A Ukrainian serviceman jumps out of the boat onto the shore of the Dnipro near Kherson, Ukraine, October 15, 2023.
Alex Babenko/AP Photo
A drama in Russian media saw articles about troop movements in Ukraine quickly deleted.Two state news agencies retracted articles saying Russia was moving troops away from Dnipro.It could be a genuine mistake — or a Russian information operation, experts said.
Reports in Russian news media about troop movements on the Ukrainian frontline were swiftly deleted on Monday, with the outlets involved saying they were released in error.
The articles were published by state-owned news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS, according to several independent news outlets.
Both outlets wrote that Russia had decided to “regroup” its forces in the Kherson region, according to the Kyiv Post.
“Having assessed the situation, the command of the Dnipro group decided to move the troops to more advantageous positions east of the Dnipro,” the Kyiv Post cited the Russian outlets as saying.
It reported RIA Novosti as adding: “After the regrouping of Dnipro, part of the forces will be released, which will be used for the offensive in other directions.”
On Monday, TASS published an update, saying its post had been released in error.
Business Insider did not see the original posts. Clicking on a link to the TASS post on Telegram led to this message:
“Message doesn’t exist” appears briefly over an unrelated article on the TASS Telegram news feed, when a link to the now-deleted post is clicked on, as of November 14, 2023.
TASS/Telegram
The announcements about troop movements were significant due to their focus on the Dnipro River in Kherson.
Ukrainian troops were, as of last week, pressuring Russian forces at several locations along the river, establishing bridgeheads and attempting to connect them up.
The Russian defense ministry, in unconfirmed remarks, claimed that its forces have pushed back those efforts.
In contrast with the tone of official reports, Russian military bloggers have “near-constant anxiety” about Ukrainian movements there, according to the US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War.
As such, the reports caused a “media frenzy” before they were deleted, according to the ISW.
The ISW has two theories as to what happened: either the reports reflected the real decision-making between high-level Russian officers, which “may have prematurely entered the information space,” it said.
Or it could have been part of information warfare.
“Russian military command may have instructed state media to release and then retract these reports as part of an information operation that aims to have Ukrainian forces underestimate available Russian manpower on the east bank of Kherson Oblast,” the think tank said.
Both RIA Novosti and TASS are owned by Russian state media and are subject to controls that have intensified over the past few years.
The European Alliance of News Agencies severed ties with TASS after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, saying the agency was no longer in a position to provide unbiased reporting.