True or not, it does bring up an issue I hadn't considered, that Russia is quoting low casualty numbers (in part) because they simply have no idea how many of their own soldiers have died.
When a patrol or convoy simply disappears (from their perspective) in the middle of a field in Ukraine, are they actually organized enough to recognize the loss? Or is it simply a phantom platoon somewhere in the books that it will take weeks to figure out is missing.
This is not a surprise based on what we have seen so far.
Russia is imploding. The scale of the implosion is still yet to be determined. The only thing I think the Russian government could do to make the situation worse is use Nuclear weapons on Ukraine or another ally country.
A few points to support this idea;
1. Logistics win wars. When invading a country you must adequately feed, water and move and support your military's fighting forces. Russia has failed at this.
2. The people of Ukraine have a clear objective from a solid leader - expel the invaders. And a clear cost to losing. If they loose there country will fall. No amount of Russian propaganda will outlast such simple clear objectives.
3. The world has applied its cancel cutler to the economy of Russia. Economic sanction's have reduced the value of the currency and stock market. The people will move to countries where they can have a better life in a more stable economy.
4.I foresees the humanitarian crises in Russia being worse than the one in Ukraine. Russia has a population about 3 times the size ~144m vs 44m. And the people who are feeling Russia will haft to fight against the stigma of being people who lived under Putin.
I'm wondering how long Putin will keep the population obedient enough, by rising threats. At some point, when the people see they're losing everything, fear of jail is not enough to keep them quiet.
Why lie about this? The person who published this document (gulagu.net admin, coincidentally the site has been down since then) is well known and widely thought to be a reliable source.
FWIW it has at least passed a sniff-test from Bellingcat, which is probably as close as us normal mortals will ever come to being able to vet a doc like this. If Bellingcat FSB sources suggest this was 'probably written by a colleague' then it at least moves from /r/warcollege fanfic and into the realm of potentially legit.
pretty bulletproof, good enough for me