UKRAINE, Aug 18 — Oleksandr Syrskyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, admitted that he sometimes receives false information on the status and position of individual units from combat locations, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

On July 16, DeepState, an OSINT war monitoring group, noted that, allegedly, much of the Russians’ success is based on false reports to the Ukrainian authorities about the real situation, observing one of the cases on the frontline.

The Commander said that the fake information “leads to a threat to military personnel from other units who are engaged in combat or holding defenses nearby. Because when you think there is a neighbor to your right or left, but there is no one there, an enemy may suddenly appear. This leads to casualties.”

Syrskyi uses different sources to get objective information from the frontline, he noted DeepState war tracker as one of them, saying it often helps to obtain information about the threat of losing positions. He noted that the monitoring group may also make mistakes. 

Syrskyi also said that the Armed Forces of Ukraine use data from partners and other intelligence sources. He explained that all units of the Ukrainian Forces provide the information.

“Unmanned Systems Forces provide us with a large amount of (intelligence). They completely control the entire frontline from the air and have information about the presence of military personnel at their positions,” said the Commander.

At the beginning of 2025, Tatarigami, a Ukrainian officer and founder of the Frontelligence Insight OSINT project, also noted false reports and lack of accountability as some of the main military problems in the country.

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