While it looks like it’s interesting, I can’t help but feel that the informational content is zero of maybe even negative.
There is absolutely no way for the lay internet user to corroborate one word of it that isn’t already public information. Whether it looks or feels plausible is also meaningless: it could “feel right” because it is, or because someone took effort to design it this way.
So best thing for me is to ignore it and forget I read it, lest something I read in it confuses me later for a reputable source.
I’m not saying it’s not genuine, it might be, just that to me it is 100% indistinguishable from a prank or psyops.
The word for this is LARP (Live Action Role Play). This is where some message board troll uses publically available information and plausible extrapolations to pretend to be some "high level insider" leaking something.
When the prediction doesn't pan out, the usual response is "two more weeks." Qanon is the most notorious and successful example of this phenomenon. You don't normally see these on HN, but they are common on anonymous message boards. Perhaps this is a "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" mainstream conspiracy theory being propagated as an official narrative for war propaganda purposes?
Or the admin got this sent randomly from someone. Maybe an FSB operative, or maybe a convincing troll, or Russian or Ukrainian or frankly any intelligence service.
It’s completely unknowable. Any heuristics for determining authenticity go out the window, because they would be used by a faker too.
Hell, even concluding it’s a fake is dangerous, because what if that’s the intention? Next thing you might be wondering if this is reverse psychology and trying to conclude things from something that really has no informational content to the lay user.
I wouldn’t take at face value a journalist saying “this is what an FSB operative says, trust me”. Leaks from “senior anonymous official” are dozen a penny. Journalists typically indicate how they verified the provenance of leaks they publish, and hopefully keep the unverifiable stuff off their pages.
As for the guy’s track record... this sounds like a niche source. Some fairly small slither of the population can indeed infer more by knowing this guy well, for everyone else is “trust me he’s good”. Certainly not informative to me.
Agree, even if it completely genuine there doesn't seem anything that useful in it. What I find interesting, if true, it might be a first sign of more, actually corroborated information coming out in the coming months and years.
In the first days of the Snowden leaks, I was very skeptical (and got a lot of heat because of it), because, although intuitively it sounded true and fairly aligned with my world view, he seemingly didn't say anything that one couldn't just come up with and at the time only one news paper has seen the actual documents, vouching for it.
I found it interesting for the purely operational aspect: management ask for analysis without context, doesnt like answer so force better number, bubbles up for months to the top, war is declared on the basis of analysis, all is fucked because analysis was devoid of meaning.
Now, need to fix the shit and Z stands for Nazi, Zelensky is war hero, Chechens dont understand why they were erased even before killing one civilian and there s no way it ends with a win for Russia.
Love it cause even if completely fake, it's probably 100% true :D
Creating a long fake is riskier than a short fake. Making mistakes is a risk, and so the more content the more risk.
As for the “reality” of working as an analyst in FSB it seems pretty accurate. Even if not true, it carries a certain truth.
The general analysis is consistent with what most people I’ve spoken with think. Russia is in a bad spot. They need to turn the narrative on Ukraine (one idea we thought of was a dirty bomb from waste)… I don’t think the content can prove it is authentic or not. Maybe when the author is found an punished we’ll hear about it.
The intelligence war has been amazing. The early game of leaking operational plans was incredible. To say “we have so much access we can burn it with abandon” is a huge flex.
The real time intelligence enabling the Ukrainians to respond precisely has also been incredible. From OSINT analysis to the OSINT crowd sourced collection using geolocation tagged videos and photos. Truly a new operational environment for an army to fight in.
Then all the perception management. Truly remarkable achievement. This will be in the textbooks as a case study, if… you know, we make to a point where we still have textbooks
> Creating a long fake is riskier than a short fake. Making mistakes is a risk, and so the more content the more risk.
But this isn't really a long piece. It's very short in actual content, only padded with prose.
And what exactly is the risk anyway? That someone will identify it as Ukrainian disinformation? That's very low stakes, which we know because it has already happened with other bits of "info".
The Kadyrov FSB leak being Ukranian counter information is quite plausible. Maybe they got tipped off by NATO and after neutralizing the chechens, they claimed it was a FSB leak.
What I found interesting was unconditional acceptance of "we did happy result analysis because otherwise we get criticize as always, had we knew it will end with failed conquest we would totally make truthful analysis to save Russia". Totally.
The info about Putin not being the only one in charge of pushing the "red button" is new. Hopefully it is also true, but afaik there hasn't been any concrete info about that, quite the contrary, the feeling is that all the world risks getting into nuclear war because of one "madman".
> the feeling is that all the world risks getting into nuclear war because of one "madman".
Which, from a game theory perspective is exactly what he would want you to feel. If people don't believe he will press the red button, then the red button doesn't deter anyone and there is no nuclear deterrence.
We did not believe he was going to invade Ukraine, although the US did warn us weeks or even months in advance. I'm not going to make the same mistake again and prepare for the worst.
There is absolutely no way for the lay internet user to corroborate one word of it that isn’t already public information. Whether it looks or feels plausible is also meaningless: it could “feel right” because it is, or because someone took effort to design it this way.
So best thing for me is to ignore it and forget I read it, lest something I read in it confuses me later for a reputable source.
I’m not saying it’s not genuine, it might be, just that to me it is 100% indistinguishable from a prank or psyops.