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Notes -
I find a lot of this skepticism unwarranted. It doesn't take into account that this sort of thing has been par for the course when it comes to military propaganda. The examples that come to mind my mind are the British publishing fake stories on what ships were bombed during WW2. Or repeat claims by western powers that Russia is the one doing the lying about casualty numbers, or accusation to the contrary by Russia. Which makes sense and seems rather straight forward from a military propaganda standpoint, even if it's not honest with the truth.
On top of that, the military isn't a democracy. You don't go around asking questions or digging into graves looking for answers. Not to forget that the US armed forces have covered over bigger events than the ones mentioned here, like the USS Liberty. And that was just for political reasons.
I would find it odd if there aren't internal protocols in place for how to deal with death reports, and how to those are publicized or not in case they might divulge information the armed forces don't want out there.
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