Of course.
Thus we know the lies if any are more subtle than: - Russia won a smashing successful victory in the first 3 days of the War, and Russian military troops are toasting to their own success in Kyev standing on the corpses the conquered.
Obviously not plausible, thus obviously not the lie being told.
But on lesser scale a subordinate commander leading an attack on a Russian military target expected by Russia to be a push-over, that turns out not to be, like Kyev for example (still under Ukraine control), might make excuses he may hope would help cover up his own battlefield incompetence.
W,
One of the more interesting examples of lies from the battlefield during WWII were British double-agents lying to the Nazi military. The Nazis sent bombs and missiles over the U.K. and then relied upon spies on the ground to report where their attack weapons landed.
The "spies" knew if they outright lied, the Nazis would learn about it, and no longer accept that spy's reports. So what the U.K. double-agents learned to do was to report actual Nazi "battle damage assessment" (BDA), but report it out of chronological sequence.
The result was, during the course of the war, the evidence more or less matched what the Nazis expected, BUT !! The Nazi military couldn't figure out why their attacks were consistently unpredictably off course, undermining, sabotaging Nazi war-fighting strategy. Nazis couldn't figure out why they weren't hitting their targets.
Damned clever those Brits, don't you know.
Anyway, whatever else is true we know Russia's glamorous battle fantasies were so non-reality based, Russia has had to both substantially revise, and scale back their territorial ambitions. It seems Russia has already (for the moment at least) abandoned hope of conquering the entire nation of Ukraine. I don't have inside info. on what Putin is prepared to settle for, but I hope he settles for zero, and possibly (if the People of Crimea prefer), that as Ukraine routs Russia from the battlefield, Russia is sent packing from Crimea as well. I suspect reclaiming Crimea isn't an option. But while we're dreaming, I thought I'd mention it.
"So far over 70,000 Computer scientists have left Russia and a further 100,000 are aiming to leave." W #31
Putin may be draining the talent from Russia. And knowing Putin, he may continue to apply Cold War (20th Century) "solutions" to address 21st Century problems. BUT !! You and I both know that may very well mean the "Iron Curtain" goes back up, possibly even rebuilding the Berlin "Wall" (fence).
That might work well for Putin if the West isolates Russia too severely, economically, and politically. There's talk for example of removing Russia from the U.N. Security Council, probably a good idea I suspect. I'd at least like to hear the idea debated, pro & con.
But Putin draining talent from Russia could cascade. Ex pat Russians reporting back to their professional colleagues still in Russia how fabulous life is in the West might merely accelerate the Russian talent stampede for the exits. The net result: the collective IQ of Russia drops. Russia's talent pool drops, reducing still further Russia's capacity to compete successfully in the globalized 3rd millennium economy. In an already handicapped Western sanctioned environment Putin himself may have already dealt Russia a blow that could take decades, potentially generations to recover from.
