This is behind the British Secret Service’s analysis of the war in Ukraine

The British secret service publishes a daily dossier on the war in Ukraine. It contains information about the current situation in the country, which is partly occupied by the Russian army. With this, the British government wants to both counter the Russian image and keep allies in line. Moscow accuses London of a targeted disinformation campaign.

With updates on military developments and suspected war tactics from Vladimir Putin’s generals, the British make a crucial contribution to informing both the Ukrainian military leadership and the (Western) public. But what is publicly communicated by the news service often reads rather vaguely.

That’s behind the clues

For example, a few days ago, the British floppy hats published a statement according to which the Russian leadership «very likely seeks the formation of more private mercenaries to one day take the place that the Wagner group currently occupies. [Anm. d. Red.: private Söldnerarmee des russischen Unternehmers Jewgeni Prigoschin] holds”.

Modal words abound in the intelligence reports. “probably”, “probably”, “possibly”, “apparently”, “almost certainly”.

The spongy official language is rather deliberate, after all, the information disseminated by the British Ministry of Defense is rarely definitive certainty, but rather indication that is usually compiled from a wealth of different sources. The Secret Service analysts then use this pool of sources to calculate probabilities.

Probability predictions are well defined

How likely it is that a development or an event will occur or has already taken place is shown by the language code in which the updates are published on Twitter, among others.

The use of the term “low probability” indicates that an event will only occur with a probability of 5 to 10 percent. In contrast, “probably” or “possibly” is included in day-to-day management reporting when the probability of a situation occurring is 50 to 75 percent.

With its “Probability Yardstick”, or a “probability scale”, the British secret service certainly wants to provide some transparency. If possible in times of war and in light of information gathered by the intelligence services.

It became clear at the end of February 2022 that the British analyzes cannot be completely wrong. To the surprise of many observers, agents of the British secret service tweeted alleged plans by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin for an invasion of Ukraine. The robbery actually happened a few days later.

Sources

(t-online/dsc)