It's interesting that there are no comments to this highly recommended diary.  It's as if we have all been struck dumb by the sheer awfulness of the conflict.  I am certainly lost for words.  The principles enunciated here are so obvious, they are in our bloodstream, and yet it is worth repeating them here, all in one place, just to illustrate the maxim:  "The first casualty of war is the truth".

Who coined the phrase, "The first casualty of War is Truth" ? . | Notes and Queries | guardian.co.uk

In 1918 US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson is purported to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. However, this was not recorded. In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby's wrote: The 'When war is declared, truth is the first casualty'. (Falsehood in Wartime) Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word: 'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' (from The Idler, 1758)

notes from no w here