Dead Drop: August 19

MEDIA MISTAKE:  Well, it is clear that Vladimir Putin’s mercenaries known as “Wagner” could use some better publicity.  But more than that, they could use some better OPSEC.  It seems a Russian “war reporter” by the name of Sergei Sreda was invited to visit Wagner’s Ukraine headquarters in Popasna last week, where the rent-a-thugs told him “funny stories” and treated him “like family.” So, he posted some photos of his visit including at least one in which he inadvertently included a photograph of a street sign. According to The Daily Mail, and the Kyiv Post, shortly thereafter, Ukrainian forces used the image to geolocate the headquarters and launch a HIMARS strike on it.  The building was destroyed and there were reports of many casualties.  Yevgeny Prigozhin, Putin pal and oligarch who owns Wagner, was known to have been present at the site prior to the strike. No word on whether Prigozhin was there when HIMARS leveled the building and if he was, whether he survived. If he did, we expect he is establishing new media relations policies.

WHAT’S MY (TOP) SECRET?  There has been a lot of talk about security clearances recently in light of the FBI’s treasure hunt at Mar-a-Lago. Often, when there are stories about alleged security breaches, you will see news items explaining what the various levels of classification are – and who has access to such info.  CNN.com provided such a service this time in a story titled: “The number of people with Top Secret clearance will shock you.”  They say the DNI publishes what is described as an “annual report” on “Security Clearance Determinations” but CNN could not find one newer than FY 2017.   At the time, more than 1.6 million people had access to Confidential or Secret information and nearly 1.2 million had access to Top Secret. No breakdown of how many of those have access to SCI “Sensitive Compartmented Information” (on a need to know basis) or how many of the maintenance staff at Mar-a-Lago were among them.