Estonian intelligence exposes Russia’s fake battlefield gains

The Russian leadership and top military command are substantially exaggerating their advances in Ukraine, using disinformation as part of cognitive warfare to influence negotiations and Western decision-making, said Ants Kiviselg, head of the Estonian Defence Forces Intelligence Centre. Source: ERR

Commenting on reports by Russian Armed Forces Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov to Vladimir Putin that 310 settlements and 6,500 square kilometers of territory had supposedly been captured since the start of the year, Estonian intelligence stressed that these claims have no objective confirmation and are wholly contradicted by the actual situation on the front line.

According to Estonian intelligence, the Kremlin is seeking to create a false impression of an “uninterrupted offensive” in every direction in order to force Ukraine and its allies to accept peace on Moscow’s terms. Meanwhile, the Russian army’s actual losses remain catastrophic: they exceed 10,000 people per week, and over some three-day periods, Russian Armed Forces losses exceeded 2,000 soldiers.

Despite the intensity of the fighting (around 240 engagements a day on average, primarily in the Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka directions), Russian forces have been unable to achieve strategic breakthroughs, while Ukrainian troops are conducting successful counterattacks in Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Alongside its information pressure campaign, Russia is trying to provoke a humanitarian catastrophe, having carried out more than 2,100 strikes on Ukraine’s energy system since mid-July and increased the number of civilian casualties. Kiviselg also drew attention to Russia’s hybrid operations in space, where the Russian military satellite “Kosmos-2612” made a dangerous close approach to the ICEYE-X36 satellite, which Ukraine uses for reconnaissance. Estonia believes this orbital provocation was aimed at disrupting the radar network and demonstrating the vulnerability of Western space assets.

Recall that an Estonian general called for strengthening NATO’s military presence to deter Russia.