The accounts of ordinary Russian soldiers strongly suggest that President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed about the situation on the frontline in Ukraine through a system of false reporting rooted in all of Russia’s armed forces.

Military analyst and researcher Chris Owen explains in a long series of posts on his page Twitter One thing stands out when you read the stories of Russian soldiers sent to the front, or listen to recordings of their conversations intercepted by Ukrainians: Russian army officers often lie to their superiors about the state of their unit.

Former Russian paratrooper Pavlo Filatyev, in his already famous story about the war in Ukraine, bitterly complains about “the system of photo reports, which is now so widespread in the army, because the command hides the problems.”

As is customary in militaries around the world, Russian officers must write reports to their superiors about the morale and condition of the soldiers they command, their equipment and other relevant military information.

In the case of Russia, however, it appears that the reports must be accompanied by photographs of the activities of military subordinates, suggesting that generals and other senior Russian officers are not entirely confident in the information received in written form.

The Russian army and the bizarre history of its paintings

However, numerous Russian soldiers have described how even photographs are falsified, and they are asked to pose for military exercises and other events that do not actually take place.

Gleb Irisov, a former lieutenant in the Russian Air Force, says that in reality, the Russian command organizes fewer exercises than it should and disguises its numbers in order to steal resources allocated to them from the military budget.

Russian military doctor Pavlo Zelenkov was surprised to discover that in the unit where he was sent, “all medicine is reduced to a simple game of theater. Before the field application, you dress up for a masquerade, take pictures, report to the headquarters, everyone returns to their seats.”

Private Danylo Frolkin, for his part, said that during the briefing in his unit, “I just handed in photo reports. I would come to the shooting range and stand with the rifle in my hand aimed at the target. As soon as you were photographed, you could have left.”

Even more dangerous for all involved, the photo reports were also used to illustrate the fictional successes that Frolkin’s unit, the 64th Motorized Infantry Brigade, would bring into battle. This posed an immediate threat to the soldiers’ lives, much to their disgust.

A Russian military official told the independent investigative website iStories that in one instance commanders forced soldiers to pose with several combat vehicles in the background as Ukrainian shells rained down around them.

The brigade commander asked his soldiers about this in order to report to his superiors that “we destroyed not one tank, but three! No, five!”.

Not surprisingly, these false reports had dire consequences for Frolkin and his comrades. He said that the commander of the unit reported on the capture of the nearby forest, after which Deputy Minister of Defense Oleksandr Fomin arrived on the scene. As it turned out, the forest was not actually occupied by Russian soldiers.

The commander of the unit was wounded and had to evacuate in Frolkin’s armored car after Russian soldiers were ordered to attack the facility.

The Russian command in Ukraine regularly sends false reports

But Frolkin is not the only Russian soldier to tell of instances where soldiers were ordered to attack en masse after false reports of “victories” had been achieved.

Victor Shiaga, a former infantryman, said that on another occasion, eight helicopters were sent to support a ground attack, but “only two of them took off. Others were either broken or had no fuel.”

“Only one of the helicopters successfully hit the target. It didn’t hit all the targets. In fact, 80% of the targets were missed. But the commander of this operation reported to his superiors that everything was fine and all targets were hit,” he accused.

“If the senior commander believes that all targets are hit, he can send infantry with tanks to storm the area,” he explained.

Soldiers in his unit suffered heavy casualties after being repeatedly sent into areas with strong Ukrainian defenses that they were told had been cleared.

“Before the shelling, we were even told twice that everything would be fine, that the enemy’s artillery was suppressed, that other units were already ahead, and we had to catch up with them. But every time it turned out to be a lie, which led to senseless losses for us.”

Șiaga reported that because of this constant lying, the soldiers eventually did not believe their commanders at all. This had a strong demoralizing effect on the unit, the soldiers had the feeling that they were being treated like cattle.

The Russian military also complained about these false reports in telephone conversations intercepted and released by Ukrainian intelligence services.

In one such discussion, a Russian military man said: “The army commander tells nonsense to the higher authorities, that everything here is incredibly wonderful, that everything is going well, that we have a lot of people. For example, they will give numbers … if 26 people attack, they will say that 126 people will attack.”

Another soldier from the unit that suffered heavy losses reported that “on the walls of the headquarters there are data that our brigade is 87% full.” Can you believe what these people are doing? We don’t even have 10% here! To hell with it!”.

Disinformation will likely thrive until it reaches Vladimir Putin

Russian military bloggers strongly condemned these false reports in their Telegram channels. In one of the posts on the Spre (V) Pobeda) channel, the military blogger noted that:

“Do you remember Hitler’s non-existent divisions, with which he was going to correct the situation at the front, stop the Russian army, defeat it, and which are already counterattacking and all that? We are in roughly the same situation now. Plans are made based on reports. And in fact, units have staff only in reports (…)”.

Chris Owen points out that the consequences of this systemic lying in the Russian military are likely to be very serious for Moscow’s armed forces and their military. In addition to all this, Russian soldiers have long talked about inadequate equipment, due to which they were ill-prepared for the demands of a war in which Ukraine receives modern Western weapons.

“As we have seen, the decisions of the Russian command – where to attack and probably where to defend – were clearly made on the basis of false information. It probably led to a lot of unnecessary casualties and military failures,” says Owen.

The military analyst also explains why this can lead to catastrophic collapses on the Russian front, such as the one recorded in the Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine: even under low pressure, units that exist 50% only on paper collapse, not through attack . unprecedented in intensity, but because they are only partially ready for battle.

“The practice of false denunciations is clearly widespread. This was reported by Russian units on all fronts and in all specializations, from the Airborne Forces to motorized infantry. It probably happens in the Navy, Air Force and Missile Forces as well,” says Owen.

He also states that the consequences of this false information are compounded as it moves further up the chain of command, as reports from lower officers can be combined with other false reports from higher-ups.

“When the reports finally reach the top of the chain of command – the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Defense and Putin – they are likely to be so distorted and inaccurate that the people running the war will have a very unrealistic picture of what is going on. on the ground,” the military analyst concludes.

Another analysis from Chris Owen:

• Why did the Russian front in Kharkiv collapse like a sandcastle? From the lesson of Napoleon to the incredible corruption in the Russian army

• Has Vladimir Putin’s army run out of reserves? As evidenced by the map published by the Russian military itself

• Official documents show how Vladimir Putin’s military machine works: the soldiers were deceived, the instrumentalists in the elite forces, the military were deceived

• How incredible corruption works in the Russian army: from soldiers forced into prostitution to officers who fabricate troops to get paid

• How the incredible corruption of the Russian army works (II): multi-millionaire generals, blonde “Amazons” and parties with Jennifer Lopez