A hacking company leaks the dramatic situation on the ground in Ukraine to Russia. A number of Russian casualties was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda, a proKremlin newspaper: 9,861 killed and 16,153 wounded. The number was attributed to the Ministry of Defense and was picked up by other media outlets both at home and abroad. But then it was canceled by Pravda, which later issued a note citing “cyber sabotage.”
Two weeks ago, there was an elaborate cyber raid on the website of TASS, the historic official agency that included a list of damage suffered in the “military special operation,” the term the Russians use to call the invasion need Ukraine. In this case, however, figures from a Kyiv government communiqué were used, making it easy to pinpoint the origin of the hoax. Now, however, the numbers have a greater probability.
The Kremlin has not released any information about the victims since March 2 last year, when it acknowledged 498 dead soldiers. An unrealistic assessment documented by the images coming from the front. Last week, the New York Times, based on Pentagon estimates, reported 7,000 soldiers killed and at least 14,000 wounded: a calculation considered reliable by many Western experts and certainly increasing in the last few days of fighting.
For comparison, the Russian military killed only 98 in the 2008 campaign against Georgia. And in the ten years of the invasion of Afghanistan, the entire Soviet Union wept 14,000 men. About 5,000 people died in the second Chechen conflict, the long war that was opened by President Yeltsin and ended by Putin.
The hacker army defending Ukraine by “shooting” from the PC.
by our correspondent Fabio Tonacci March 18, 2022
The funerals that are celebrated every day in all corners of the country show how heavy the sacrifice of the Russian troops is. The BBC has compiled a list of 557 confirmed names, including one general and seven colonels. Previously, almost exclusively professional soldiers were involved in the funeral: there were only two cases of conscripts. The casualties are mostly men from the chosen units paratroopers, marines, Guards armored divisions charged with the first wave of the attack. Many of them are officers, even of high rank. What is surprising, however, is that the farewell ceremonies are almost exclusively for the personnel killed in the first week of combat.
Even the wounded are treated almost secretly. Russians broadcast very few videos awarding medals or conducting enthusiastic interviews. The Belarusian opposition filmed convoys of ambulances arriving at night in the field hospitals set up in the ally Moscow or the train stations, from where they then set out for home. Operations conducted in the strictest secrecy to prevent the Russian people from knowing the blood sacrifice paid to the last tsar’s power plans.