I was going to write a post regarding the Hromadske article about the whole OPSEC situation in the Lyman direction, but @Thorkill65 made a post almost perfectly describing my thoughts on it.

In short, it is a form of informational warfare, pressuring OSINTers from doing their independent reporting. The Russian command was well aware about this counteroffensive from the start, as evidenced by the massive aerial bombing campaign on advancing Ukrainian forces using KAB glide-bombs, which had been ongoing since May 2026.

Thorkill wrote some important points in his post, so I will quote him below. I encourage you to read his entire post which I have linked below.

"1. The Ukrainian 3rd Army Corps command simply wanted some peace and quiet. No information about ongoing offensive actions means that in case of potential failure, no one will find out about the defeat."

"2. Imposing OPSEC on the Lyman operation allowed Ukrainians total control over the narrative. We're seeing that now: instead of immediately announcing the success, they've turned it into a kind of "serial show." Now, throughout September (and probably most of October), A. Bilotsky will be filming weekly reels and YouTube content about liberating each successive village on the liquidated bridgehead on the western bank of the Zherebet River, while DeepState dutifully marks it blue bit by bit on their map. There's no military purpose to this – it's purely propagandistic."

This second point can also be used to obscure losses. I have been reporting on this counteroffensive for over 4 months, from start to finish. However, posting a few updates for the entire operations towards its conclusion, with pre-made flashy videos and edits, creates the illusion that there were much less losses involved, with people subconsciously viewing it as a sudden breakthrough into Russian lines, rather than a 4-month-long gruelling, fierce, and costly advance.

"3. All such discussions about OPSEC procedures, requests to Western OSINT analysts not to disclose info on Ukrainian operations, etc., are really aimed at stifling the free flow of independent information about this war. It's about roping independent analysts into the Ukrainian propaganda system, stripping them of autonomy and freedom of speech – in Gombrowicz's words: just plain "duping" them. Of course, in my case, that won't fly."

I completely agree with this third point. The more centralised the information space is, the more effective narrative control efforts are.

I'm not denying OPSEC is a real issue with how this war is fought right now. I'll quote an earlier post I made about OPSEC to give you an idea of where I stand on this.

"There's a fine balance with this sort of stuff. Yes, OPSEC is very real in today's war - far more so than in 2022, 2023, 2024, or even 2025. When very few soldiers are actually on the "line of contact", mapping a position as controlled based on your info from the ground can actually endanger them. But after the higher Russian command is aware of the counteroffensive, pretending it's not happening is useless, and only mapping precise control zones is the dangerous part. So I do understand why such an influential mapping project like Deepstate didn't post any updates on it as even if they were to purposefully show a very simplified or incorrect frontline, it could still be used by some lower command for targeting positions, potentially putting Ukrainian soldiers at risk. But ordinary OSINTers aren't going to change anything as long as they are purely using open sources for their mapping, like me."

Original post: https://x.com/Thorkill65/status/2102697523596951712