A Pentagon document that has appeared on the internet as part of a trove of leaks shows the number of NATO special operations forces that are inside Ukraine, according to The Guardian.
The Guardian report reads: “One slide suggested that a small contingent of less than a hundred special operations personnel from NATO members France, America, Britain, and Latvia were already active in Ukraine.”
According to a copy of the document circulating on Twitter, the authenticity of which has not been verified, there are 97 NATO special operations soldiers inside Ukraine, including 14 Americans.
The French government denied on Saturday that its forces were inside Ukraine. “There are no French forces engaged in operation in Ukraine. The documents cited do not come from the French armies. We do not comment on documents whose source is uncertain,” a spokesman for the minister of France’s armed forces said.
The New York Times first reported on Thursday on the leaked documents that appeared online. The documents show US planning for a Ukrainian counteroffensive and appear to be authentic as the Biden administration is scrambling and the Justice Department launched an investigation into the leak.
A new batch of documents surfaced on Friday that extends beyond Ukraine and includes reports on China, North Korea, Iran, and other areas around the world. According to The Washington Post, the Pentagon restricted the flow of intelligence in response. A US official said the move “revealed a high level of panic among Pentagon leadership.”
The Post report said a slide that showed fewer Russian casualties than Ukrainian appeared to be altered. But there were no indications that other documents were altered, which would include the slide that showed the number of special operations forces in Ukraine.
Western media outlets have previously reported on the presence of NATO special operations forces in Ukraine. The Intercept reported in October 2022 that there were US special operations forces on the ground, and in June 2022, The New York Times reported there were a few dozen commandos from Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania.
I sure as heck hope we are not going to go toe to toe with the Russia….
I sure hope all of those in congress along with their families be strapped on to the first ship out to fight Russia.
That works for me… Let them see the carnage first hand and understand what being a target means…
A note to those who vote something down:
We don’t mind being voted down but we would certainly like to know why you voted something down.
thanks.
Because this seemed like exactly the post that voting down would be funny for.
🙂 Good Morning TK. 🙂
I always downvote posts that complain about downvotes. I’m just broken inside I guess.
LOL!
Fake report that just include a few truth to it so that the lies can be blend in to throw Russia off their current trajectory.
It makes no sense that only the figures of casualties are altered. Why not other things? What this really means is — fake numbers are being given publicly to hide low Russian casualties and high Ukranian casualties. But the document apparently reveals the truth and many other things.
It serms the impact of all the revelations is not clear yet. No wonder there is panic in Pentagon.
There is panic in some quarters of the Pentagon because men (and women) who have never tasted combat are pulling the levers.
Okay Don Julio, just let me say, when you vote someone down, you should let US know WHY and WHAT FOR? It keeps things interesting. Thanks-donna
In military terms “personnel already active” inside Ukraine does not equal “forces engaged in operation”. It was already part of the information sphere that special forces were present to supervise or advice on logistical issues. It’s not operational participation. However, the opponent might see it differently, at some point.
Huh! “Supervising” is not operational participation!? What are they supervising in an operational theatre. How about those Javelins, HIMARS & NASAM just sitting there innocently doing nothing and getting unfairly blown to bits by those overzealous Russians always looking to blow shit up. And those tourist volunteers out there just to offer emotional support and nothing more. After all those Ukies trained themselves so well (being integral part of NaTO?) in the operation of the $50 billion plus in military hardware assistance. Surely you meant something different.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f4012df37582dc0dc757874d006f35146208ab540cd44d0a92e224b6bd510057.jpg
PEACE.
Peace to you as well
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a43e12dc53eff03708f3d44ddd64d62aa51d831c8449c7d0c32a1922c2552dfe.jpg
Yeah!
WAY more than 100 western soldiers and mercenaries are fighting Russia in Ukraine. CNN stumbled upon units full of Americans. No surprise, that was not their lead to the story, it read more like an appeal to send in more holy warriors.
Agreed. In fact, that number (less than 100) proved to me without a shadow of doubt that the entire release was intentionally produced. Dude, they didn’t cover Sy Hersh’s truthful articles at all and now they’re all eager to tell us the truth? That is such bad BS that plants would know to spit it out if used as fertilizer. (Sarcasm alert)
;-l
document says just under 100 troops from the US, Britain, France, and Latvia are in Ukraine
that explains the recent want-ads =
HELP WANTED
“advisors”
must have experience directing traffic
1-800- 555- uncle sam
lol.
“The slide showing fewer Russian casualties than Ukrainian appeared to be altered..”
Did it? Really? Or is it just showing what many commentators, including Douglas McGregor, Scott Ritter, David Stockman, have been saying all along? That Ukraine has been losing this “war of attrition” badly, that Russia has been showing economy of force in the fall and winter fighting, and that the long term projections show Russia getting stronger relative to Ukraine, not weaker?
At this point, it’s impossible to believe anything coming out of the US government, state department, (lack of) intelligence services, or Pentagon, or their media shills.
Well said JL, well said.
I think Pentagram works better than Pentagon. 😉
Entire polygon thing need to go. We need NURBIS geometry in 3D.
I have no idea what the heck you are talking about but I support your post anyway. 🙂
Also, I’m stoned for peace!
3D stuff. Currently, nearly everything we have is polygon-based. Basic polygon is 3 vectors and 3 lines. From that you can build a surface and virtually any shape you want. (such as pentagram or pentagon) NURBS (Non-Uniform Rational B Spline) use entirely different approach and you get incredibly smooth surfaces with less computing power.
I think I get the basic gist.
Stoned for peace sounds good, but do you really need a reason to be stoned?
I’m at that age where if I want that light-headed escape of a buzz, all I have to do is stand up quickly 😀
No! Good one TK!
V (peace sign).
I m glad you caught that. The ragtag, The Post couldn’t help itself. I think the document is sound, however I think the leak is not an expose, if anything I think its a sort of desensitizer. I think very soon we there will be an increase in numbers and activities of NATO, and by that I mostly mean US personnel. When they start giving it sound bytes in the news people won’t be as shocked since they heard it somewhere oh yeah NATO has been involved afterall Poland is NATO right, and so on…
Yep, this “leak” is just a desperate attempt to get on top of the narrative. It’s been spotted and disassembled by pretty much all independent journalists and pundits.
“Leaked Document Appears to Show NATO Special Operations Forces are in Ukraine The document says just under 100 troops from the US, Britain, France, and Latvia are in Ukraine”
If the New York Times NYT is leaking documents then there is an ulterior motive and disinformation is afoot.
Many Americans recognize that the New York Times is a CIA dumping ground for false information. From “All is Well Ukraine is Winning” to “Six Men in a Boat Destroyed Nord Stream” the NYT bears false witness and spews propaganda.
No thinking person would trust this news outlet connected to the CIA.
I agree, especially when they’re all singing the same tune. They jail true whistle blowers like Assange, while they produce fake whistle blowers like what they did with Facebook.
It would indeed be interesting to know how much (could be none, could be all, could be anything in between) of this “leak” is real, how much of it is planted disinformation, etc.
Depending on source and motivation, there could be could be “limited hangout” stuff that was going to come out anyway (and which will give the dump added credibility), along with disinformation intended to achieve particular results.
For example, the “leak” that Ukraine will soon be running low on air defense munitions could be true or false, and whether it’s true or false, the express purpose of pushing it out there could be to justify a “rush order” of air defense munitions to Ukraine.
Or, it could all be true, and put out by a whistleblower with the intent of informing the public of the real situation. Maybe we’ll find out. Or maybe not.
I’m more curious to know about hypersonic missile strike on nato command center in Ukraine that, supposedly, killed 100s of nato officers. Both sides seem to be very quiet about it.
As do all those supposed officers’ families, loved ones, etc.
Even if the Russians didn’t think such an event was worth trumpeting, a mass casualty event involving a large number of NATO troops couldn’t likely stay secret for very long.
And these days, when we talk about “command center” stuff, it’s not like NATO officers would need to actually be on-site in Ukraine to coordinate activities at a command level. Even us regular people can find end-to-end-encrypted communications apps. There’s nothing they could do in e.g. Kyiv that they couldn’t do just as easily from EUCOM HQ in Stuttgart.
You need electric power for any kind of digital communication and it all can be traced, intercepted, hijacked or blocked.
Everything’s a tradeoff. Which makes more sense: “There could be temporary interruptions in electricity, making it impossible for us to do X;” or “we could just do X on site, in which case we could get killed, making it impossible for us to do X?”
Even at the tactical level, you keep a mortar platoon’s fire direction center and command HQ separately located and well away from the guns, and connect the three by wire with radio as a backup. And that’s how it is all the way up the chain. For example, the Marine Expeditionary Force in Desert Storm was run from Al Jubail, 150 miles from the line of contact with Iraqi forces. And the MEF commander (General Boomer) was getting instructions from the Commandant of the Marine Corps (General Gray) in Washington. Boomer didn’t need to be at the regimental HQs, and Gray didn’t need to be at the MEF HQ. That’s what phones and radio are for.
Can comms be interfered with, intercepted, etc.? Absolutely. The only firefight I was in was at that MEF HQ when a “sniper” kept taking shots at e.g. the MEF antenna farm (which was located about half a kilometer from the actual HQ and connected by wire).
The reason why there wouldn’t be a bunch of NATO officers at a Ukrainian command HQ is that there wouldn’t need to be a bunch of NATO officers at a Ukrainian command HQ. Putting them there would have little or no net up side and plenty of potential net down side.
Some is semantic. The attack on the power grid seems to focus more on power distribution than on power generation. Thus, they have power, they just can’t get it to many people. So one could say the power is not “out.” But then, when my home was dark for four days recently, I really did not think that power was on because the generators could still operate.
Why do they do it this way? The big transformers are highly explosive targets, and they are in very short supply worldwide, many of them near custom made with years-long back orders.
Also, attacks on things that must be defended are like the US/British air compaign against Germany in WW2: it destroyed the German Air Force for all purposes, to great advantage, not only in the air campaign itself (which the postwar Strategic Bombing Survey doubted was a true success in itself). Just so, Ukraine’s air defense system has been damaged, to Russia’s advantage in other parts of the war.
Personally i do not trust a word any of them say. The first casualty in war is the truth. I wait till the evidence on the ground tells me what is going on.
Right now i have noticed that Russia is not using aircraft over central or western Ukraine. That tells me that the air defense units still have ammunition.
Is anybody really shocked?
The US is at war with the Russians in Ukraine. Calling it a proxy war or
some other bullshit appellation doesn’t alter what it is. It only
serves to mollify and anesthetize the rubes.
But it doesn’t fool anyone with a functioning brain.
You rock OB1, totally, for peace!
Whether the material leaked was legitimate or fabricated with the purpose to mislead doesn’t matter.The Russians will respond to the Ukrainian offensive, if and when it comes. The front is long enough for there to be weak spots, but the Ukrainians would have to find them first. They did a decent job of it in Kherson and I don’t think the Russians will make the same staffing mistake again.
NATO has no options in Ukraine. All they can do is force Ukraine to burn.