The Kremlin's perception operations

You're invited to a conversation with Chris Zappone

Today, on the front page of the New York Times:

Alethea is a company that “uses artificial intelligence and blockchain technologies to enable democratic and decentralized ownership of AI.” I don’t know anything else about them or their methodology. They published a report this morning about the new behavior of a Russian influence network known as Doppelgänger, using a harder-to-detect technique that they call Invisible Ink:

The accounts in this network pose as conservative voters and amplify opposition to military aid funding to Ukraine. Past Russian information operations targeted both sides of the political spectrum to foment existing societal divisions. In this network, we assess that the operation targets more specific segments of the US electorate in advance of the 2024 presidential election to promote candidates and policies favorable to Russian military objectives in Ukraine. 

Alethea assesses this network is only a fraction of the overall operation, and anticipates that accounts will be continuously created and deployed by the GRU to advance Russian military interests. At the time of writing, US elections are several months away and Alethea anticipates that the Russians will continue to deploy, test, and iterate on their efforts.

We assess that narratives may shift as the operation observes what resonates and based on world events, and we anticipate that the effort will continue to focus on protectionist, isolationist, and other narratives in order for Russia to achieve a weaker Ukraine with fewer resources. Currently, that means that Russian operatives are likely supporting conservative candidates, although Alethea has no evidence to suggest that the candidates are aware of this prior to writing this report.

The GRU uses Invisible Ink assets to promote positions and candidates in the United States, Germany, and France generally opposed to continued military aid to Ukraine and occasionally Israel, usually found among right-wing audiences, on X.

The posts we collected from this network were often published in the first person, creating the appearance of a local citizen’s personal opinion, and tended to promote conservative views of enhanced border control and isolationist narratives while denigrating the current U.S. administration. Posts often suggested that military aid to Ukraine or, at times, Israel, should be diverted to domestic security and economic issues.

Previous Russian information operations manipulated discourse across the political spectrum, but we observed that Invisible Ink almost exclusively targets conservative voters. Prior to the release of this report, Alethea does not have evidence to suggest that conservative parties are aware of this network and its amplification of conservative viewpoints or degradation of the
current Administration.

Meanwhile, the Czech Counter-Intelligence Agency publicly exposed a Russian network for influencing European Parliament elections across multiple countries:

According to counterintelligence, cash was being handed over to anti-establishment politicians from Germany or Belgium in Prague, while other funds were directed towards the operation of a pro-Russian news website. We are describing the details of one of the largest exposed Russian influence operations in recent years.

The government of Petr Fiala has added two more individuals and one company to the Czech sanctions list. The decision is related to the recent disclosure by the BIS, which indicates that Russians in Prague are attempting to influence elections to the European Parliament in Germany, France, or Belgium.

The primary players in the influence network, according to counterintelligence, were two Ukrainian businessmen and politicians with close ties to Russia—Viktor Medvedchuk and his close associate Artem Marchevsky. In addition to them, the government included the Czech company Voice of Europe, which is based in the center of Prague and operates a pro-Russian news website, on the sanctions list.

Politicians from six European Union states received payment, according to a source close to Czech Foreign Ministry:

Specifically, politicians from Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Hungary are involved … the case involves, among others, the German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD).

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I stayed up much later than I meant to last night listening to a riveting podcast by Chris Zappone titled Dark Shining Moment. It’s superb journalism, beautifully produced:

It was the moment the 21st Century began in earnest: In 2016, Russia reached out across the internet and interfered with America’s democracy, setting the conditions that helped propel Donald Trump into the White House.

A “Dark Shining Moment” tells the story of the first people to detect Russia’s interference—before that pivotal election. It’s a narrative about how information has been used to create a new reality for the public, for democracies and for the world—kicking off the crisis we’re in today.

Here’s the trailer:

Even if you think you know this story—I did—you’ll find it gripping. (It’s also so well produced that it made me feel bad about the Elephant Cage’s low production values. We’re still a bit amateur-hour. Getting better at this is on the to-do list.)

From the introduction he wrote for the Sydney Morning Herald:

… Why care about what happened in 2016? The year kick-started the surge of illiberal politics in democracies (not just Trump, but Brexit, and the rise of the European far-right). At the same time, it exposed the peril of disinformation. In short, the election sparked the crisis in democracy that has defined recent years. Now, authoritarian regimes, often by subversive means, seek to reshape the international order.

After Trump’s victory, I wondered who might have actually seen Russia’s meddling as it happened. So I found those people and got their stories. These people are the subject of a six-part narrative podcast called Dark Shining Moment, written and voiced by me, which launches this week.

When I wrote to Chris to tell him how good I thought the podcast, he kindly offered to join us to discuss it. I think that would be fascinating. How many of you would be interested? We’re trying to figure out a time that would work for all of us: He’s in Australia, which is the trickiest of all time zones for most of our readers. He suggested 7:00 pm my time, perhaps on (my) Tuesday). It would be 5:00 am for him (that’s devotion) on Wednesday, and 2:00 pm Tuesday on the US East Coast.

I said that I could certainly do it later—at 9:00 or 10:00 pm—so that he didn’t have to get up so early. But I’m worried about doing it on what would be a Tuesday afternoon for everyone in America, because most of you, I presume, have jobs. I’m thinking a weekend would be better. So I figured I should ask. First, give me a sense of how many of you are keen:

(If you’re only free on a particular weekday, let me know in the comments.)

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Let me also draw your attention to a first-rate commentary from the ISW. It should be read by every man, woman, and child in the West, then read again.

Denying Russia’s only strategy for success:

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West—and will likely lose—if the West mobilizes its resources to resist the Kremlin. The West’s existing and latent capability dwarfs that of Russia. The combined gross domestic product of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and our Asian allies is over US$63 trillion. The Russian GDP is on the close order of US$1.9 trillion. Iran and North Korea add little in terms of materiel support. China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia and is unlikely to do so. If we lean in and surge, Russia loses.

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success. The Kremlin must get the United States to the sidelines, allowing Russia to fight Ukraine in isolation and then proceed to Moscow’s next targets, which Russia will also seek to isolate. The Kremlin needs the United States to choose inaction and embrace the false inevitability that Russia will prevail in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s center of gravity is his ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself. The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.

Those whose perspective aligns with the Kremlin’s are not ipso facto Russian dupes. The Kremlin links genuine sentiment and even some legitimate arguments to Russia’s interests in public debate. The Kremlin is also an equal opportunity manipulator. It targets the full spectrum of those making or informing decisions. It partially succeeds on every side of the political spectrum. Perception manipulation is one of the Kremlin’s core capabilities—now unleashed with full force onto the Western public as the Kremlin’s only strategy for winning in Ukraine. That is not a challenge most societies are equipped to contend with.

The United States has the power to deny Russia its only strategy for success, nevertheless. The United States has allowed Russia to play an outsized role in shaping American decision-making, but the United States has also made many sound choices regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. The key successes achieved by Ukraine and its partners in this war have resulted from strategic clarity. Lost opportunities on the battlefield, on the other hand, have resulted from the West’s failure to connect ground truths to our interests quickly enough to act. Fortunately, the United States faces an easier task in overcoming the Kremlin’s manipulations than Russia does in closing the massive gap between Russia’s war aims and its capabilities. The United States must surge its support to Ukraine, and it must do so in time. Delays come at the cost of Ukrainian lives, increased risk of failure in Ukraine, and the erosion of the US advantage over Russia, granting the Kremlin time to rebuild and develop capabilities that it intends to use against the West—likely on a shorter timeline than the West assesses.

The United States must defeat Russia’s efforts to alter American will and decision-making for reasons that transcend Ukraine. For the United States to deter, win, or help win any future war, US decisions must be timely, connected to our interests, values, and ground truth, but above all—these decisions must be ours. The US national security community theorizes a lot about the importance of US decision advantage over our adversaries, including timeliness. Russia presents an urgent and real-world requirement for America to do so in practice.

… The Kremlin targets our perceptions of costs, priorities, risks, upsides, alignment with our values, and effects of our own actions. Two main categories of false assertions that the Kremlin is trying to enforce in this respect are that: a) Ukraine cannot win this war; supporting Ukraine is a distraction from ‘real’ US problems; Ukraine will be forced to settle; the United States is at risk of being stuck in another “forever” war; and b) the risks in helping Ukraine defend itself, let alone win, are higher than the risks of failure in Ukraine for the United States—it is too costly, too risky, and that Ukraine is not worth it. ISW and many others have thoroughly debunked these assertions, yet they remain pervasive in US discussions about opposing Russia. The Russian goal is to have us freely reason to a conclusion that Russia’s prevailing in Ukraine is inevitable and that we must stay on the sidelines—and Moscow is succeeding far too well in this effort.

… Americans must recognize the enormous effort the Kremlin is putting into these and other assertions in order to create a picture of reality that, taken in its totality, is false—Russia had no right to invade Ukraine, has no rights to control Ukraine, was not provoked into such an invasion, will not inevitably win, will not inevitably escalate to fighting a full-scale war against NATO, and helping Ukraine liberate its strategic territories as the only viable path to a durable peace remains the most prudent course of action to secure US interests.

The Kremlin is also flooding Western discourse with false and irrelevant narratives, forcing us to expend energy, time, and decision bandwidth on irrelevancies rather than solutions. It is not an accident that the Western debate often becomes impaled on arguing about basic well-established facts about this war. This phenomenon is not merely a function of Western knowledge gaps or short memory. It is also a result of the Kremlin’s effort to saturate the Western debate with its assertions. A key example is a myth about Russia protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine. Russia has obliterated predominantly Russian-speaking cities in Ukraine, killing, torturing, forcefully deporting, and forcing to flee many Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Russia harmed the very people in the name of whom it waged the war. Despite this well documented reality, discussions about letting Putin keep “Russian-speaking provinces” to stop the war persist in Western debate. These discussions proceed from a false premise that Russia’s war aimed to protect Russian speakers to a false conclusion that ceding portions of Ukraine that have Russian speakers can resolve the war and is, furthermore, reasonable or justifiable. Many other basic facts are in question daily as the Kremlin floods the Western debate with its narratives. Putin deliberately chose to focus his interview with an American media personality on historical justifications for the war. Putin is retroactively creating casus belli by twisting a historic narrative on the record. The history of Kievan Rus is as irrelevant to the current war as the history of the Roman Empire was to World War II. Every country in the world has a historical basis to claim rights to some or all of the territory of its neighbors. The world avoids a Hobbesian war of all against all by rejecting the validity of such arguments. Yet the Kremlin’s constant driving of them continues to divert Western discussions about what to do now into these historical irrelevancies. The Kremlin also forces the West to dedicate energy to an equally irrelevant discussion about whether Ukraine has the “right” to be a state or a nation. No country with a seat in the United Nations and recognized by the overwhelming majority of states in the world has an obligation to prove its right to exist no matter how small or ethnically like another state it might be. This principle is central to the current world order, and its destruction would open the floodgates of war around the world as predators used such reasoning to justify attacks on would-be prey. But the flood of false Russian narratives forces us to engage in such irrelevancies rather than focusing on war-winning strategies and our interests.

Russia is hijacking and substituting key concepts of Western debate about this war, such as notions of peace and defense, contributing to Western category errors about both.

Peace = Surrender. The West naturally and understandably gravitates toward peace. Our default instinct is to seize the first opportunity in any conflict to “stop the fighting.” The Kremlin has mastered using the Western predisposition to peace as a lifeline for Russia’s wars – from Syria to Ukraine. The Kremlin has not once supported its euphemism of “peace” with action in the context of Ukraine. The Kremlin has had continuous opportunities to choose peace, including a choice not to invade Ukraine—a country that Putin considered to be so militarily unthreatening that Putin assessed he could conquer it in a matter of days. …

The Kremlin’s exploitation of the Western argument for “stopping the bloodshed” conceals another critical nuance. Stopping the fighting does not stop the killing when it comes to Russia. The killing continues in Russian torture chambers on territory that Russia occupies—a process that is less visible to Western audiences and in a place where victims are stripped of the means to defend themselves.

The Kremlin dangles the concept of “peace” to steer the West towards Ukraine’s surrender—the outcome that Russia seeks but cannot accomplish militarily on its own. When the Kremlin “signals peace,” it actually signals a demand for Ukrainian and Western surrender. Western debate continues, nevertheless, to indulge the Kremlin’s false overtures for “‘peace,”’ despite the total lack of evidence to support any reasonable assessment that letting the Kremlin freeze the lines in Ukraine can lead to peace rather than more war.

Resisting Russian Aggression = Escalation. No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Ukraine’s actions. Russia imposed its war on Ukraine. Ukraine chose to defend itself. Ukraine’s action is resisting death, occupation, and atrocities at the hands of Russian forces. Yet, the Western debate periodically accuses Ukraine (or the West itself) of “escalating” or “prolonging the war.” The Kremlin has greatly invested in framing Ukraine—and anyone who dares to resist the Kremlin—as an aggressor (and Russia as a victim). The West’s legitimization of Russia, a belligerent in Ukraine since 2014, as a mediator in the Minsk agreements also gave the Kremlin eight years to falsely frame any Ukrainian self-defense action or unwillingness to bend to the Kremlin’s will as Ukrainian aggression.

No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Western actions regarding Russia. The West has been non-escalatory toward Russia for years to the point of self-deterrence and ceding its own interests. The West has consistently chosen a path of negotiations, resets, and concessions with Russia.The United States did not prioritize Russia, while focused on counterterrorism, largely until 2016 when the Kremlin openly interfered in US politics. NATO has been self-deterring for years, discussions about Ukraine’s NATO accession have stalled, and Putin expected the Western response to his invasion of Ukraine to be so weak that he could conquer Ukraine in a matter of days. Russia has been a self-declared adversary of the US and NATO, but neither the US nor NATO took meaningful steps to defend against Russia, let alone attack it, until after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. …

These Russian efforts benefit from and strengthen trends already strong in Western discourse, such as the belief on both sides of the political spectrum that US or Western interventions are the source of all or most problems in the world. People, again, are entitled to their own views on these matters—but all should be aware of the degree to which the Kremlin seeks to weaponize our own internal discussions and disagreements to advance the Kremlin’s own aggressions and protect itself from the consequences of its atrocities. One can in principle condemn US or NATO policies and actions in the past and also condemn Russian aggression—but not in the Kremlin’s world, and not in the false reality the Kremlin seeks to impose on our internal discourse.

The Kremlin’s focus on degrading US decision making is not opportunistic, new, or limited to Ukraine. Perception manipulation is a key element of Putin’s offset strategy—a way to achieve goals beyond the limits of Russia’s power. In 2020 ISW assessed that Putin’s center of gravity is increasingly his ability to shape perceptions of others and project the image of a powerful Russia based on limited real power. We wrote: “The Kremlin often generates gains based on perception without changing Russia’s capabilities. These gains emerge at the nexus of the Kremlin’s efforts to manipulate perceptions and the West’s inherent blind spots about Russia’s intent and capabilities. Minimizing the West’s perception of its own leverage over Russia is a core component of this effort.”

The Kremlin depends on this strategy in Ukraine. Russia does not have sufficient military capability to achieve its maximalist objectives if Ukraine’s will to fight persists alongside Western support. Degrading US decision making is one of the few, possibly the only way, to narrow the gap between Russia’s goals and means in Ukraine.

US susceptibility to the Kremlin’s manipulations is not all of Russia’s making. It is also a consequence of America’s inherent traits and blind spots.

Values. The United States values peace, life, American interests, freedom of debate, and is trying to act responsibly with the power it wields. These are virtues, not weaknesses. They set us apart from Russia. Russia nevertheless uses these concepts against us in its way of war, as discussed throughout this paper. The Western way of life also prevents us from grasping the full scale of what Russia is. Russia being mostly content with killing and wounding over 300,000 of its own citizens to conquer a country that did not pose a military threat is a reality unimaginable in a Western country.

Defeatism and the legacy of US wars. America’s past wars are distorting America’s understanding of Russia’s war against Ukraine. US concern about endless wars is a result of its experiences in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But US debate about the risks of a long war in Ukraine revolves around a profound category error in discussing this war as if the United States were fighting it. The United States is not fighting in Ukraine and should not discuss the costs to the United States as if it were. Ukraine, a US partner, is fighting this war against a US adversary. It is not a US proxy—Ukraine is fighting for its own reasons, not ours. And Ukraine has never asked for American soldiers to fight—only for material and financial support. US psychological scars from previous American conflicts have no place in discussions about what the United States should do vis-a-vis Ukraine.

Misunderstanding of the Russian threat. The United States has learned a lot about Russia’s intent and capabilities. The United States still, however, does not fully grasp the nature of the Russian threat, Russia’s sources of power and weakness, and the Russian way of war—including reflexive control. This knowledge gap is reflected in the prevailing US national security assessment that, while Russia poses the most immediate challenge, China is the bigger long-term threat. This may be a valid assessment of China, but the framework is limiting for three reasons. First, it ignores the nature of the Russian threat to the United States, which goes beyond military power. Second, it ignores the path dependency of the Russian threat to the United States on the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine: the United States will face the greatest threat from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union if Russia prevails in Ukraine. Finally, it ignores the path dependency of China’s threat to the United States and the future of the anti-US coalition on the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine. A Russian victory in Ukraine will empower US adversaries in many ways—the most dangerous of all, perhaps, would be US adversaries learning that the United States can be manipulated into abandoning its interests in a winnable fight. …

Russia has regained its ability to alter Western perceptions without meaningfully altering Russia’s capability. The Kremlin-generated information backdrop of mostly groundless fears and irrelevancies has shaped Western decisions, resulting in lost opportunities for Ukraine and an advantage for Russia. Western self-deterrence and delays in Western decisions extended the Kremlin’s runway to sustain this war:

• Russian perception manipulations cost Ukraine gains in its 2023 counteroffensive. Russia’s nuclear-centric information operations in the fall of 2022 aimed to delay Western provision of tanks and other key capabilities to Ukraine. US failure to proactively resource Ukraine’s initiative after two successful, successive counteroffensive operations in the fall of 2022 contributed to a missed opportunity for Ukraine to conduct a third phase of counteroffensive operations in the winter of 2022-2023. This reprieve allowed Russia to build its defenses in depth and conduct a partial mobilization to shore up manpower, making Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive an extraordinarily difficult undertaking. …

The future of Russia’s power and Russia’s ability to threaten the United States is path dependent on the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s intent to undermine the United States and break NATO not only persists but is growing. The Kremlin is preparing for a large-scale conflict with NATO. Russia’s ability to act on this intent is not a given. Russia’s ability to reconstitute, to threaten the United States and NATO; to control its neighbors; the Kremlin’s ability to manipulate the United States will and perceptions; and the strength of Russia’s coalitions, including with US adversaries, all depend on whether Russia wins or loses in Ukraine.

The cost of failure in Ukraine would be catastrophic. The threat of a nuclear escalation will continue to be the core asset of Russia’s perception manipulation. We must address this issue head on. First, we are already in a scenario with a heightened risk of a nuclear escalation. We are here not because Ukraine or the West refuses to settle or deescalate. In fact, both settled for eight years and accepted a Russia-driven peace framework in Ukraine. But Putin reinvaded anyway, bringing us into this unstable scenario with an increased probably of the use of nuclear weapons. Secondly, the risk of a Russia-NATO war increases exponentially if Russia keeps its gains in Ukraine. A victorious Russia is a faster path to a Russia-NATO war than a victorious Ukraine. Finally, Russia prevailing in Ukraine would constitute a convincing argument for the effectiveness of nuclear blackmail and would lead to nuclear proliferation. ISW has assessed other costs of losing Ukraine in detail.

Russian victory in Ukraine would mean a victory of reflective control. If Russia wins in Ukraine, it will mean the Kremlin managed to undermine the Western will and ability to reason from the ground truths and its interests. Truth and free will are concepts that the free world cannot exist without. Helping Ukraine win and defeating the premises Russia is trying to enforce should be the main effort of the United States and the free world if it wants to remain free.

Read the whole thing. It’s exceptionally clear. Every word is correct.