Who has been saying this? First time I've heard it. The closest I've heard is that there's two versions of the "leak", one with modified numbers making it look better for Russia. Which still appears to be true.
> We have US troops on the ground presumably fighting Russia
Does not appear to be true. What are you basing this on?
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/us/politics/classified-do...
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation wrote about it https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/ukraine-russia-military-leaks-...
One of the first reactions from the government and Ukraine was that this was all Russian disinformation. Then within a couple of days other media sources weighed in and there was considerable debate, until this guy was identified.
So yes. Many people have hypothesized this was Russian disinformation.
Here's two more: Al Jazerra: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/10/us-scrambles-to-fin...
and NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/pentagon-...
> "Let's not forget both the media and the government have spent the last couple of weeks on a gaslighting tour telling us the leak was Russian propaganda, etc."
They all call it a leak and specify that parts of it appear doctored, which is also what I said, right? Has any of that changed or been disproven?
So you haven't read any documents in the end? Because the worst that these documents say is "mostly stalemate, losses here and wins there". Of course Ukraine isn't overwhelmingly winning, but if you believed that, you just believed war propaganda. You shouldn't be angry at it, because it's literally what happens in every, single war. Every camp will overstate their wins and downplay their losses to the public.
This is just gross. It doesn't matter where you align politically, the degree to which the media has been working with the government against the interest of the public is unprecedented. We have US troops on the ground presumably fighting Russia - who is, contrary to what we were told, winning the war - and there was no formal declaration of war, nor was the public informed of it. And not a single journalist in the recent WH press conferences has asked about it. Instead, we got questions such as "How do we prevent leaks like this in the future [so we can keep lying to the public]"?
Perhaps Elon was being a troll by labeling some of these outfits "state-sponsored", but they sure as hell have earned the moniker.