How is this nonsense even possible? If that report is to be believed then it means Russia's OPSEC is ridiculously bad and is filled with double-agents or traitors.
If I may, I suspect most militaries of the world do not have a good grasp of how compromised networks and computers are. If you hook it up to a network, it has a huge likely to be hacked if a nation state wants it bad enough. I am not saying Russia is really bad at it. I am saying I think ALL nations are bad at this and no one appreciates it yet.
For that matter, social media gives away a ton of stuff about people, too. Remember the embarrassment for the US when fitbit trackers were giving away locations of 'secret' bases in Syria? Remember when Russian army units were easily tracked due to goofs posting pictures to VK and others could geolocate the information in the background?
All it would take is a plan being found on a computer and then compare the social media confirming locations and movements with a touch of bluff for the West to attempt to deter Russia. If Russia is going to do the invade, that won't stop them: the threat of a major war is the only thing that might at this point and the West has no stomach for it.
And we're talking about the same U.S. that was unable to accurately predict or foretold the Afghanistan withdrawal debacle and the ensuing collapse of then Ghani administration.
bah. I suspect it was leaders not willing to listen or saying "fsck it. let's go home" anyways. Everyone, their brother, their austic dog and all the broken clocks of the world knew Ghani was going to collapse when the US left. That's a topic for another thread though.
