War without losses: why we will never know about the dead and wounded in Ukraine

They weren't there yesterday, they aren't here this morning, and they won't be for the foreseeable future. And that's why.

Sergey Levin

Judging by the official data, which was announced in a video message by President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, on February 24, on the first day of the war, 137 citizens of Ukraine were killed, 10 of them were officers, 316 people were injured.

According to Zelensky, it follows that all 13 border guards on duty were killed in the battle for Serpent's Island in the Black Sea, they will be awarded the title of "Heroes of Ukraine" posthumously.

It is characteristic that information about losses is voiced not by the military department (it is easy to suspect it of waging a propaganda war), but by the first person of the state (who, in theory, is not supposed to lie). At the same time, the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, which during the day reported on the losses of the army, also takes responsibility for the reliability of the data.

Now let's turn to the other side of the conflict. As for the Russian army, there are no data on losses (even approximate or conditional) in the information space. They are FORBIDDEN by the laws of Russia.

Data on the losses of the Ministry of Defense are not subject to disclosure even in the absence of war

In 2015, President Vladimir Putin made changes to the list of information classified as state secrets: these include data revealing the losses of the Russian Defense Ministry in peacetime during special operations. For the publication of such data, media representatives may be held criminally liable.

A 2015 presidential decree amended the list of information classified as state secrets, which was approved by President Boris Yeltsin in 1995. They were forbidden to disclose information about the losses of personnel in wartime.

The military department of Russia itself was in favor of tightening the rules in the field of state secrets. The fact is that until 2015, any information about the loss of personnel during military operations could be disclosed by a court decision, and after that a total ban came.

There are several articles in the Criminal Code (CC) that imply criminal liability for disclosure or transfer to other persons of information constituting a state secret: Art. 275 ("high treason"), art. 276 ("Espionage"), art. 283 ("Disclosure of State Secrets") and Art. 283.1 ("Illegal obtaining of information constituting a state secret").

Thus, if a citizen gave out information related to state secrets to another state, then he will fall under Art. of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, even if he did not have access to this information, but he learned them "through service, work, study or in other cases provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation."

At the same time, we emphasize that even close relatives of the dead do not have the right to demand from the Ministry of Defense and other law enforcement agencies the details of the death of their loved ones. The standard wording is "Killed in the line of duty." No one will know whether the soldier was a hero who gave his life in battle with the enemy, or, say, a deserter and a coward who received a bullet from his own. It is not known whether he was in a combat situation at all or whether he was crushed by his own tank in the rear...

The silence of the Ministry of Defense works against Russia

It is no secret that, by adopting laws prohibiting the publicity of any information about the losses of the army, Russia acted on the basis of the tracing of the Second World War and subsequent military conflicts in which the USSR took part. However, the principle "the people are not supposed to know" worked in the conditions of the information monopoly of the state. Whether he is good or bad, we do not judge.

But today it is obvious that the Russian state has no information monopoly. Dozens of channels in TG, thousands on Tik-Tok, social networks, YouTube, world media, etc. show and talk about the losses of our army on the first day of the "special operation".

It is possible that many of them are lying, many "bought" on fakes, stuffing, staging and staging of Russia's enemies. But we must admit that Russian citizens post videos and photos of allegedly destroyed tanks with abandoned corpses near Kharkov, burning equipment on the streets of the city of Sumy, interrogation of a supposedly captured Russian army soldier from Kuzbass and other evidence of "losses" on social networks and share links to them in various messengers. Simply put, information "from the enemy" spreads at the speed of a viral mailing.

And in response, our state propaganda can only repeat: ALL THIS IS A LIE! LOSS - NO!

However, the silence and omissions of the authorities give scope to ANY stuffing from the enemy.

It's good if the swift special operation ends in two or three days, and a resounding victory writes off possible losses in daddy "top secret" for decades to come.

Well, what if the "special operation to protect Donbass" does not end on Sunday at lunchtime? And what if, in a month or two, civil society still demands to be told about the losses? After all, it will operate only with enemy data.

And today they are piling up in the information space like a snowball...

BY THE WAY

The ban on reporting military casualties does not apply to the DPR and LPR. They report on their dead and wounded. Probably because they have not yet become part of Russia...