killer running the world. And we are approaching the election where the powers let us “select” between their two appointed figureheads. The entire American Elite obviously wants Biden over Trump. Powell is desperately trying to fix 50 years of fiscal malfeasance by impoverishing the middle class and poor with interest rate hikes. This has to end and soon before election season. Bakhmut is the beginning of the end for the Ukrainian gambit. Israel is blowing up, and with every politician in Washington DC’s sexual peccadillos in the Mossad’s files thru Epstein? We will be involved in the Middle East again in a war to secure Netanyahu’s criminal state.
And these all have to be tamped down to a level of “not so crazy” for about a year pre-election. Because then the real war with China starts. 4 glorious years of propping Joe up at the lectern while the sanction elevator starts grinding, and ala Japan in the 1930’s we show China the reality of relations with the US.
So again, why the document leak? And why now? For what purpose? I tend to think it is the bomb China now camp. The Pentagon just can’t quite get behind the whole Russia thing. But they have been cheerleading the China assault. I tend to think that this is a ploy to extract us from the Zelensky swamp. And give us some breathing room for the inevitable Asian hot war.
Of course, it could have been some staffer that had a temporary twinge of conscience. I severely doubt that. We are remarkable good at cranking out morally bereft folks that can whistle a merry tune while closing the gas chamber door at Dachau. And thinking about what’s for dinner.
I’m still convinced it’s a fake put out by CIA to make Russians chase their own tail. It has to look real and have accurate information/internal consistency for the 10% faked to be believable (limited hangout) That 10%s is about how deeply US has penetrated Russian intelligence which no one is talking about.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-spying-zelensky-heres-whats-known-so-far-leaked-intelligence-files
“I am one that is more interested in the motivation than the procedure.”
I am with you on that, the who is important but the ultimate question is the Why.
Alex Christoforou from the Duran might have answered this question in today’s podcast when he addressed the WaPo article about the leaked Docs. Alex posits the possibility that the leak is pleading against another offensive due to the shortage of equipment needed for an offensive, exposed by the leak. It is a plea against the plain murder of more Ukranians, despite the damned Neocons.
With what we know, it is a plausible motive and a humanitarian one at that.
Larry, saw you on GL’s roundtable today and the highlight was when you had to take control due to the technical issues. LOL As always, you were the most informative of all.
Its unclear to me why everybody is ignoring the obvious on these documents. They appear to issue from an American source. They appear devoid of any actionable intel. They appear devoid of anything the Russians wouldn’t already know or suspect. The infromation lacks significance outside of a narrow corridor of its effect on perception. They are clearly not aimed at convincing the Russians of anything.
Who then? The media has been hyping “an offensive” for months. The weather will soon allow for an offensive. The Russians have been moving the ball for months (infrastructure strikes, consolidation in Belarus, Bahkmut, etc.) All of this looks like Russia is winning to your average person.
Seems to me “the leak” is designed to reinforce confirmation bias. Causal observers already know Russia is winning. TPTB know this. What better way to overcome expectations than to lower them (consistent with what the public already believes), do better than predicted then use the media to amplify the “surprise” victory over expectations? This is disinformation 101.
TPTB know what “the offensive” will consist of. They know because the Ukrainian force is now nothing but a NATO-created proxy, irrespective of what the documents allege. They know because there is a NATO air excercise scheduled for May. And they know the “the offensive” is going to be a lot more significant than currently predicted.
This is the only option that really makes sense to me. Clearly the information in the documents lacks true signficance, except to create a psychological expectation. The Russians are experienced enough with their own counterintelligence networks to recognize the deficencies of the information in the documents. Only the general public lacks the experience to interpret them properly.
What that suggests is that there will be a counteroffensive, it will be bigger than is currently anticipated by the general public, and TPTB believe “the Ukrainians” will do well enough that it will exceed the public expectations on the matter.
To what end? That’s the real question.
colonel anthony shaffer was just on judge napolitano, explaining how he believes this was not a document leak, but an actual limited hangout, a clever ruse very possibly done on purpose by someone “high up” within the neocon establishment; for the express purpose of showing how dire the situation in ukraine really is…in order for the US to double down and finally “get serious” with eliminating the russian threat.
in short, the purpose is not to water down the conflict in ukraine, but to ramp it up even more…thanks to the dire situation “inadvertently leaked” by “secret documents”.
the mere fact that it was the NYT that broke this story has been suspicious from the very start: since when does the NYT print anything critical of democrat administration policy, ever, anyway? the whole thing looks very much like an elaborate feint.
Ramp up? Like what? Increase production of artillery shells? Can’t be done. Make more tanks more rapidly? Can’t be done. Send troops we don’t have? Please explain what “ramp up” means in terms of practical actions. Thanks.
Larry, thanks for the reply. I was paraphrasing what Anthony Shaffer was saying on the Judge`s show; so you would have to ask him what exactly he had in mind. If I understood correctly, Mr Shaffer was alluding to a possible direct confrontation between Russia and US/NATO….which nobody can seriously doubt is a very real possibility.
A discussion between Shaffer and yourself would probably make for an interesting exchange, too…
Larry, great roundtable you had with RM and host GL. Kudos to all. Great anecdote RM had over ’68 too. In case it’s not been posted yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRs8pAWIxjk
Just a side note: for Donbass Devushka….the first syllable is stressed in Devushka. I’ll give my notation a try: DZE-voosh-ka.
Larry, with all due respect.
When you say the following:
“Third, it is not abnormal to print off briefings inside a SCIF. In fact, it is routine. What is not routine is that someone folded the report and hid it in some fashion to get it out of the SCIF. I have worked in SCIFs where you could bring in your backpack. So it is feasible that the leaker stuffed the report into his or her backpack and casually walked out when their shift was over.”
I have to respond with “effective challenge” aka “credible challenge”, which is a risk management term, and I’m sure that you would agree with me that Risk Management (“RM”, hereinafter) is something that folks in National Security think about a lot.
1) Stuffing “stuff” in your backpack: I’m quite embarassed to even raise this, but aren’t backpacks opened and checked, *especially* when leaving a SCIF?!?!?
2) Bringing your backpack into a SCIF: for things as sensitive as what is going on in Ukraine? Really? Seriously?
Now, maybe you will say, “yes, this is all par for the course!” In which case, I can only shake my head. // Unless, of course, you are part of the whole op. “доверяй, но проверяй” //
Question: Who do you trust?
Answer: Only my mother, but she has passed.
No. Backpacks are not checked, at least in the SCIFs where I worked.
Charles McCarry (that Old Boy) said it best when it comes to Intel: one score assigned to importance, the other to reliability of the source, and at the end of the day pretty much most stuff comes in with a “C3” (I’m making this up), as in, “eh, I dunno…”
A League of Morons, that’s who we are surrounded by. Not one, not two, but a League of Morons.
I suspect this leak is connected to a briefing given to a high level military officer or political leader. This would likely be a power point briefing in a SCIF (possibly over a secure video link) and there would likely be printouts of the slides for at least the 2 stars and above in attendance. At that level there just might be a bit of sloppiness on collecting the paper copies as everyone left.
Of course, if anything like this is the cause of the leak, the leaker will be tracked down. They will know the SCIF(s), and who was there and then it’s just a matter of standard investigation.
The person who did this is no longer accessible to the US. I would say China. Definitely not Russia. Possibly Iran. Because of this we will never be told. Too embarrassing
None of them have access to TS material. How do you reach this conclusion?
An American who went to one of these countries after the event. The only reason I say this is based on there assumption they don’t want to become Assange.
Was this not cleared for 5 eyes ?? I think your colleague Tony Shaffer on Judge Napolitano today or yesterday said that although it was generally marked NoFor it was excepted with some sort of 5 eyes distribution.