Russo-Ukrainian War IV

The Pentagon Papers, part II?

From Tuomas Malinen’s Forecasting Newsletter.

We have seen a major (alleged) leak of classified documents from the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) presenting, among other things, the situation and plans in Ukraine.

The serious efforts to ‘redact’ these leaks from, e.g., Twitter with mediocre success, at least partly speaks for the authenticity of the documents. Moreover, statements and actions by the U.S. and Ukrainian leadership also suggests that leaks are authentic. Still, it should be noted that there’s no way to confirming the authenticity of the leaks with 100% certainty. They may as well be a part of a sophisticated misinformation campaign, while at current time this looks relatively unlikely.

If the leaks are authentic, as it currently seems, the situation in Ukraine is even more dire than what I suspected. We may thus have seen another round of the Pentagon Papers.

This new information, and the updated worst-case analysis it yields, also affects our risks analyses. This also means that this analysis will be for our (and mine) customers only. For those interested on the leaks in general, there are several free pieces going through them (just google). However, acknowledge that many of the documents have already been altered.

So, let’s dwell in.