Russia obtained information on Japan's strategy for the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, including the plan for a major offensive in northeastern China in March 1905, through a Tokyo-based French correspondent and other sources, according to the recent study by a Russian scholar.

Dmitri Pavlov, a professor of history at the Moscow State Institute of Radio Engineering, Electronics and Automation, says Russia found out in August 1904 that Japan would attack Mukden as early as January 1905.

Mukden -- now the northeastern Chinese city of Shengyang -- was under Russian control at the time.