[foxfluff]

Can you say what exactly here is a straight up lie? That the Snake Island defenders were thought dead after contact with them was lost following the attack? That Ukraine claims there were 13 defenders while Russia claims there were 82?

There's a ton of things we don't have good video coverage of, including the Snake Island events, so it's very hard to verify any claims. This lack of certainty affects the belligerents too so -- unless you have conclusive evidence to show that deliberately false statements have been made -- I think it's quite arrogant to say "straight up lies" concerning statements that may have been made in confusion and without a full picture of the situation.

[CapricornNoble]

>>>Can you say what exactly here is a straight up lie?

Sure, right here: “Defending the Zmiinyi Island, all our border guards died a heroic death,” Zelensky said. and: The guards will posthumously receive the "Hero of Ukraine," the highest honor Ukraine can bestow, Zelenskyy said. from ( https://www.foxnews.com/world/snake-island-soldiers-russian-... )

His comments left no room for ambiguity. How do you award medals posthumously without CONFIRMATION of death?

Now compare that to the military's actual statement: Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service took to Facebook to announce Snake Island had been captured and its infrastructure destroyed by shelling from a Russian ship on Thursday, adding communication with the guards had been lost.

THAT is the correct way to release a SITREP or pass message traffic: communicate only what you can verify to be true. The Border Guards are closer to the Ground Truth (tm) than the Head of State, so that's the message that should have been propagated, accurately, at all levels. But that's not a good enough morale booster, so some embellishment worked its way in as the story floated up the chain of command. And the consequence is now the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief has egg on his face. That should NEVER happen.

I've spent years working with a Corps-level Operations Center, including months serving as the Senior Watch Officer. I've seen a LOT of sloppy messaging, confusion, and friction. We have battle drills that we rehearse for casualty reporting, CSAR (Combat Search & Rescue), and TRAP (Tactical Recovery of Aircraft Personnel). Clarity of information is paramount, and any decent Battle Captain (what the Army calls a Watch Officer) should know to ask "Who did this report come from?" and "How do we know that's true?" "Can we VERIFY that?" Or, for a bit of levity: https://youtu.be/oqrO1RtN4gA Did you see...the body? You don't make assumptions, and you don't put your personnel spin on reporting.

The story went from "they lost comms" to "they were Killed in Action and we must award them the highest honors" in the blink of an eye. For them to be lying, is the more charitable assessment of events: the alternative, widespread incompetence from their Operations officers to their Public Affairs/Communications Strategy staff, would be far far worse.