A newly discovered set of leaked classified documents shows Russia's main intelligence agency is accusing the country's Defense Ministry of understating the scale of the country's casualties in the war against Ukraine.
The documents were not part of the 53-page set made public last week, but include 27 new pages concerning the Russian government's infighting, with American intelligence officials reporting the depth of the feud, reports The New York Times.
One of the documents, dated Feb. 28, reveals that U.S. intelligence officials were reporting that the Federal Security Service (F.S.B.), had "accused" the Defense Ministry of "obfuscating Russian casualties in Ukraine" and that their findings showed the "continuing reluctance of military officials to convey bad news up the chain of command."
The entry was part of a document that included updates about the war in Ukraine, as well as information about other areas in the world that were mostly compiled from electronic communications intercepts from the U.S. intelligence officers.
The F.S.B., according to the document, said the Defense Ministry's toll didn't include the reports of dead and wounded among members of the Wagner mercenary force, the Russian National Guard, or among fighters led by Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya.
The agency calculated, based on the units that are not part of the regular Russian military, that the "actual number of Russians wounded and killed in action was closer to 110,000," the document said.
In September, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said 5,937 Russian troops were killed since the war started in February 2022. That was the last time the nation's Defense Ministry publicly disclosed a death toll.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have estimated Russian casualties at about 200,000 soldiers, but another leaked document, which the New York Times reported from the earlier cache, showed Russia has had 189,500 to 223,000 casualties as of February.
This includes as many as 43,000 killed in action, compared to 124,500 to 131,000 Ukrainian casualties and up to 17,500 killed in action.
The latest documents also reveal details about the public dispute in February, when business mogul Yevgeny Prigozhin, who runs the Wagner force, accused the Defense Ministry of withholding ammunition from his fighters.
One of the documents shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin had tried to resolve their dispute through a meeting between Prigozhin and Shoigu on Feb. 22.
"The meeting almost certainly concerned, at least in part, Prigozhin's public accusations and resulting tension with Shoygu," says the document, which misspelled Shoigu's name.
The latest documents were revealed in photo form, and some were missing pages. They included material from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, and the Pentagon's Joint Staff intelligence directors.
The materials, obtained by The New York Times, were posted on the instant messaging platform Discord, where the first set of intelligence documents from the Pentagon had appeared.
Those documents are believed to have been leaked by a Discord chatroom member described as being a gun enthusiast in his 20s who worked on a military base, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, citing fellow members of the chat group.
The newest material also includes a six-page document, called "The Watch Report," which was dated Feb. 23 and said to be from the office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Such reports compile accounts from intelligence agencies but do not contain conclusions from the matters gathered.
Former officials said that government officials reading the report know that while some of the information in it will be found to be correct, other information will not pan out.
According to the Watch Report document, for example, the United States had learned about a plan for Russia to obtain lethal aid from China, citing Russian intelligence sources.
This led to widespread reports in March about China's intentions, but a senior administration official warned Wednesday that there had not been any indication that China had made a decision, suggesting that Russia's intelligence on China may be flawed.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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