And he said as U.S. authorities go through the documents that were posted online, they are still trying to determine their validity, but have found that at least some of the papers "have been doctored.”
He and others would not go into detail, but at least one of the documents shows estimates of Russian troops deaths in the Ukraine war that are significantly lower than numbers publicly stated by U.S. officials. Under a section titled “Total Assessed Losses,” one document lists 16,000-17,500 Russian casualties and up to 71,000 Ukrainian casualties. Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said publicly last November that Russia has lost “well over” 100,000 soldiers, and Ukraine had lost about that many also. And those estimates have continued to climb in recent months, although officials have stopped providing more exact numbers.