It’s not so much ‘trust’ as ‘acceptance’ that they are the best source available keeping realtime track of, and reporting, what they are doing. The MOD reports are understood to be the upper bound of what actually happened, not the gospel truth. Nobody will have even remotely accurate numbers until years after russia has withdrawn and the war is over, Fog of War being what it is.
Until then, saying “I don’t trust these numbers” is noise. We work within the limitations of what is available. As such, the trend of an increase in reported numbers is itself a noteworthy change and supports the articles message regardless of whether it is only 75 or actually 77.
It’s not so much ‘trust’ as ‘acceptance’ that they are the best source available keeping realtime track of, and reporting, what they are doing. The MOD reports are understood to be the upper bound of what actually happened, not the gospel truth. Nobody will have even remotely accurate numbers until years after russia has withdrawn and the war is over, Fog of War being what it is.
Until then, saying “I don’t trust these numbers” is noise. We work within the limitations of what is available. As such, the trend of an increase in reported numbers is itself a noteworthy change and supports the articles message regardless of whether it is only 75 or actually 77.