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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Recent steps to limit access to YouTube are seen as somewhat risky due to the video sharing platform’s status as the most popular social media site in Russia. Indeed, it came as no surprise when the apparent shutdown of YouTube sparked significant alarm and anger on Russian social media. Notably, no genuine alternative currently exists in Russia. The Kremlin has promoted similar domestic platforms such as VK Video and RuTube, but these options have not been able to rival the popularity or audience reach of YouTube itself.

There are additional indications that the Kremlin may now be seeking to strengthen its control over the information space and further cut Russia off from the outside world. On August 9, Roskomnadzor blocked access to Signal, a messaging app that allows for end-to-end encrypted communications. Reports also continue to circulate that the Kremlin is preparing to take similar steps against messenger platform WhatsApp.

Recent measures to prevent Russians from accessing YouTube represent the latest escalation in the Kremlin’s campaign to dominate the domestic information space and eliminate all independent media in today’s Russia. Over the past twenty-four years, Vladimir Putin has created a powerful propaganda machine that has proved instrumental in legitimizing his own increasingly dictatorial rule and mobilizing public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Popular social media platforms like YouTube remain outside of Moscow’s control and therefore pose a significant threat to the Kremlin censors. With Ukrainian troops now advancing inside Russia itself, it would seem that this threat can no longer be tolerated.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

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Ukraine’s dramatic change in tactics comes after almost a year of slow but steady Russian gains in eastern and southern Ukraine. Since 2023, Russian commanders have been deploying their country’s overwhelming manpower and firepower advantages to gradually pummel Ukrainian forces into submission. The Kremlin’s reliance on brute force has proved costly but effective, leaving the Ukrainian military with little choice but to think outside the box.

It has long been obvious that fighting a war of attrition is a losing strategy for Ukraine. The country’s military leaders cannot hope to compete with Russia’s far larger resources and have no desire to match the Kremlin’s disregard for casualties. The Kursk offensive is an attempt to break out of this suffocating situation by returning to a war of mobility and maneuver that favors the more agile and innovative Ukrainian military. So far, it seems to be working.

While bringing Vladimir Putin’s invasion home to Russia has undeniable strategic and emotional appeal, many commentators have questioned why Ukraine would want to occupy Russian territory. The most obvious explanation is that Kyiv seeks bargaining chips to exchange for Russian-occupied Ukrainian lands during future negotiations.

The significant quantity of Russian POWs captured during the offensive also opens up possibilities to bring more imprisoned Ukrainian soldiers home. Meanwhile, control over swathes of Kursk Oblast could make it possible to disrupt the logistical chains supplying the Russian army in Ukraine.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Beyond the military practicalities of the battlefield, the Kursk offensive is challenging some of the most fundamental assumptions about the war. Crucially, Ukraine’s invasion of Russia has demonstrated that Putin’s nuclear threats and his talk of red lines are in reality a big bluff designed to intimidate the West.

Ukrainians have long accused Western policymakers of being overly concerned about the dangers of provoking Putin. They argue that since 2022, the international response to Russian aggression has been hampered by a widespread fear of escalation that has led to regular delays in military aid and absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons. Ukraine’s offensive has now made a mockery of this excessive caution. If the Kremlin does not view the actual invasion of Russia by a foreign army as worthy of a major escalation, it is hard to imagine what would qualify.

As the Kursk offensive unfolds, Ukraine is hoping the country’s allies will draw the logical conclusions. Initial indications are encouraging, with US and EU officials voicing their support for Ukraine’s cross-border incursion despite longstanding concerns over any military operations inside Russia. At the same time, restrictions on the use of certain categories of weapons remain in place. This is hindering the advance of Ukrainian troops in Kursk Oblast. It is also preventing Kyiv from striking back against the airbases used to bomb Ukrainian cities and the country’s civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive represents a powerful signal to the country’s partners. It demonstrates that the Ukrainian military is a highly professional force capable of conducting complex offensive operations and worthy of greater international backing. It also confirms that Putin’s Russia is dangerously overstretched and is militarily far weaker than it pretends to be.

The muddled and unconvincing Russian response to Ukraine’s invasion speaks volumes about the relative powerlessness of the Putin regime. This should persuade Kyiv’s allies of the need for greater boldness and convince them that the time has come to commit to Ukrainian victory.

Oleksiy Goncharenko is a Ukrainian member of parliament with the European Solidarity party.

NATO must recognize the potential of open-source intelligence

AM Sir Christopher Harper, KBE, RAF (Ret.), Robert Bassett Cross MC — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 19:02:28 +0000

Air Marshal Sir Christopher Harper is a former UK military representative to NATO and served as director general of the NATO International Military Staff from 2013 to 2016. He is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and an adviser to companies, including Accenture and Adarga, which provide AI tools for processing open-source information, including for public-sector clients.

Robert Bassett Cross is a former British Army officer and the founder and CEO of the UK-headquartered AI software developer Adarga. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Forward Defense practice of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and an honorary research fellow at the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute.

Writing in 1946, just a few years before NATO was founded, Director of the US Office of Strategic Services Bill Donovan knew precisely how valuable publicly available information could be.

“[E]ven a regimented press,” he wrote, “will again and again betray the national interest to a painstaking observer . . . Pamphlets, periodicals, scientific journals are mines of intelligence.”

Today, seventy-five years after the Alliance was formed, such open-source intelligence (OSINT) is more important—and more powerful—than ever. However, underinvestment in OSINT capabilities and a culture favoring classified data currently hold back member states’ intelligence-collection potential. To fully utilize the available technology to detect threats from adversaries, NATO member states must overcome these barriers to embrace open-source intelligence enabled by artificial intelligence (AI).

Understanding the threat landscape

OSINT can help leaders get a fast, up-to-date understanding of their operating environment. If you want to know who’s doing what, where, and when, then an open-source specialist can quickly tell you.

If, for example, you want to find out who’s jamming GPS systems in the Baltic region, the relevant data isn’t hard to come by. Similarly, OSINT analysts can provide insights into issues ranging from the effectiveness of Iran’s attack on Israel (and the Israeli response) to China’s current role in fueling the Russian war machine.

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear that, in addition to insight into current and recent events, OSINT can help leaders forecast what an adversary might be planning to do weeks, months, or even years from now.

By exploiting OSINT more fully and by integrating it into the wider intelligence cycle, NATO can preempt, deter, and defeat its adversaries’ efforts to expand their influence and undermine the security of member states. Here are several ways that OSINT can be used:

Across the physical domains of land, air, sea, and space, NATO can exploit publicly and commercially available data to explore an adversary’s order of battle and—more importantly—monitor changes in the strength and disposition of its military units and formations to infer its intent.
In the cyber domain, NATO can leverage commercially available information to detect and counter the penetration of networks governing critical infrastructure, as well as those related to research organizations, academic institutions, and technology developers.
In the information space, OSINT can help NATO identify, understand, and counter influence campaigns, specifically when it comes to the detection and attribution of disinformation and misinformation.
NATO can draw on vast swaths of open-source data to infer long-term strategic intent. Every subtle change to a government’s policies, every adjustment to its economic positioning and investment strategy, every new law and regulation it enacts, every new treaty and trade agreement—all of these can help the Alliance reverse engineer an adversary’s confidential playbooks.

Given the vast quantity, complexity, and diversity of the data, it is vital that NATO employs AI to extract the maximum value from it—to enhance analysts’ abilities, accelerate the analysis cycle, and build a reliable, contextual understanding of what Donovan called “the strategy developing silently behind the mask.”

The barriers to OSINT adoption

While AI is, of course, an emerging technology, its utility is already being realized across industries and sectors outside defense. From corporate intelligence and advisory services to finance and media, more and more private-sector organizations are using AI to make sense of the information environment, drawing on an ever-expanding range of sources to manage risk, identify opportunities, and adapt to geopolitical volatility.

However, the barriers to its widespread adoption and effective exploitation in political and military circles remain considerable. A paper published in 2022 by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), in collaboration with the Centre for Emerging Technology and Security and the Alan Turing Institute, identified three in particular.

First, there are tradecraft barriers relating to the methodologies governing everything from the analysis of publicly available information to the evaluation and dissemination of the resulting intelligence. Second, there are resourcing barriers stemming from underinvestment in the requisite tools, technologies, data sets, and training.

The third barrier identified by the RUSI authors—and the most daunting one—is cultural. Presented with so much open-source data, analysts and decision makers tend to favor classified information and internal data sets. These sources and insights are easier to trust and are imbued with what the authors call “the perceived power of the ‘secret’ label.”

Speaking at the Eurosatory exhibition in Paris in June, US Major General Matthew Van Wagenen, deputy chief of staff for operations at NATO, confirmed how great this cultural barrier is. Up to 90 percent of “what Western militaries are looking for,” he said, can be derived from open sources:

This is a revolution in how we look at information. The ways of discerning information through classical means and techniques, tactics, and procedures that militaries have been adapted to—that’s really an old model of doing business. The new open source that’s out there right now, and the speed of information and relevance of information is coming, this is how things need to be looked at.

It is reasonable to believe that the tradecraft and resourcing barriers can be overcome. Methodologies are evolving swiftly, as are the requisite technologies. In fact, many of the tools NATO needs to capitalize on OSINT already exist. New AI applications are coming online almost every week. But if NATO fails to overcome the cultural barrier, it risks going into the next conflict underinformed and ill-prepared.

How AI-enabled OSINT can earn NATO leaders’ confidence

The cultural barrier to AI-enabled OSINT cannot be surmounted simply by decree or directive. Nor can it be overcome by intelligence professionals alone. The technology—and the discipline—must earn the justified confidence of civilian leaders and military commanders across the international staff, the military committee, and the supporting agencies. This could happen if AI-enabled OSINT were applied first to the simplest intelligence-gathering tasks before being applied to the most complex. To borrow the terminology made famous by former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, NATO should apply the discipline to corroborating “known knowns,” resolving “known unknowns,” and surfacing “unknown unknowns.”

Corroborating “known knowns”: NATO should start by recognizing where the skills of the human analyst currently outperform even the most sophisticated models, and where AI can best be applied to elevate these skills. This means asking the right kind of questions, and employing OSINT to corroborate what is already known and to triangulate insights gathered from well-established secret sources. In this way, NATO can begin to overcome the skepticism that’s too often associated with publicly available information and OSINT.

Resolving “known unknowns”: With so much data to draw on, it is essential that NATO uses AI to help collate, process, and (where necessary) translate that data so it is ready for analysts to interpret. If AI-enabled OSINT can prove useful to intelligence professionals in this capacity, those professionals may be more willing to apply it to the most complex and valuable intelligence tasks of all—surfacing risks and opportunities that civilian and military leaders would otherwise struggle to identify.

Surfacing “unknown unknowns”: Perhaps the greatest contribution that AI can make to the intelligence-gathering discipline is identifying patterns and connections that are invisible to the human eye. Dedicated, AI-powered information-intelligence applications that synthesize publicly available information with proprietary data can help analysts and decision makers tease out insights they would otherwise miss.

This combination of publicly available information with classified data will enable NATO analysts to give military and political leaders a uniquely rich, nuanced, and highly contextualized understanding of the operating environment. Decision makers at every level will be able to examine intelligence from every angle, and apply their experience and imagination to infer an adversary’s intentions based on the interplay of evidence.

The critical need for human-machine teaming

The necessary tools and methodologies exist. What’s missing is the determination to get these tools into users’ hands, to supply the requisite training, and to capitalize on the integrated output derived from all sources of intelligence, open-source and otherwise.

OSINT is becoming known among some intelligence professionals as “the intelligence of first resort.” Compared with clandestine methods of information gathering and analysis, OSINT is fast, low-cost, and low-risk. But if it can be combined with those same methods then NATO’s analysts and leadership will have an enduring competitive edge, with access to the kind of strategic information that would likely be, in Bill Donovan’s words, “of determining influence in modern war.”

NATO’s seventy-fifth anniversary is a milestone in a remarkable story of reinvention, adaptation, and unity. However, as the Alliance seeks to secure its future for the next seventy-five years, it faces the revanchism of old rivals, escalating strategic competition, and uncertainties over the future of the rules-based international order.

With partners and allies turning attention from celebrations to challenges, the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative invited contributors to engage with the most pressing concerns ahead of the historic Washington summit and chart a path for the Alliance’s future. This series will feature seven essays focused on concrete issues that NATO must address at the Washington summit and five essays that examine longer-term challenges the Alliance must confront to ensure transatlantic security.

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Ukraine’s Kursk offensive proves surprise is still possible in modern war

Mykola Bielieskov — Tue, 13 Aug 2024 15:19:36 +0000

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is now in its second week and the sense of shock is still tangible. The Ukrainian military was able to achieve almost total surprise when it crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk Oblast on August 6. While the ultimate goals of the operation remain subject to much debate, Ukraine’s success in catching the Russians completely off-guard is a considerable accomplishment in its own right.

The Ukrainian military’s ability to maintain a veil of secrecy around preparations for the current operation is all the more remarkable given the evidence from the first two-and-a-half years of Russia’s invasion. The war in Ukraine has been marked by the growing importance of drone and electromagnetic surveillance, creating what most analysts agree is a remarkably transparent battlefield. This is making it more and more difficult for either army to benefit from the element of surprise.

Given the increased visibility on both sides of the front lines, how did Ukraine manage to spring such a surprise? At this stage there is very little detailed information available about Ukraine’s preparations, but initial reports indicate that unprecedented levels of operational silence and the innovative deployment of Ukraine’s electronic warfare capabilities played important roles.

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Ukraine’s political leaders have been unusually tight-lipped about the entire offensive, providing no hint in advance and saying very little during the first week of the campaign. This is in stark contrast to the approach adopted last year, when the country’s coming summer offensive was widely referenced by officials and previewed in the media. Ukraine’s efforts to enforce operational silence appear to have also extended to the military. According to The New York Times, even senior Ukrainian commanders only learned of the plan to invade Russia at the last moment.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive appears to have been a major surprise for Ukraine’s Western partners. The Financial Times has reported that neither the US nor Germany were informed in advance of the planned Ukrainian operation. Given the West’s record of seeking to avoid any actions that might provoke Putin, it is certainly not difficult to understand why Kyiv might have chosen not to signal its intentions.

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It is also likely that Ukraine benefited from Russia’s own complacency and overconfidence. Despite suffering a series of defeats in Ukraine since 2022, the Kremlin remains almost pathologically dismissive of Ukrainian capabilities and does not appear to have seriously entertained the possibility of a large-scale Ukrainian invasion of the Russian Federation. The modest defenses established throughout the border zone confirm that Moscow anticipated minor border raids but had no plans to repel a major Ukrainian incursion.

Russia’s sense of confidence doubtless owed much to Western restrictions imposed on Ukraine since the start of the war that have prohibited the use of Western weapons inside Russia. These restrictions were partially relaxed in May 2024 following Russia’s own cross-border offensive into Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast, but the Kremlin clearly did not believe Kyiv would be bold enough to use this as the basis for offensive operations inside Russia. Vladimir Putin is now paying a steep price for underestimating his opponent.

It remains far too early to assess the impact of Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive. One of the most interesting questions will be whether Ukraine can force the Kremlin to divert military units from the fighting in eastern Ukraine in order to defend Russia itself. Much will depend on the amount of Russian land Ukraine is able to seize and hold. Putin must also decide whether his military should focus on merely stopping Ukraine’s advance or liberating occupied Russian territory.

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has succeeded in demonstrating that surprise is still possible on the modern battlefield. This is a significant achievement that underlines the skill and competence of the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian invasion has also confirmed once again that Putin’s talk of Russian red lines and his frequent threats of nuclear escalation are a bluff designed to intimidate the West. Taken together, these factors should be enough to convince Kyiv’s partners that now is the time to increase military support and provide Ukraine with the tools for victory.

Mykola Bielieskov is a research fellow at the National Institute for Strategic Studies and a senior analyst at Ukrainian NGO “Come Back Alive.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s personal position and do not reflect the opinions or views of NISS or Come Back Alive.

Ukraine’s invasion of Russia is erasing Vladimir Putin’s last red lines

Peter Dickinson — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 02:15:22 +0000

In the early hours of August 6, units of the Ukrainian army crossed the border into Russia’s Kursk Oblast in a surprise move that ended a two-and-a-half year taboo over military operations on Russian soil. The goals of this ambitious Kursk incursion are still shrouded in mystery and subject to much debate, but it is already clear that Ukraine’s decision to invade Russia has succeeded in making a complete mockery of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and the West’s fears of escalation.

Ukraine’s summer offensive is a watershed moment in the current war and an historic milestone in its own right. For the first time since World War II, Russia has been invaded by a foreign army. Initial reports indicate that this ambitious operation was prepared amid great secrecy over a period of months. Ukraine managed to catch the Russians completely off-guard, with Ukrainian forces advancing tens of kilometers into Kursk Oblast during the first days of the campaign.

Ukraine’s political and military leaders have so far remained remarkably tight-lipped about the invasion, saying very little publicly and providing few details. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a number of likely objectives.

Ukraine’s most obvious intention is probably to ease the military pressure in the south and east of the country, where Russia has been slowly but steadily advancing in recent months. By attacking across the lightly defended border and seizing Russian territory, Ukrainian commanders believe they can force the Kremlin to withdraw troops from the front lines of the war in Ukraine in order to redeploy them for the defense of Russia itself.

The offensive also creates opportunities for Ukraine to regain the military initiative after a year of costly and demoralizing defensive operations. It has long been obvious that Ukraine cannot realistically hope to win a war of attrition against the far larger and wealthier Russian Federation. Kyiv’s best chance of military success lies in returning to a war of mobility and maneuver that allows Ukrainian commanders to take advantage of their relative agility while exploiting the Russian army’s far more cumbersome decision-making processes. This is exactly what the invasion of Kursk Oblast has achieved.

In psychological terms, bringing the war home to Russia has allowed Ukraine to strike a powerful blow against enemy morale. The Ukrainian army’s advances in Kursk Oblast are spreading panic throughout the surrounding region and undermining Putin’s efforts to prevent the invasion of Ukraine from disrupting the daily lives of ordinary Russians. On the home front, Ukraine’s surprise summer offensive has provided Ukrainian society with a desperately needed morale boost, reviving hopes that the war-weary nation can still achieve meaningful military success.

The Kursk offensive may ultimately be part of Ukraine’s preparations for a future peace process, with Kyiv looking to occupy as much Russian territory as possible to use as a bargaining chip in any negotiations with the Kremlin. Indeed, during the initial days of the invasion, there was widespread speculation that Ukraine’s primary target may be the Kursk nuclear power plant, with a view to trading it for the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. An eventual land swap on a far larger scale may be part of Kyiv’s calculations.

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The Ukrainian army’s advance into Russia has profound implications for perceptions of the war. It directly challenges the widespread belief that Russia’s invasion has reached a stalemate and can no longer be decided on the battlefield. Crucially, it also exposes the emptiness of Vladimir Putin’s red lines and the folly of the West’s emphasis on escalation management.

Ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the international response has been hindered by fear of escalation. Western leaders have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin, who has used thinly veiled nuclear threats and frequent talk of Russian red lines to restrict the flow of military aid and convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on the use of Western weapons inside Russia. As a result, Ukraine has effectively been forced to wage war with one hand tied behind its back.

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What we are currently witnessing is entirely in line with a well-established pattern of Russian threats being exposed as bluffs by Ukrainian boldness. During the first year of the war as Putin prepared to announce the annexation of occupied Ukrainian city Kherson, he warned that any attempt to reclaim this “Russian land” would result in a nuclear reply. “I’m not bluffing,” he famously declared. But when Ukraine liberated Kherson just weeks later, Putin did not reach for the nuclear button. Instead, he ordered his beaten troops to quietly retreat.

Russia’s reaction to wartime setbacks in Crimea has been similarly underwhelming. The 2014 seizure of the Ukrainian peninsula remains Putin’s crowning glory and serves as the basis for his claim to a place in Russian history alongside the country’s greatest rulers. Nevertheless, when Ukraine deployed missiles and marine drones to sink or disable around one-third of the entire Russian Black Sea Fleet, there was no apocalyptic response from the Kremlin. On the contrary, Putin instructed his remaining warships to withdraw from Crimea and seek safety in Russian ports.

This record of inglorious Russian retreats makes the West’s frequently voiced fear of escalation all the more difficult to justify. Ukrainians will now be hoping Putin’s characteristically weak response to the Kursk offensive can persuade Western leaders to belatedly abandon their failed policies of escalation management and acknowledge that the quickest way to end the war is by arming Ukraine for victory.

There are some indications that attitudes among Ukraine’s Western allies may finally be changing. The EU has led the way, with European Commission spokesperson Peter Thano responding to the Ukrainian cross-border push into Kursk Oblast by saying Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself, including inside Russia. Berlin has reacted in the same manner, with the German Foreign Ministry issuing a statement confirming that Ukraine’s right to self defense “is not limited to its own territory.” Meanwhile, US officials have also signaled their approval. “Ukraine is doing what it needs to do to be successful on the battlefield,” commented a Pentagon official.

This broadly supportive international reaction is welcome news for Ukraine, but officials in Kyiv are also well aware that further steps are required in order to set the stage for Putin’s eventual defeat. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy underlined this point in his August 11 evening address, when he once again called for the lifting of all Western restrictions on long-range strikes against military targets in Russia. Until that happens, Moscow will retain the ability to pummel Ukrainian cities at will and Putin will have little reason to end his invasion.

The West has spent more than two years slow-walking military aid to Ukraine for fear of provoking Putin. And yet time after time, Ukraine has proved that whenever the Russian dictator is confronted with the prospect of defeat, he is far more likely to retreat than escalate. Now that the Ukrainian military has crossed the last of Putin’s red lines and invaded Russia without sparking World War III, there are no more excuses for restricting Kyiv’s ability to defend itself or denying Ukraine the weapons it needs to win the war.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

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During the early years of Ukrainian independence, Luhansk’s Friendship of Peoples Park remained a space of contested memory. While retaining its old Soviet era name, it gradually acquired a range of new memorials including a monument to Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, a cross marking the grave of the city’s former mayor, and a memorial to the victims of the Holodomor.

In 2009, following decades of public pressure, the park was renamed as the Garden of Remembrance. At this point, it seemed as though the long task of restoring historical memory in Luhansk was finally complete. However, the onset of Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2014 transformed the memory politics of the region once again and revived many of the darkest chapters of the Soviet years.

When Kremlin forces occupied Luhansk in the spring of 2014, they soon began attempting to transform remembrance of the Soviet era. While monuments to Lenin were being dismantled elsewhere in Ukraine, the Russian authorities in Luhansk were erecting new monuments glorifying the Soviet past and celebrating the “liberation” of the city from Ukrainian rule. This mirrored similar processes that were underway in other Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including nearby Donetsk and the Crimean peninsula.

Curiously, many memorials in Luhansk honoring the victims of the Soviet era initially remained untouched. This changed with the full-scale invasion of February 2022, which led to a more aggressive approach to the eradication of Ukrainian historical memory. In the second half of 2022, the Holodomor memorial in Mariupol was demolished. By summer 2024, the Russian occupation authorities had also dismantled monuments in Luhansk honoring the victims of the Holodomor and the Stalinist Terror.

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The occupation authorities in Luhansk have attempted to justify these measures by framing the Holodomor as a Ukrainian propaganda myth and positioning memorials to the victims of Soviet crimes as “pilgrimage sites for Ukrainian nationalists.” They have also argued that the dismantling of monuments is in response to grassroots demands from the local population.

Russia’s selective monument removals are part of a deliberate strategy to rehabilitate favorable aspects of the Soviet past while whitewashing the crimes of the Communist era. A similarly partisan approach has been adopted toward the historical role of Tsarist Russia. Throughout occupied regions of Ukraine, the Kremlin seeks to craft a narrative glorifying Russian imperialism that legitimizes Moscow’s land grab while suppressing any traces of a separate Ukrainian national identity. In this manner, Putin is weaponizing the past to serve his own present-day geopolitical ambitions.

The demolition of memorials is only one aspect of Russia’s war on Ukrainian national identity. In areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control, anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian is at risk of being detained or simply disappearing. Speaking Ukrainian is considered a serious offense. Ukrainians are pressured into accepting Russian citizenship, while thousands of Ukrainian children have been abducted and sent to Russia, where they are subjected to indoctrination in camps designed to rob them of their Ukrainian heritage.

Unlike earlier attempts to erase entire nations, today’s Kremlin campaign to extinguish Ukrainian identity is taking place in full view of international audiences in the heart of twenty-first century Europe. This poses fundamental challenges to the entire notion of a rules-based international order and represents a major obstacle to any future peace process. As long as Russia remains committed to the destruction of Ukraine, a truly sustainable settlement to today’s war will remain elusive.

Yevhenii Monastyrskyi is a PhD student of history at Harvard University and a lecturer at Kyiv School of Economics. John Vsetecka is an assistant professor of history at Nova Southeastern University.

Russia’s Black Sea defeats get flushed down Vladimir Putin’s memory hole

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 13:51:05 +0000

There was much pomp and pageantry on display recently in former Russian imperial capital Saint Petersburg as Vladimir Putin presided over the country’s annual Navy Day festivities. In truth, however, Putin and his assembled admirals had very little to celebrate. Over the past year, Russia’s once-vaunted Black Sea Fleet has been decimated by Ukrainian drones and missiles in what must rank as the most remarkable series of naval defeats in modern military history.

Despite barely having a navy of its own, Ukraine has managed to sink or severely damage approximately one-third of Putin’s fleet, forcing the bulk of his remaining warships to retreat from occupied Crimea. The war at sea has gone so badly for Russia that by spring 2024, Britain’s Ministry of Defense was already declaring the Black Sea Fleet “functionally inactive.”

The details of this year’s Russian Navy Day program provided some hints of the inglorious reality behind Moscow’s efforts to project naval strength. Tellingly, the traditional parade of Russian warships along the Neva River to the Kronstadt naval base, which usually serves as the centerpiece of the entire holiday, was canceled due to security concerns. In its place, a reduced flotilla took part in a significantly scaled down event that featured around half as many vessels as in previous years.

Despite being by far the smallest Russian Navy Day since the holiday was reinstated in 2017, this year’s event nevertheless represented an excellent opportunity for Putin to honor Russia’s fallen sailors and vow retribution for the country’s unprecedented losses in the Black Sea. In fact, he did nothing of the sort. Throughout his official address, Putin barely mentioned the casualties suffered or the sacrifices made by the Russian Navy during the invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the Kremlin dictator preferred to flush Russia’s Black Sea defeats down the memory hole. He was aided by the loyal Russian media, which carefully avoided any awkward references to the disaster that has befallen the country’s Black Sea Fleet.

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All this brings to mind an old Soviet joke that begins with Napoleon, Julius Caesar, and Alexander the Great looking down from heaven at a Red Army parade on Red Square. Caesar indicates the endless rows of Soviet troops and says, “with so many men, I could have held Germania.” Alexander points to the tanks and missiles and declares, “with such weapons of war, I could have conquered all India.” Napoleon, meanwhile, completely ignores the parade and is instead engrossed in a copy of Pravda. “If I had such a newspaper,” he proclaims, “nobody would have heard of Waterloo.”

Many Soviet jokes have not aged well, but this particular punchline remains as relevant as ever in modern Russia, where Putin has succeeded in creating a propaganda machine every bit as potent as its Soviet predecessor. Today’s Kremlin-controlled multimedia ecosystem is far more sophisticated than its Communist forerunner, but it serves the same basic function of bending reality to suit the whims of Russia’s ruling elite.

For the past decade, Putin has used this unrivaled information weapon to fuel the biggest European invasion since World War II. Kremlin propagandists have managed to convince millions of ordinary Russians that democratic Ukraine is actually a “Nazi state” whose very existence poses an intolerable threat to Russia. Ukrainians have been demonized and dehumanized to such an extent that genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now a routine feature on prime time Russian TV.

The success of these efforts is all too apparent, with a wide range of opinion polls, research, and anecdotal evidence pointing to consistently high levels of Russian public support for the invasion. Meanwhile, there is no meaningful anti-war movement in the country, despite widespread knowledge of the horrors taking place in neighboring Ukraine. This is not surprising. After all, as Voltaire once warned, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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Putin’s ability to distort Russian reality is genuinely terrifying, but the sheer scale of his propaganda operation could also inadvertently offer hope for the future. Many commentators have argued that failure in Ukraine would lead to the fall of the Putin regime and quite possibly the breakup of Russia itself, but these concerns may be exaggerated. While a third Russian collapse in a little over a century cannot be ruled out, the experience of the past two-and-a-half years gives good cause to believe that Moscow’s disinformation industry is more than capable of rebranding any future retreat from Ukraine in a favorable light, or of burying it completely. In other words, if the Russian media can manufacture a major war, it can also fabricate a suitably plausible peace.

Anyone who still doubts the Kremlin’s capacity to whitewash military defeat in Ukraine hasn’t been paying attention. We have recently witnessed Putin hosting the biggest naval event of the year while studiously ignoring the historic humbling of his southern fleet. It was the same story in 2022, when he ceremoniously announced that Kherson had joined Russia “forever,” only to order his beaten troops to abandon the city just weeks later. Likewise, when Russia lost the Battle of Kyiv during the initial phase of the invasion, the Kremlin refused to acknowledge defeat and absurdly insisted that the retreat from northern Ukraine was a mere “goodwill gesture.” If Putin is eventually forced to end his invasion, it seems safe to assume he will downplay this humiliation in similar fashion.

Since February 2022, Western leaders have found numerous reasons to limit their support for Ukraine. Some are restricted by modest defense budgets and competing domestic priorities. Most are afraid of possible escalation and have allowed themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s talk of Russian red lines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says many of his country’s Western partners are also reluctant to arm Ukraine because they fear the unpredictable geopolitical consequences of a Russian defeat. This Western alarm over a possible Russian collapse is exaggerated and fails to account for the power of Putin’s propaganda.

If Russia suffers a decisive defeat in Ukraine, past experience indicates that the Kremlin will almost certainly seek to move the goalposts, change the narrative, or devise some other way of rewriting history and claiming victory. Any embarrassing evidence of failure would simply be flushed down the memory hole, along with all the sunken Russian warships of the Black Sea Fleet.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Effective US government strategies to address China’s information influence

Kenton Thibaut — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:00:00 +0000

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China’s global influence operations have received increasing attention in the national security community. Numerous congressional hearings, media reports, and academic and industry findings have underscored China’s increased use and resourcing of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) tactics in its covert operations both in the United States and abroad.

In response, US government offices the Foreign Malign Influence Center (FMIC), the Global Engagement Center (GEC), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), among others, have made strides in raising awareness of the issue and charting pathways to increase the resilience of the US information ecosystem to foreign influence. To date, however, the efforts to counter the influence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been fragmented. That fragmentation is indicative of a lack of cohesion around the concept of influence operations itself.

Across the government and nongovernment sectors alike, there is considerable variation regarding the definition and scope of information manipulation. For example, the Department of State’s (DOS’s) GEC has an expansive definition, which includes “leveraging propaganda and censorship, promoting digital authoritarianism, exploiting international organizations and bilateral partnerships, pairing cooptation and pressure, and exercising control of Chinese-language media.” Others define it more narrowly as disinformation and propaganda spread by a foreign threat actor in a coordinated, inauthentic manner, and largely occurring on social media platforms.

This variation is a reflection of the holistic and multifaceted nature of Chinese influence. Coercive tactics and influence operations have long been a central part of China’s strategic tool kit and core to how it engages with the outside world. Because China conceives of the information domain as a space that must be controlled and dominated to ensure regime survival, information operations are part of a much bigger umbrella of influence that spans the economic, political, and social domains. It may be more useful to think of information manipulation as existing within the broader conceptual framework of China’s weaponization of the information domain in service of its goal to gain global influence.

As previous work by the Digital Forensic Lab (DFRLab) has shown, China’s approach to the information domain is coordinated and proactive, taking into account the mutually constitutive relationships between the economic, industrial, and geopolitical strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The aim of its efforts is to gain influence—or “discourse power”—with the ultimate goal of decentering US power and leadership on the global stage. One of the main mechanisms through which the CCP seeks to achieve this objective is by focusing on the dominance of information ecosystems. This ecosystem encompasses not only narratives and content that appear in traditional and social media but also the digital infrastructure on which communication systems rely, the policies that govern those systems at the international level, and the diplomatic strategy deployed by Beijing’s operatives abroad to gain buy-in for the CCP’s vision of the global order.

The DFRLab’s previous two reports, which explored China’s strategy and the impacts of its operations abroad, found that the United States will not be successful in addressing the challenges of Chinese influence if it sees that influence as separate from the interconnected economic, political, and technical domains in which its strategy is embedded.

To this end, the DFRLab hosted a series of one-on-one expert interviews, conducted research and workshops, and held a virtual roundtable discussion with scholars and practitioners with expertise on or experience in addressing authoritarian influence and information operations, US government processes and policies around these issues, and Chinese foreign policy. This issue brief is part of a larger body of work that examines the Chinese government’s interests and capabilities and the impacts of party’s efforts to shape the global information ecosystem. The focus of this report is on how the US government can best respond to those challenges, including the architecture, tools, and strategies that exist for addressing PRC influence and information manipulation, as well as any potential gaps in the government tool kit.

This report finds that, to mount the most effective response to Chinese influence and the threat it poses to democratic interests at home and on the international stage, the United States should develop a global information strategy, one that reflects the interconnected nature of regulatory, industrial, and diplomatic policies with regard to the information domain. A core assumption undergirding this concept is that US policymaking space tends to over-index on the threat of information manipulation in particular while under-indexing on the core national interest of fostering a secure, interoperable information environment on a larger scale.

The limits of understanding Chinese influence as systemic and part of a broader strategy has sometimes led US response to be pigeonholed as an issue of strategic communications, rather than touching on the information and technology ecosystems, among others, where China focuses its information and influence efforts. Responding to Chinese influence with government messaging is not sufficient to address the complex nature of the challenge and places the United States in a position of reactivity.

In short, understanding that the CCP (1) integrates its tech industrial strategy, governance policy, and engagement strategy and (2) connects its approach at home to how it engages abroad, the United States needs to do the same, commensurate with its values. It should not respond tit-for-tat but rather have a collective strategy for a global competition for information that connects its tech strategy to its governance approach to its engagement around the world.

That is not to say that a US strategy on information resilience should mirror China’s, or that such a strategy should be developed in response to the PRC’s actions in the information domain. Nor is it to say that the United States should adopt a similar whole-of-government approach to the information domain. There are silos by design in the US system and important legal and normative foundations for the clear delineation of mission between them. What this issue brief argues for is a strategic breaking down of silos to facilitate proactive action versus a dangerous breaking down of legally required silos.

This report emphasizes that the United States should articulate how major initiatives like the CHIPS and Science Act, regulatory approaches like the recent executive orders on AI and data security, and the DOS’s recent cyberspace and digital policy strategy are part of a cohesive whole and should be understood and operationalized as such.

The strategy should outline what the United States stands for as much as what it is against. This requires that the United States frame its assessment of threat within a broader strategy of what its values are and how those values should be articulated in its regulatory, strategic, and diplomatic initiatives to promote open information environments and shore up information resilience. This includes working with allies and partners to ensure that a free, open, and interoperable internet is a global priority as well as a domestic one; developing common standards for understanding and thresholding foreign influence; and promoting connectivity at home and abroad. One finding of this report is that the United States is already leaning into its strengths and values, including championing policies that support openness and continuing support for civil society. This, along with the awareness of influence operations as the weaponization of the information domain, is a powerful response to authoritarian attacks on the integrity of both the domestic US and global information spaces.

The United States has a core national security interest in the existence of a rules-based, orderly, and open information environment. Such an environment facilitates the essential day-to-day tasks related to public diplomacy, the basic expression of rights, and investment in industries of strategic and economic value. Absent a coherent strategy on these core issues related to the integrity of the United States’ information environment that is grounded in an understanding of the interconnected nature of their constitutive parts, the challenges of foreign influence and interference will only continue to grow. This issue brief contains three sections. For sections one and two, experts in different aspects of the PRC’s information strategy addressed two to three main questions; during the course of research, further points were raised that are included in the findings. Each section represents a synthesis of the views expressed in response to these questions. The third section comprises recommendations for the US government based on the findings from the first two sections.

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Hospital bombing was latest act in Russia’s war on Ukrainian healthcare

Olha Fokaf — Thu, 11 Jul 2024 20:58:08 +0000

The bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital in Kyiv on July 8 has sparked a wave of global condemnation, with US President Joe Biden calling the attack a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality.” Meanwhile, others have noted that this latest airstrike was not an isolated incident. “Once again, Russia has deliberately targeted residential areas and healthcare infrastructure,” commented France’s representative at the UN.

Ever since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion almost two and a half years ago, the Kremlin has faced repeated accusations of deliberately targeting Ukrainian medical facilities. On the first anniversary of the invasion, CNN reported that “nearly one in ten” Ukrainian hospitals had been damaged as a result of Russian military actions. Underlining the frequency of such incidents, Kyiv’s Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital was one of three separate Ukrainian medical facilities to be struck by Russian missiles on July 8.

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The Russian military has killed a large number of Ukrainian healthcare professionals over the past two and a half years. Monday’s bombings resulted in the deaths of an least six Ukrainian medics. They joined hundreds of colleagues from the healthcare industry who have been killed since the invasion began. Russian military actions have also resulted in billions of dollars worth of damage to Ukrainian healthcare facilities. In many cases, this has made it impossible to continue providing essential medical support, leading to significant further human costs.

The campaign against Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is in no way exceptional and appears to align with Russian military doctrine. Similar patterns of attacks on clinics and hospitals have been identified during Russian military campaigns in Syria, Georgia, Chechnya, and beyond. Unless Russia can be held accountable for the targeting of healthcare infrastructure, it potentially opens the door for other countries to adopt similar military tactics in future conflicts.

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According to international humanitarian law, healthcare institutions and medical personnel are afforded specific and enhanced protection in conflict zones. Despite this status, Russia is accused of systematically targeting medical facilities across Ukraine. These attacks have been documented by the “Attacks on Health Care in Ukraine” project, which is run by a coalition of Ukrainian and international civil society organizations.

In addition to direct military attacks on healthcare infrastructure, research carried out by this civil society initiative has also identified a clear pattern of Russian behavior in occupied areas involving restricted access to essential healthcare services. Throughout regions of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, the occupation authorities reportedly withhold medical care unless Ukrainians accept Russian citizenship and are otherwise cooperative.

It is also crucial to acknowledge the indirect impact of the Russian invasion on Ukrainian healthcare. The war unleashed by Vladimir Putin in February 2022 has created a range of long-term challenges including unprecedented demographic changes and a dramatic increase in mental health disorders. The healthcare ramifications of Russian aggression extend beyond Ukraine’s borders, including the burden placed on foreign healthcare systems by millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war.

Prosecuting Russia for war crimes related to the targeting of Ukraine’s healthcare infrastructure is likely to be an extremely challenging and time-consuming process. Potential obstacles include slow judicial systems, difficulties in identifying individuals responsible for deliberate attacks, and problems establishing clear links between the perpetrators and the crime. Collecting evidence that meets international prosecution standards is also a complex task during ongoing combat operations.

In order to break the cycle of impunity, the international community must prioritize the investigation and prosecution of those who deliberately target healthcare infrastructure and medical personnel. This process should involve international and domestic legal systems along with the relevant UN investigative bodies.

Russia is clearly targeting the Ukrainian healthcare system and weaponizing the provision of medical services as part of a campaign aimed at breaking Ukrainian resistance and strengthening Moscow’s grip on occupied regions of the country. Unless there is accountability for these crimes, Russia’s actions will set a dangerous precedent that will lead to similar offenses in other conflict zones.

Olha Fokaf is a healthcare specialist currently serving as a consultant to the World Bank in Kyiv.

A former member of the Ukrainian Parliament from Black Sea port city Odesa, Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast organizer Unguryan has been building bridges between the American and Ukrainian evangelical communities for more than a decade. His relationships with key members of the US Congress reportedly helped provide the spiritual and emotional connection that convinced many Republicans to vote for a major new Ukraine aid package in April 2024. US officials were among the participants at this year’s breakfast in Kyiv, with a series of video addresses from members of Congress including Speaker Mike Johnson along with senators Richard Blumenthal and James Lankford.

The event was held in Kyiv’s Mystetskyi Arsenal, a cavernous former munitions plant located across the street from the one thousand year old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, one of the holiest sites in Orthodox Christianity. The list of attendees reflected the diversity of religious belief in today’s Ukraine. At one table close to mine, a Japanese Buddhist monk broke bread with Crimean Tatar Muslims during a service led by an evangelical Protestant, with prayers offered in Hebrew by Ukraine’s chief rabbi.

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Ukraine’s National Prayer Breakfast represents an important reality check to Russian propaganda, which seeks to accuse the Ukrainian authorities of engaging in religious persecution. In fact, it is the Russian Orthodox Church itself that has declared a “Holy War” against Ukraine and the West. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has offered spiritual justification for the current invasion, and has said that Russians who die while fighting in Ukraine will have all their sins washed away.

Kirill has allies in today’s Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) is historically the local Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church and remains the second largest Orthodox denomination in the country in terms of parishioners. Despite some effort to distance itself from the Kremlin following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UOC remains closely associated with the Russian Orthodox Church and is staffed with clergy who have spent their entire careers reporting to Moscow. Around one hundred members of the UOC clergy are currently in prison or awaiting trial for a range of national security-related offenses including actively aiding the Russian military.

Recent research and polling data indicates that large numbers of former adherents are now leaving the UOC, while as many as eight-five percent of Ukrainians want their government to take action against the Russian-linked Church. However, while the Ukrainian authorities attempt to address this complex national security challenge, Kremlin-friendly public figures in the US such as Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have accused Ukraine of persecuting Christians. A team of lobbyists, allegedly funded by a prominent pro-Kremlin Ukrainian oligarch, is currently canvassing Capitol Hill giving this message to members of Congress.

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Claims of religious persecution by the Ukrainian authorities are not only deliberately misleading; they also serve to obscure the very real crimes being committed against Ukraine’s Christian communities by Russian occupation forces. In areas of Ukraine that are currently under Kremlin control, virtually all churches other than the Russian Orthodox Church have been forced out. Even more alarmingly, a significant number of Christian community leaders have been abducted, imprisoned, tortured, or killed.

The details of Russia’s alleged crimes are often shocking. Baptist children’s pastor Azat Azatyan says Russians attached electrical wires to his genitals. In many cases, Russian Orthodox Church clergy are directly implicated. Evangelical pastor Viktor Cherniiavskyi claims to have been tortured with a taser while a Russian Orthodox priest tried to cast demons out of him. His alleged crime? Being an evangelical Christian.

International awareness of Russia’s hard line campaign against religious freedom in occupied regions of Ukraine is now finally growing. This is shaping attitudes among Christians toward the Russian invasion. While waves of Russian propaganda succeeded in sowing doubt among some Republicans during 2023, recent research has found that seventy percent of Republicans who identity as evangelical Christians are more likely to support aid to Ukraine when they learn of Russia’s oppressive policies against Christians in occupied Ukrainian regions.

The Kremlin is openly using religion to further the Russian war effort. The Russian Orthodox Church routinely portrays the invasion of Ukraine in religious terms, while members of the ROC clergy promote the war as a sacred mission. Throughout occupied Ukraine, all other Christian denominations are prevented from operating, with individual community leaders at risk of being detained or worse.

In stark contrast, the recent Ukrainian National Prayer Breakfast in Kyiv highlighted the Ukrainian government’s commitment to values of religious tolerance and diversity. This is the pluralistic Ukraine that millions of Ukrainians are now struggling to defend. They deserve the support of everyone who values freedom of religion.

Steven Moore is the Founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project.

Putin is using Belarus to escalate his nuclear threats

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 02 Jul 2024 20:09:39 +0000

Belarus engaged in a bout of nuclear saber-rattling on June 30, with Chief of the Belarusian General Staff Pavel Muraveiko declaring that his country would not hesitate to use nuclear weapons if provoked. “We’ve learned how to handle these weapons. We know how to apply them confidently. And you can be sure that we will do it if the sovereignty and independence of our country is threatened,” Muraveiko stated.

The Belarusian army commander’s hawkish comments came just weeks after Belarus and Russia conducted joint nuclear drills that were widely interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the West. This followed on from Vladimir Putin’s spring 2023 announcement of plans to store Russian tactical nukes on Belarusian territory. By the end of the year, the weapons had reportedly arrived in Belarus.

Muraveiko’s recent statement illustrates how the Kremlin is using Belarus to escalate its campaign of nuclear blackmail against the West. Clearly, any Russian nuclear weapons deployed across the border in Belarus remain firmly under Moscow’s control. If Belarusian officials are now issuing nuclear threats of their own, they are doing so on behalf of Putin.

This is very much in line with the supporting role played by Belarus throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. When hostilities first began in February 2022, Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka allowed the Russian military to use his country as a base for the invasion of northern Ukraine. Following Russia’s spring 2022 defeat in the Battle of Kyiv, Putin’s army then retreated back into Belarus to regroup.

While Lukashenka has so far been able to resist Kremlin pressure to enter the war directly, he has allowed Russia to conduct air strikes on targets across Ukraine from Belarusian territory. He has also been one of the few international leaders prepared to publicly align himself with Putin, meeting with the Russian dictator on multiple occasions.

Lukashenka’s slavish loyalty to his Russian patron comes as no surprise. The Belarusian ruler has been heavily dependent on the Kremlin since 2020, when Putin intervened to prevent the Lukashenka regime from collapse amid nationwide protests over a rigged presidential election. For the past four years, Russia has been steadily strengthening its grip on Belarus, a process some have likened to the creeping annexation of the country.

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With Russian influence in Belarus now at unprecedented levels, Lukashenka has had little choice but to back the invasion of Ukraine. Naturally, this support includes playing along with Putin’s nuclear intimidation tactics. Perhaps more surprising is Putin’s readiness to involve Russia’s small western neighbor in his incredibly reckless game of nuclear brinkmanship.

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began almost two and a half years ago, Putin has become notorious for frequently issuing thinly-veiled nuclear threats. This trend was first evident during his initial address announcing the decision to invade, with Putin warning Western leaders that any attempts to intervene would lead to consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Perhaps the most infamous example of Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling came six months later. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin ruler referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

With Western support for Ukraine regaining momentum in recent months, Putin has once again made regular references to a possible nuclear war. Western leaders “should keep in mind that theirs are small and densely populated countries,” he commented chillingly in late May.

Other Kremlin leaders have gone even further. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, recently stated that it would be a “fatal mistake” for Western leaders to believe Russia was not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or NATO member states. “This is, alas, not an attempt at intimidation or a nuclear bluff,” he declared.

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While Ukraine has refused to be cowed by Russia’s repeated nuclear threats, many in the West have allowed themselves to be intimidated. Indeed, widespread alarm over the potential use of nuclear weapons is believed to be a key factor fueling the fear of escalation that has consistently hampered the international response to Russia’s invasion.

Putin is well aware of the low risk tolerance in many Western capitals and has used it to his advantage. He has skillfully exploited the West’s escalation phobia to reduce the flow of military aid to Kyiv, and has even managed to convince Ukraine’s partners to impose absurd restrictions on how the embattled country can defend itself.

Russia’s readiness to employ nuclear threats could have grave implications for international security that would be felt far beyond the battlefields of Ukraine. If nuclear blackmail enables Putin to succeed in Ukraine, he will inevitably use the same tactics again elsewhere. Other countries will then draw the logical conclusion and decide that they, too, must also possess nuclear weapons, sparking a scramble for nukes that will undo decades of nonproliferation efforts. The entire world will be plunged into an era of insecurity marked by a dramatically heightened risk of nuclear war.

If Western leaders wish to avoid this bleak future, they must finally stand up to Russia’s nuclear bullying. At this point, Putin evidently regards his nuclear bluster as an effective foreign policy tool. Far from being deterred, he appears determined to raise the stakes further by involving Belarus.

Putin will continue to pursue policies of nuclear intimidation until the costs outweigh the benefits. This can be achieved by increasing Western military support for Ukraine and lifting all remaining restrictions on Kyiv’s ability to strike back against Russia. Unless that happens, there is a very real danger that the international security climate of the coming decades will be defined by nuclear-backed expansionism and further wars of imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Putin just reminded the world why Russia must lose

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 21:26:06 +0000

On the eve of last weekend’s Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, Vladimir Putin unveiled a peace proposal of his own. The presentation of this rival peace plan was an obvious attempt to undermine Ukraine’s Swiss initiative, but it also served as a timely reminder that Putin is waging an old-fashioned war of imperial conquest and will continue to escalate his demands until he is defeated.

Putin’s uncompromising vision for a future peace in Ukraine was widely condemned, with Kyiv officials and world leaders rejecting it as an “ultimatum.” Crucially, the terms outlined by the Kremlin leader would leave around twenty percent of Ukraine under Russian control, including significant portions of the country that Putin’s army has so far been unable to capture.

This new peace proposal is the latest example of the growing territorial demands that have accompanied Russia’s ten-year invasion of Ukraine. Time after time over the past decade, Putin has rejected accusations of an expansionist agenda, only to then escalate his invasion of Ukraine further.

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When Russia first attacked Ukraine in February 2014, Putin insisted Moscow had no territorial ambitions beyond the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. “We do not want to divide Ukraine,” he assured the watching world. Within weeks, however, Kremlin forces posing as locals had sparked a separatist war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

For the following eight years, Putin steadily strengthened his grip on the so-called “separatist republics” of eastern Ukraine, while consistently denying any direct involvement. The failure of the international community to hold Putin accountable for this shameless duplicity fuelled a sense of impunity in Moscow that set the stage for the largest European invasion since World War II.

In his February 2022 address announcing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin once again denied harboring any ambitions to annex additional Ukrainian lands. “It is not our plan to occupy Ukrainian territory,” he stated. “We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force.” Just six months later, Putin demonstrated the true value of his word by solemnly announcing the annexation of four more Ukrainian provinces.

Significantly, the invading Russian army did not fully control any of the Ukrainian provinces claimed by Putin in September 2022. This created a degree of ambiguity regarding the exact geographical extent of Russia’s goals, with Kremlin officials typically limiting themselves to vague calls for Ukraine to recognize the “new territorial realities” created by the front lines of the invasion.

Putin’s new peace plan has now removed all doubt. Indeed, he took special care to clarify that he expects the Ukrainian military to withdraw completely from the four Ukrainian provinces in question, including unoccupied areas. Among other things, this would mean handing over the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, with a prewar population of more than seven hundred thousand, along with Kherson, which was the only Ukrainian regional capital captured by the Russians before being liberated in November 2022.

Ukraine would also have to voluntarily demilitarize, accept geopolitical neutrality, and submit to “denazification,” Kremlin code for the suppression of Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial ideology. In other words, Putin is insisting Ukraine admit defeat and surrender.

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The terms offered by Putin confirm that he has no intention of reaching a sustainable peace with Ukraine. On the contrary, the Russian dictator evidently remains as committed as ever to his overriding war aim of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and erasing the Ukrainian nation. As if to underline the point, Putin accompanied his latest demands with a chilling warning that “the existence of Ukraine” depends on Kyiv’s readiness to accept his conditions.

In fact, there is even more at stake than the continued existence of the Ukrainian state. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of global security is currently being determined on the battlefields of Ukraine. If Putin’s invasion succeeds, it will signal the dawning of a new era marked by rising international insecurity, ballooning defense budgets, and increasingly frequent wars of aggression.

A victorious Russia would almost certainly remain at the forefront of this descent into lawlessness for many years to come. Throughout the past decade, Putin has steadily escalated his invasion of Ukraine while shifting his entire country onto a war footing. By this point, it should be painfully clear to all objective observers that he will not stop until he is stopped. Indeed, Putin has openly compared today’s war to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Peter the Great, and frequently speaks in terms of a sacred mission to “return historically Russian lands.”

As anyone with a passing knowledge of Russian history will confirm, there are at least fifteen other countries beyond Ukraine that were once part of the Russian Empire and therefore meet Putin’s definition of “historically Russian.” All are now potential targets. While it is impossible to know exactly what Putin will do next if he defeats Ukraine, the idea that he will simply choose to stop is perhaps the most far-fetched scenario of all.

Nor will Putin be the only authoritarian ruler looking to embrace a new age of imperial aggression. China, Iran, and North Korea are all already providing the Russian war effort with varying degrees of support, and make no secret of their eagerness to overturn the existing world order. If Moscow achieves an historic victory in Ukraine, Beijing, Tehran, and Pyongyang will also be emboldened, along with a whole host of fellow autocrats throughout the Global South.

The only way to avoid a geopolitical future shaped by rising insecurity and resurgent imperialism is by ensuring Russia loses in Ukraine. Putin’s recent bogus peace proposal is essentially a call for Kyiv’s capitulation and the absorption of Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. This is entirely in line with the policies of escalation he has pursued throughout the past decade, and reflects an imperial agenda that leaves no room for meaningful compromise.

The Russian dictator still clearly believes he can overwhelm Ukraine with brute force while intimidating the wider Western world into inaction. If he succeeds, the consequences for international security will be devastating. Ukraine’s leaders have already responded to Putin’s latest demands with characteristic defiance. Kyiv’s international partners must now go further and provide the military support to secure Ukrainian victory.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Global China Newsletter – Sharp words, sharper tools: Beijing hones its approach to the Global South

Dexter Tiff Roberts — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:07:30 +0000

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The statement released by G7 leaders after their summit last week garnered ample attention for its strong language on China’s unfair economic practices and ongoing support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, and triggered a predictably sharp Chinese response. The back-and-forth is another reminder of China’s worsened relations with developed democracies over the past few years.

Beijing is by no means abandoning those relationships – Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Australia and New Zealand this week, not to mention President Xi’s trip to Europe last month, underscore a drive to mend damaged ties. But the incident is another piece of evidence confirming that Beijing’s positions on global and economic issues receive a more welcoming reception in the developing world, where China’s economic and political ties are growing by the day.

China’s strategic shift toward greater focus on the so-called Global South is unmistakable. One need only look at where China is spending diplomatic attention and propaganda dollars.

As colleagues at the Digital Forensics Research Lab explore in a new report on China’s messaging in Africa, China is increasingly promoting pro-Russian narratives about Ukraine in sub-Saharan Africa using its media platforms, commentators, social media, and broadcasting infrastructure. The effort aims to portray China as a force for peace while the United States prolongs the war, in line with Beijing’s drive to enhance its reputation relative to Washington across the developing world.

Source: (Murtala Zhang; CGTN Hausa) Screenshot of a cartoon shared by a China Radio International (CRI) illustrator, depicting the US arms industry as profiting from the war in Ukraine. Also, a screenshot of the Facebook post of the article that written for CRI defending China’s amplification of the biolabs in Ukraine disinformation translated from Hausa.

This effort to shape perceptions of China’s responsible global role in contrast to the United States is now routinely reflected in the content of high-level diplomatic engagements with developing countries.

In his speech just last week at the BRICS Dialogue with Developing Countries in Russia, Foreign Minister Wang Yi not only underscored China’s leadership of the Global South as the “largest developing country” but also called for the convening of “a true international peace conference” on the Ukraine war that involves Russia – after Beijing pulled out all the stops to try to scuttle the Swiss-organized conference earlier this month – and threw in some choice words on US efforts to “maintain its unipolar hegemony” for good measure.

As I and the Global China Hub team discovered on a trip to Brazil, Colombia, and Honduras earlier this month, China is also ramping up diplomatic, economic, and technological engagement across Latin America, and pairing those efforts with a push to shape understanding of China across the region. Our editor-in-chief Tiff Roberts dives into that and much more in this issue of Global China – take it away, Tiff!

-David O. Shullman, Senior Director, Atlantic Council Global China Hub

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Latin American officials flood Beijing revealing China’s global priorities

Want to know one key region of the Global South China is now focusing on? Take a look at who visited Beijing in early June. Before the first week of the month was even over, Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil, and special envoy of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla had all passed through China’s capital (the Brazilian vice president met with Xi Jinping and secured $4.49 billion in credit concessions. Brazil has been a key market for China too, as evidenced by an eighteen-fold surge in Chinese EV sales by value).

Latin America, with its rich resources, is a key target as China expands its global economic and political reach, and that’s a concern for the US. Testifying before the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing “Key Economic Strategies for Leveling the U.S.-China Playing Field: Trade, Investment, and Technology,” Pepe Zhang of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center called for a development-focused economic partnership with LAC that would make the Western Hemisphere more competitive, resilient, and better integrated with the US.

Economics used to bolster authoritarian power in Global South training

China’s commerce ministry isn’t just fretting about EU tariffs (see below). It has also spearheaded an effort to train officials in countries across the Global South. And perhaps not surprisingly, the instruction is about more than trade and economics: “This effort is integral to the PRC’s drive to transform a global order currently predicated on the centrality of democracy and individual rights to one more “values-agnostic” and thus suited to China’s rise under authoritarian CCP rule,” writes the Global China Hub’s Niva Yau in a June 12 report called “A Global South with Chinese Characteristics” (watch the launch event here). The 795 training descriptions reviewed by Yau show “how the PRC marries economics and politics in its trainings, revealing that Chinese economic achievements are used to support authoritarian ideals.”

The report certainly got the PRC’s attention. The Chinese Embassy responded, saying the report is “full of Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice,” with the Foreign Ministry adding that “China has always respected the peoples of all countries in independently choosing their development paths and social systems,” which is very reassuring.

A new, coordinated transatlantic response to China emerges on trade?

In a widely expected move, the European Union announced new tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles on June 12, up as much 38.1% on top of existing taxes of 10% before, affecting companies including BYD, SAIC, and NIO. Also to no surprise was the heated response from Beijing: the move by the EU “undermines the legitimate rights and interests of China’s EV industry,” and is “blatant protectionism,” Ministry of Commerce spokesperson He Yadong said in a press briefing. On June 17, Beijing officially launched an anti-dumping probe on imported pork and its by-products from the EU in response.

With the EU action coming just over a month after US President Joe Biden imposed tariffs on EVs of 100%, is a new, more coordinated transatlantic response to the Chinese trade juggernaut emerging? On June 3rd, in an ACFrontPage conversation with United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, she did not mince words on how the US and the EU should adapt the transatlantic trade relationship to reflect the realities of China’s economic system, saying “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics… I haven’t heard that term used in many, many years. At this point, I think it’s less diplomatic than just sort of ahistorical. The China that we’re dealing with now, the PRC, is not a democracy. It’s not a capitalist, market-based economy.”

In an Econographics article exploring a similar theme entitled “Biden’s electric vehicle tariff strategy needs a united front,” the GeoEconomics Center’s Sophia Busch and Josh Lipsky write, “tariffs, working in isolation, can’t fully achieve all the objectives—no matter how high they go. It’s only when tariffs are relatively aligned across countries… that the trajectory could change.”

And it’s not just EVs that pose a threat to global industries. Without tariffs, the EU faces a flood of Chinese imports of the “new three” clean tech exports—lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, and, of course, electric cars (along with the action against EVs, the White House also raised tariffs simultaneously on lithium-ion batteries and solar cells to 25%.) “Imports of the new-three cleantech export categories have skyrocketed in recent years. Over the course of 2023, China’s exports to the EU totaled $23.3 billion for lithium-ion batteries, $19.1 billion in solar panels, and $14.5 billion for electric vehicles,” the Global Energy Center’s Joseph Webster wrote in a piece for EnergySource.

ICYMI

Beginning on June 17, Atlantic Council President and CEO Fred Kempe and former President of Latvia Egils Levits have co-led the Atlantic Council’s annual delegation trip to Taiwan, hosted by the Taiwanese government. Joined by former Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs Tomáš Petříček, they will meet with Taiwan government leaders, including President Lai, think tanks, and business representatives to discuss security and economic issues facing Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific.
The Global China Hub hosted a public conversation on allied solutions to de-risking tech supply chains from Chinese investment to spur collective action between the United States and government and private sector partners in Europe and the Indo-Pacific. The event was a continuation of the Hub’s work on tech competition and China’s drive to dominate emerging technologies and relevant supply chains.
China’s trade with Russia has risen substantially since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, significantly bolstering Moscow’s war aims, according to new research by the Global Energy Center’s Joseph Webster.
Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Europe was in part intended to divide it as the EU increasingly hardens its stance on China. The Global China Hub’s Zoltán Fehér explores the degree to which Xi was successful in these efforts in a New Atlanticist piece.

Global China Hub

The Global China Hub researches and devises allied solutions to the global challenges posed by China’s rise, leveraging and amplifying the Atlantic Council’s work on China across its 16 programs and centers.

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Holding Putin’s propagandists accountable for crimes in Ukraine

Kristina Hook, Anna Vyshniakova — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 13:12:25 +0000

At dawn in May 2020, a French police raid on a sleepy village near Paris ended a 26-year manhunt for one of the Rwanda genocide’s most notorious fugitives. By October 2022, 89-year-old Felician Kabuga was standing trial in The Hague for crimes without a statute of limitations: Genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, and conspiracy to commit genocide, among other human rights violations. Prosecutors singled out his role as founder of a notorious Rwanda radio station, calling this dehumanizing media a key cause of the genocide.

In early June, new developments in The Hague served as a reminder to key Russian propagandists, including one of Russia’s former presidents, that they may one day face similar charges. As allowed by Article 15 of the Rome Statute, a coalition of non-government organizations jointly submitted a formal Communication to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) requesting an investigation into six Russian nationals involved in state propaganda. Notably, this coalition included international and Ukrainian groups, as well as one Russian NGO.

The Communication urged the ICC to investigate the Russians for criminal hate speech. The accused include Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and current Security Council Deputy Chairman; Vladimir Solovyov, a popular host on Russian state-owned television channel Rossiya-1; Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russia Today; Dmitry Kiselyov, head of the state-owned media consortium Rossiya Segodnya; and Sergey Mardan, a popular television and radio host. The Communication also named Alexey Gromov, First Deputy to the Presidential Executive Office’s Chief of Staff, stating his role in ordering or failing to prevent over 300 examples of criminal incitement to violence from February 24, 2022 to February 24, 2024.

This initiative is arguably long overdue. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began more than two years ago, Russian state and state-aligned actors are accused of committing a daily litany of horrific atrocities against Ukrainians. In such a context, it is tempting to overlook the rhetoric behind these actions, but the Russia-Ukraine War illustrates the dangers of ignoring the threats made by powerful Russian media figures. Many in the Russian media have openly telegraphed eliminationist rhetoric against Ukrainians for years, setting the stage for the largest military attack in Europe since World War II. Their continuing threats against the existence of Ukraine, and against other Western countries, pose a direct threat to international security.

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Since 2022, it has become increasingly apparent that Russia’s highly sophisticated propaganda machine requires novel legal and policy responses. New dangerous and diffuse platforms for Russia’s inciting language and other disinformation continue to emerge. In addition to the kind of conventional propaganda most are familiar with, Russian actors now spread public incitement and more subtle disinformation through social media, bot farms, video games, movies, and manipulated content (including deepfakes). International law does not yet cover each of these categories, as older legal frameworks concentrate on historical understandings of propaganda in legacy media formats.

These realities pose serious challenges for anyone seeking to protect victimized groups from atrocity crimes. International law, including the United Nations Genocide Convention, prohibits all means of disseminating direct and public incitement. Still, Russia’s sophisticated networks of propaganda platforms make upholding these provisions difficult. As these challenges increase, Russian techniques of shaping subconscious dehumanization continue to evolve. This fostering of cascading radicalization within Russian society may prove even more impactful than one-time calls for violence, while being more difficult to trace and prosecute.

Some Russian efforts to stay ahead of judicial accountability are clear. Even the Russian authorities felt compelled to respond to Russian journalist Anton Kravosky’s call to drown Ukrainian children in a river (he was suspended from RT for these comments, although an investigative committee later stated he had committed no crime). After these events, some Russian propagandists became noticeably more careful, cloaking their rhetoric through allusions and metaphors. Still, even this “hidden rhetoric” often meets legal requirements for incitement and other criminal propaganda.

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The gravity of alleged Russian atrocities against Ukrainians compels international urgency to disrupt Moscow’s escalation in direct violence and associated inciting propaganda to destroy Ukraine and Ukrainians. Days after posting a profanity-filled acknowledgement of the NGO-led Communication to the ICC, Dmitry Medvedev followed up with a video showing all of Ukraine as “belonging” to Russia. This complete obliteration of Ukraine from world maps was the first time a top Kremlin official had overtly claimed the entirety of Ukraine as a stated goal, showing a link between words and projected actions.

The international community now faces a critical moment. It also has a unique chance to create a legal framework and enforcement mechanism capable of implementation through international cooperation. Beginning at home, Ukraine’s legal system requires amendments to systematize prosecutions in absentia for genocidal incitement. International partners must support these efforts by surging law enforcement resources to monitor the flood of calls for violence emanating from Russian media and from more shadowy Kremlin-backed propaganda platforms.

For Russian propagandists to face the criminal consequences of their conduct, international arrest warrants are indispensable. Bolstering political will for judicial accountability and opening criminal proceedings should be the two major areas of focus. To ensure accountability, Ukraine and its partners must now plan for realistic enforcement mechanisms that implement trial verdicts and deny safe havens of non-extradition. The words and actions of Kremlin propagandists have combined to fuel unimaginable atrocities in Ukraine. To protect Ukrainians and other victims, and to prevent further armed conflicts fuelled by propaganda, the international community must break the cycle of Russia’s real or imagined impunity.

Kristina Hook is assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Anna Vyshniakova is a war crimes lawyer and a legal consultant, head of legal NGO LingvaLexa, and author of the book “Incitement to Genocide: How to Bring Propagandists to Justice.”

Intentionally vague: How Saudi Arabia and Egypt abuse legal systems to suppress online speech

Dina Sadek, Layla Mashkoor, Iain Robertson, Andy Carvin — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 11:00:00 +0000

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Egypt and Saudi Arabia are weaponizing vaguely written domestic media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws to target and suppress dissent, opposition, and vulnerable groups. Political leaders in Egypt and Saudi Arabia often claim that their countries’ judicial systems enjoy independence and a lack of interference, a narrative intended to distance the states from the real and overzealous targeting and prosecution of critics. Such claims can be debunked and dismissed, as the Egyptian and Saudi governments have had direct involvement in establishing and implementing laws that are utilized to target journalists and human rights defenders.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia were selected as case studies for this report because of their status as among the most frequently documented offenders in the region when it comes to exploiting ambiguously written laws to target and prosecute journalists, critics, activists, human rights defenders, and even apolitical citizens. The two countries have consolidated power domestically, permitting them to utilize and bend their domestic legal systems to exert control over the online information space. Punishments for those targeted can involve draconian prison sentences, travel bans, and fines, which result in a chilling effect that consequently stifles online speech and activities, preventing citizens from discussing political, social, and economic issues.

Both Egypt and Saudi Arabia enacted media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws with ambiguous language and unclear definitions of legal terms, allowing for flexible interpretations of phrases such as “false information,” “morality,” or “family values and principles.” The laws in both countries also loosely define critical terms like “terrorism,” thereby facilitating expansive interpretations of what constitutes a terrorist crime. Further, anti-terror laws now include articles that connect the “dissemination of false information” with terrorist acts. This vague and elastic legal language has enabled the Egyptian and Saudi regimes to prosecute peaceful citizens on arbitrary grounds, sometimes handing out long prison sentences or even death sentences, undermining respect for the rule of law in the two countries.

This report explores the development of media, cybercrime, and counterterrorism laws in both countries, and demonstrates through case studies how Saudi Arabia and Egypt weaponize the laws to prosecute opposition figures and control narratives online. This report examines the relationship between criminal charges tied to one’s professional activities or online speech and how those charges can trigger online smear campaigns and harassment. In cases that involve women, gender-based violence is often used to harm a woman’s reputation. Though a direct correlation between judicial charges and online harassment cannot be ascertained, these case studies suggest that dissidents are likely to face online harm following legal persecution, even after they are released.

Plitsas quoted in Defense One on US influence operations

Atlantic Council — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 14:19:10 +0000

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Allies stand with Ukraine as Russian threat looms over D-Day anniversary

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 20:27:45 +0000

World leaders gathered in Normandy on June 6 to mark the eightieth anniversary of the Allied landings in France during World War II. Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to attend, but the war he unleashed more than two years ago in Ukraine cast a long shadow over commemorations.

In his official address, French President Emmanuel Macron directly referenced the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. “When we look at war coming back to our continent, when we look at people questioning the values for which we fought, when we look at those who want to change borders by force by rewriting history, let us stand with dignity and look at those who landed here. Let us have their courage,” he commented.

US President Joe Biden struck a similar note. In a speech to thousands of dignitaries and around 180 surviving veterans of the 1944 Normandy landings, Biden compared the current challenge of confronting Putin’s Russia with the threat Hitler’s Germany posed to an earlier generation. “We know the dark forces that these heroes fought eighty years ago. They never fade,” he said. “Aggression and greed, the desire to dominate and control, to change borders by force, these are perennial. The struggle between dictatorship and freedom is unending.”

Referring to Putin as a “tyrant bent on domination,” Biden used the anniversary to issue a rallying cry for Western unity in the fight against Russian aggression. This was accompanied by a stark warning of the grave consequences for the future of European security if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine. “We will not walk away,” Biden declared. “Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there.”

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The presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at anniversary events in France this week served as a timely reminder that eighty years since Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, Europe is once again at war. Zelenskyy received a very warm welcome, including hearty cheers from the French public and praise from Macron. In one particularly touching exchange, the Ukrainian leader was greeted by a US veteran who told him, “You’re a savior of the people!” “No,” replied Zelenskyy, “You saved Europe. You are our heroes.”

This week’s D-Day anniversary comes as the Russian invasion of Ukraine enters a crucial phase. Russian troops currently hold the battlefield initiative and continue to advance, with a recently launched offensive in the north further stretching Ukraine’s already depleted forces. Meanwhile, a large-scale Russian bombing campaign targeting Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure has succeeded in damaging or destroying around half the country’s available power-generating capacity, leaving millions of Ukrainians without access to electricity for extended periods.

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Thursday’s gathering in Normandy marked the start of a particularly intensive period of Ukrainian diplomatic activity. A major Ukraine Recovery Conference will take place in Berlin on June 11-12. Zelenskyy is then expected to attend next week’s G7 summit in Italy, before traveling to neighboring Switzerland for a global peace summit that seeks to consolidate international backing for the Ukrainian leader’s peace plan.

Zelenskyy will be looking to use these meetings to underline the gravity of the current situation in Ukraine and push for more military support. Ukraine recently achieved a significant breakthrough in its quest to bring the war home to Russia, securing the green light from Kyiv’s international partners to use Western-supplied weapons for strikes on Russian territory. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian military is still outnumbered and outgunned, while a lack of sufficient air defenses means the country’s critical infrastructure remains extremely vulnerable to Russian attack.

The Ukrainian President’s star billing at one of the most important World War II commemorations in recent years will have been particularly galling for Vladimir Putin to witness. Throughout his reign, Putin has sought to position the Soviet World War II experience at the heart of modern Russia’s national identity, transforming it into a quasi-religious cult complete with its own sacred symbols, dogmas, feast days, and the ruthless suppression of heresy.

A key element of this cult is the routine denigration of all opponents as “Nazis.” For years, Kremlin propaganda has portrayed independent Ukraine as a “Nazi state,” despite the inconvenient fact that support for Ukrainian far-right political parties is among the lowest in Europe and the country’s president is Jewish. Predictably, when Putin announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he named “de-Nazification” as his key war aim.

Putin’s relentless attacks on “Nazi Ukraine” have helped strengthen pro-war sentiment inside Russia, but have largely failed to convince international audiences. Instead, as this week’s D-Day events illustrated, it is Putin himself who is widely seen as the greatest single threat to peace in Europe since the days of Adolf Hitler.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Vladimir Putin just tacitly admitted Crimea is not really part of Russia

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 14:01:50 +0000

Ukraine achieved a major diplomatic breakthrough last week, securing the green light from key allies for strikes inside Russia using Western weapons. The Russian reaction to this landmark news has bordered on the hysterical, with a host of Kremlin officials and propagandists denouncing the West and vowing terrible revenge.

Predictably, Vladimir Putin led the way, issuing yet more of the thinly-veiled nuclear threats that have become his trademark. Speaking in Tashkent, Putin warned European leaders of “serious consequences,” before reminding them of their own vulnerability. “They should keep in mind that theirs are small and densely populated countries, which is a factor to reckon with before they start talking about striking deep into Russian territory,” he commented.

Close Putin ally and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s response featured an even more explicit nuclear threat. Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said it would be a “fatal mistake” for Western leaders to believe Russia was not ready to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine or individual NATO member states. “This is, alas, not an attempt at intimidation or a nuclear bluff,” he declared.

Russia’s use of nuclear blackmail is no longer particularly surprising, of course. Since the very first days of the Ukraine invasion, Putin has engaged in frequent bouts of nuclear saber-rattling as part of a broader Russian effort to establish so-called red lines and undermine Western support for Ukraine. Nevertheless, this latest example of nuclear bluster is worthy of closer attention as it inadvertently provides revealing insights into the political realities behind Putin’s lofty imperial rhetoric of conquest and annexation.

With his chilling references to “small and densely populated countries,” Putin clearly hoped to intimidate his opponents and signal that the use of Western weapons on Russian territory is a major red line for the Kremlin. But according to Russia’s own logic, this particular red line has already been crossed on hundreds of occasions. Since 2022, Ukraine has routinely used Western weapons throughout the occupied Ukrainian regions that Putin says are now part of Russia, without triggering any discernible escalation from Moscow. In Putin’s new Russian Empire, it would seem, some places are more Russian than others.

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Officially, at least, there is no ambiguity in Moscow over the status of the Ukrainian regions claimed by the Kremlin. According to the Russian Constitution, Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson provinces along with the Crimean peninsula are now all part of the Russian Federation. Russia proclaimed the “return” of Crimea in March 2014, just a few weeks after the lightning military takeover of the peninsula that marked the start of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. More recently, Putin announced the “annexation” of four more Ukrainian provinces in a lavish September 2022 Kremlin ceremony.

Technically speaking, the five Ukrainian provinces subject to unilateral Russian “annexation” should all now enjoy the same protections as the rest of Putin’s realm. In practice, however, it has long been apparent that Moscow has no intention of expanding its nuclear umbrella to cover these regions, or of even attempting to impose its red lines regarding the use of Western weapons.

The Battle of Kherson provides a particularly vivid demonstration of the credibility gap between Russian rhetoric and Russian reality. The only regional capital captured during the entire Russian invasion, Kherson was liberated in November 2022, less than two months after Putin had declared it to be “Russian forever.” Rather than reach for his nuclear button, Putin responded to this embarrassing setback by ordering his defeated troops to quietly withdraw across the Dnipro River.

The evolving Battle of Crimea is perhaps even more revealing. For over ten years, Putin has insisted the occupied Ukrainian peninsula is now part of Russia, and has rejected all attempts to discuss its status. During this period, the seizure of Crimea has emerged as arguably the most important single element in modern Russia’s national narrative; it has come to be seen as the greatest achievement of Putin’s entire reign, and is widely regarded as a symbol of the country’s return to the top table of international affairs. This official Russian reverence for Crimea initially persuaded many in the West to view the peninsula as off-limits, but failed to deter Ukraine.

Since the early months of the war, Ukraine has been attacking Russian forces in Crimea with every available weapon, including those provided by the country’s Western allies. Western-supplied missiles have played a central role in the Battle of Crimea, enabling Ukraine to methodically deplete Russian air defenses throughout the peninsula and sink numerous Russian warships. The most eye-catching attack of all came in September 2023, when Ukraine used Western cruise missiles to bomb and partially destroy the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. If Kherson was an embarrassment for Putin, this was a very personal humiliation. Crucially, it did not lead to World War III. Instead, Putin withdrew most of his remaining warships from Crimea to the relative safety of Russian ports.

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The obvious inconsistency in the Kremlin’s public position regarding attacks on Russian soil has a number of practical implications for the further conduct of the war. It highlights the flexibility of Russia’s red lines, and strengthens perceptions that Moscow is primarily seeking to exploit the West’s own fear of escalation rather than establish any genuine boundaries.

Clearly, no responsible Western leader can afford to completely disregard the threat of nuclear war. At the same time, it is increasingly apparent that Russia’s relentless nuclear saber-rattling is losing its potency. By engaging in regular nuclear threats that never lead to action, the Kremlin has weakened the entire concept of nuclear deterrence and left Russia looking toothless. Based on the experience of the past two years, it now seems safe to conclude that while carpet-bombing the Kremlin might force Putin into some kind of drastic response, targeted attacks on Russian military bases and firing positions across the border from Ukraine are highly unlikely to fuel any kind of major escalation.

The Kremlin’s obvious reluctance to treat “annexed” regions of Ukraine as fully Russian directly contradicts Moscow’s own efforts to portray the occupation of Ukrainian lands as irreversible. While Putin likes to compare himself to Peter the Great and boast of “returning historically Russian lands,” he is evidently in no hurry to grant his Ukrainian “conquests” the kind of unequivocal security commitments that are the ultimate marker of sovereignty. Indeed, after more than a decade, the hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens who have been shipped to occupied Crimea since 2014 will no doubt be wondering how much longer they must wait before the Kremlin finally considers them worthy of protection.

Far from being set in stone, Russia’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine are largely opportunist and will expand or contract based on the military situation. Putin and his colleagues often call on Ukraine to accept the “new territorial realities” created by the current front lines of the war, but their actions send an unmistakable signal that the future of the “annexed” Ukrainian regions is still very much up for debate. Meanwhile, the multiple retreats from “historically Russian land” conducted by Putin’s invading army since 2022 suggest the chances of a nuclear apocalypse have been wildly exaggerated. This should help Kyiv’s Western partners overcome their self-defeating fear of escalation, and encourage them to finally provide Ukraine with the tools, along with the free hand, to finish the job of defeating Russia.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The consequences of Russian success in Ukraine would be equally far-reaching. If the West continues to demonstrate weakness in Ukraine and supports calls for some kind of ceasefire or negotiated settlement, Russia will claim an historic victory and will become even more internationally aggressive. This aggression will not be limited to Ukraine, and will be targeted against the whole Western world.

Nor will the Kremlin be acting alone. On the contrary, Russian victory over the West in Ukraine would embolden the Alliance of Autocracies that has emerged in recent years, bringing together Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. While further Russian aggression is likely to focus on Europe, Putin’s fellow autocrats will be encouraged to embrace their own expansionist agendas elsewhere.

This is why the international community needs to accept that only Ukrainian victory can open the door to a sustainable peace, both for Ukraine and the wider world. Any attempt to reach a compromise peace agreement with Putin would not only hand Russia victory and allow Moscow to continue occupying entire regions of Ukraine; it would also be a dangerous repetition of the 1938 Munich Conference, which had such tragic consequences for the entire international community. The British and French leaders who agreed to hand Hitler part of Czechoslovakia in Munich also hoped they were securing peace. Instead, they were setting the stage for World War II. Europe cannot afford to make the same mistake again.

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At present, the West appears to be split into two main camps over the issue of how to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One camp recognizes the importance of Ukrainian victory for European security, and sees Russian defeat as its clear goal. These countries are committed to supporting the Ukrainian war effort and refuse to rule out sending troops to defend Ukraine if necessary.

The other camp favors a negotiated settlement and typically frames this readiness to compromise with the Kremlin as a desire for peace. Such posturing is intellectually dishonest. After all, nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves. However, Ukrainians understand that peace cannot be secured by offering territorial concessions to the Putin regime that would abandon millions of Ukrainians to the horrors of permanent Russian occupation. They know that accepting a ceasefire without victory would make it impossible to hold Russia accountable for war crimes.

Crucially, Ukrainians also recognize that unless Putin is defeated, he will inevitably go further. Encouraged by the impunity of a ceasefire agreement, Russia would use any pause in hostilities to rearm and prepare for the next phase of its war against Ukraine and the West. This would create dangers similar to the threat faced by the Allies during World War II, when Churchill and Roosevelt warned against a premature peace and instead declared the goal of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender. Today’s Western leaders must now recognize that offering Putin a ceasefire will not bring about a lasting peace. Instead, it will pave the way for more war.

Future Western support for Ukraine must be built around a clear and unambiguous commitment to Ukrainian victory. This is currently missing. When Western leaders and policymakers gather in the coming weeks, the need to work toward a Ukrainian victory should be at the very top of the agenda. Meanwhile, Ukrainians must continue to explain the difference between a temporary ceasefire and a lasting peace. In 2023, Ukrainian civil society experts did their part by developing their own vision, which was outlined in the Sustainable Peace Manifesto, describing the importance of bringing Russia to justice and providing Ukraine with unambiguous security guarantees.

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After more than ten years of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, it is time for Kyiv’s partners to learn the lessons of this war and avoid falling into further Russian traps. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, it did so under a veil of deniability using so-called “little green men,” or Russian soldiers without insignia. A decade later, Russia is now openly waging the largest European invasion since World War II, and is supported by an alliance of fellow tyrannies who share the Kremlin’s goal of destroying the rules-based international order. Russia is now attacking Ukraine with Iranian drones and North Korean missiles, while receiving military supplies and vital economic support from China. If the West is unable to counter this growing threat, it will forfeit its position at the heart of the international security architecture and be replaced by the rising authoritarian powers.

In 2014, Western leaders were naive enough to expect a diplomatic solution to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It should now be painfully obvious that such hopes were unrealistic. Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine engaged in more than 200 rounds of negotiations with Russia, but this failed to prevent the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

Even while talks continued, Russia made its genocidal intentions clear with relentless propaganda denying the existence of the Ukrainian nation and dehumanizing Ukrainians. This genocidal rhetoric has since been implemented in practice by Putin’s invading army, with well-documented massacres in places like Bucha and Izium, mass abductions and forced deportations, and the eradication of all symbols of Ukrainian national identity in areas under Russian occupation. While the international community sees what is happening in Ukraine, most remain reluctant to accuse Russia of genocide as this would oblige them to act. But turning a blind eye cannot change the fact that we are witnessing a genocide in the center of twenty-first century Europe.

Everybody understands what is needed for Ukraine victory. They know how much Western military assistance is required, and exactly which weapons should be delivered. Everybody knows what sanctions, tribunals, and security agreements are necessary in order to establish a sustainable peace. At the same time, the leaders of the democratic world have yet to address why they have so far shied away from policies that could facilitate Ukrainian victory. The answer is very simple: Western leaders are still heavily influenced by the twin fears of a possible Russian escalation and a potential Russian collapse. In other words, they are unable to commit fully to Ukrainian victory because they are afraid of Russian defeat. This is now the greatest single obstacle to a sustainable peace in Europe.

Perhaps the best advice for Ukraine’s Western partners comes from Pope John Paul II, who said “be not afraid” as he led the fight for freedom and democracy in Central Europe during the 1980s. Europe must now overcome its fears once again if it is to safeguard the freedoms that define the continent. Sustainable peace cannot be achieved at the expense of justice. European security will remain elusive if Putin is allowed to gain from his aggression and consolidate his genocidal occupation of Ukrainian lands.

With the Russian invasion now in its third year, Ukraine’s partners must finally acknowledge that European security depends on Ukrainian victory. The sooner they develop and implement a strategy to achieve this victory, the more lives will be saved. Since 2022, Western policies of escalation management have failed to appease Putin and have only emboldened the Kremlin. If the West wants peace, it must help Ukraine win.

Hanna Hopko is co-founder of the International Center for Ukrainian Victory and head of the ANTS Network. Andrius Kubilius is a member of the European Parliament, former Prime Minister of Lithuania, and chair of the United for Ukraine global parliamentary network.

As Russia has escalated its air war against Kharkiv since the beginning of 2024, the publishing industry has been repeatedly hit. In a single March attack, Russian missiles destroyed another of Kharkiv’s largest print facilities and a publishing house, killing five. Mykhailo Khrypak, who serves as commercial director at one of Ukraine’s biggest printing plants, says Russia is systematically attempting to destroy the country’s book publishing industry, and warns that production capacity will be difficult to restore.

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With Kharkiv desperately short of air defenses and located dangerously close to advancing Russian troops, the city’s remaining publishers are taking steps to ensure the safety of staff. Oleksandr Popovych, director of the Unisoft printing plant, has established a bomb shelter for his more than three hundred employees. Despite the recent escalation in attacks, he says he currently has no plans to relocate, pointing to the extreme difficulty of moving bulky printing equipment and relocating his highly skilled staff along with their families.

Ukraine’s domestic publishing industry has flourished over the past decade following the onset of Russian military aggression against the country in 2014. With the Kremlin openly weaponizing the Russian language to justify the invasion of Ukraine, demand for Ukrainian-language literature has risen to unprecedented levels. A new generation of Ukrainian authors has emerged, becoming part of a broader cultural renaissance that has also had a profound impact on the country’s music, fashion, and art scenes.

This trend has not proved popular in Russia, to say the least. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has made no secret of the fact that he bitterly opposes the consolidation of an independent Ukrainian national identity, which he views as a direct threat to Russia’s own imperial identity.

Putin is notorious for insisting Ukrainians are in fact Russians (“one people”). He published an entire essay in July 2021 denying Ukraine’s right to an independent existence. On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Putin called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” More recently, he declared that “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of the world.” According to Putin, occupied regions of Ukraine are “historically Russian lands.”

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Many believe Russia’s recent attacks on the Ukrainian book publishing industry are part of a coordinated Kremlin campaign to erase Ukrainian national identity that qualifies as genocide. Responding to the latest bombing, Yale historian Timothy Snyder said the targeted missile strikes were “an example of a larger genocidal policy.”

The evidence of Russia’s intention to extinguish Ukrainian national identity is overwhelming. In virtually every area of Ukraine occupied by Russia since February 2022, strikingly similar reports have emerged of efforts to eradicate all traces of Ukrainian nationality. The Ukrainian language has been outlawed in schools and public spaces, with all symbols of Ukrainian statehood dismantled and removed.

Meanwhile, Russian occupation forces work with local collaborators to detain community leaders and anyone deemed pro-Ukrainian, including elected officials, journalists, civil society activists, military veterans, and cultural figures. Thousands of people detained in this manner are unaccounted for. Those who remain are pressured into accepting Russian citizenship and threatened with the loss of access to essential services such as healthcare.

Throughout occupied Ukraine, the Kremlin is going to great lengths to indoctrinate Ukrainian children and rob them of their Ukrainian heritage. Large numbers of Russian teachers have been brought to occupied regions to manage the indoctrination process in Ukrainian schools, while tens of thousands of Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia and sent to reeducation camps. This is a textbook act of genocide, according to the UN’s own 1948 Genocide Convention.

The actions of Putin’s army in Ukraine are very much in line with Russian imperial tradition. For centuries, generation after generation of Russian rulers sought to suppress Ukraine’s statehood aspirations and prevent the emergence of a separate Ukrainian nation. This insistence that Ukrainians be made to accept an imperial Russian identity was perhaps best expressed in a notorious mid-nineteenth century tsarist decree stating that the Ukrainian language “never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

Kharkiv’s Slovo Building is a particularly striking symbol of these efforts to eradicate Ukrainian culture. Designed and constructed in the 1920s to host prominent Ukrainian writers, it was home to many of the country’s leading authors and poets who were later killed by the Soviet authorities. Today, they are known as the “Executed Renaissance.”

The efforts of successive Russian tsars and Soviet commissars failed to extinguish the Ukrainian desire for a country and an identity of their own. Putin’s own war on Ukrainian national identity is now proving similarly counter-productive. From poetry to pop music, contemporary Ukrainian culture is experiencing a golden age amid the horror and trauma of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Indeed, as news of Russia’s recent air strikes spread, it was no surprise to see various fundraising initiatives quickly emerge in support of the country’s beleaguered publishing industry. Putin may be able to burn Ukrainian books and bomb Ukraine’s printing presses, but his imperial crusade to erase Ukrainian identity is destined to fail.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

President Zelenskyy’s term is over but he’s still a legitimate wartime leader

Elena Davlikanova — Thu, 23 May 2024 08:43:10 +0000

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s five-year term in office ended on May 20, but he will remain in his post until security conditions allow for elections to be held. Predictably, the Kremlin is already exploiting this technicality to question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy, but Russia’s claims ignore the many obvious obstacles to holding a credible democratic vote in wartime Ukraine.

In the years following the start of Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, the Ukrainian authorities were able to conduct multiple presidential and parliamentary elections that were consistently rated as free and fair by international democracy watchdogs. Following the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, this is no longer possible.

The key issue is security. In order for any election to take place in Ukraine, the authorities must be able to ensure the safety of millions of voters and thousands of election officials at polling stations and election commissions across the country. That is clearly out of the question at present, particularly in light of Russia’s record for repeatedly targeting civilians. This also rules out the presence of international election observers.

It is even more difficult to imagine how the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men and women currently serving in the armed forces could participate in a wartime ballot, both as voters and as candidates. Russia would certainly view any gatherings of voting soldiers as priority targets. “It would be unfair if those defending our land were denied the opportunity to vote,” commented President Zelenskyy in March.

Security concerns are also one of the key factors that make it impossible to stage anything resembling a normal election campaign. With election rallies and public meetings of any kind at high risk of being bombed by Russia, the campaign would largely have to take place online. This would fall well short of Ukraine’s established democratic standards, while also creating an inviting environment for Russian interference.

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It is hard to see how Ukraine could hope to overcome the huge administrative challenges created by the displacement of millions of Ukrainian citizens following the Russian invasion. There are currently believed to be approximately six million internally displaced people in Ukraine. Enabling them to vote would require a huge effort to update voter registers. This would likely raise all manner of additional questions regarding issues such as official and temporary addresses.

Meanwhile, at least five million Ukrainians are currently residing outside Ukraine as refugees, half of whom are eligible to vote. Existing voter registration procedures for Ukrainians living abroad are not designed to accommodate such large numbers, while Ukraine’s embassies and consulates would be unable to cope with so many voters. Without the participation of Ukrainian refugees, any wartime election would fail to meet basic democratic standards.

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Recent research indicates that Ukrainian society recognizes the impracticality of wartime elections and is broadly supportive of the government’s decision to postpone any national votes until the security situation improves. A February 2024 poll conducted by the Rating Sociological Group on behalf of the International Republican Institute found that 67 percent of Ukrainians opposed holding presidential elections amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

There is also a consensus among Ukraine’s rival political parties that elections should wait until after the war. In November 2023, all parliamentary factions endorsed a memorandum backing the postponement of presidential and parliamentary votes until the end of hostilities. Ukraine’s vibrant civil society agrees, with more than 100 organizations releasing a joint statement in September 2023 rejecting the idea of wartime elections.

While there is virtually no indication of any appetite for wartime elections inside Ukraine itself, Russia and its allies are expected to continue pushing the notion of Zelenskyy’s alleged illegitimacy in the coming months. Indeed, some of the most prominent Kremlin-friendly figures in Congress have already begun promoting this narrative as part of ongoing efforts to argue against further US support for Ukraine.

Ukraine is not the first country to delay elections due to wartime conditions, of course. For example, During World War II, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill repeatedly postponed the country’s scheduled general election, but nobody accused him of undermining the democratic legitimacy of the British parliament.

Ukrainians have impeccable democratic instincts, having staged two separate pro-democracy revolutions in the past twenty years. Indeed, the current war is in part a struggle to defend the country’s democratic identity against Putin’s authoritarian imperialism. At the same time, Ukrainians are sufficiently sensible to understand that the idea of holding elections amid the largest European invasion since World War II is absurd.

Dr. Elena Davlikanova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and an associate professor at Sumy State University in Ukraine.

Five questions (and expert answers) about the shooting of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico

Atlantic Council experts — Thu, 16 May 2024 11:02:48 +0000

On Wednesday, a gunman shot Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico five times during a public appearance, leaving Fico hospitalized in “very serious” but stable condition. The evidence so far shows that the shooting was politically motivated, according to Slovakia’s interior minister. The populist, Euroskeptic Fico is serving as prime minister for the third time, having returned to the post in October 2023, and Slovakia recently elected a like-minded president to serve alongside him. Below, our experts answered five burning questions about the broader implications of the shooting.

1. What’s most important to know about Fico?

Fico is sometimes compared to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as a nationalist authoritarian politician, but he is less doctrinaire and more willing in practice to cut deals and stop short of confrontations with his European Union (EU) and NATO allies. “His bark is worse than his bite,” as a senior Slovak politician of liberal views (and no fan of Fico) put it to me recently. His bark could be awful (e.g., rhetoric hostile to Ukraine) and many of his initiatives have been questionable. Yet, I have known Fico since 2002 and, while I was in government, worked with him on a number of sensitive issues. We sometimes made handshake deals. He always kept his word.

—Daniel Fried is the Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former US assistant secretary of state for Europe.

Fico is a skilled politician and controversial political figure. He is skilled because he had managed a political comeback from a seemingly impossible position. In 2018, he resigned as prime minister in a bid to rein in a political crisis sparked by the murder of an investigative journalist.

Since then, multiple members of his cabinet and other affiliates have been investigated for (or charged with) serious criminal offenses, including organized crime. Several were prosecuted for corruption.

He is skilled because he has managed to erase Slovaks’ memories of these events with pro-Russian rhetoric, which has appealed to many, with pleas for peace (at the expense of Ukraine’s territorial integrity) and various disinformation campaigns that Slovaks are quite prone to. These tactics have helped him garner new support in addition to his base of disillusioned rural voters.

Since taking the helm last October, his cabinet has been working relentlessly to concentrate power and take control of public media and the judiciary, often in fast-track legislative proceedings.

—Soňa Muzikárová is a political economist focused on Central and Eastern Europe and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

2. What’s most important to know about the political context in which this assassination attempt took place?

Slovak politics is polarized and heated, as is the case in a number of European countries and the United States. Slovakia’s liberal opposition has long regarded Fico as authoritarian and tolerant of corruption; he lost power in 2018 after the suspicious murder of a Slovak journalist. While both outgoing Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová and incoming President Peter Pellegrini have condemned the shooting and called for calm, the attempted assassination could inflame Slovak politics.

—Daniel Fried

Slovakia’s politics and society are unprecedentedly polarized, which to some extent is the result of a pervasively uncivil political culture, amplified by social media, as well as citizens’ digital and civic illiteracy. What happened is a testament to the worrisome state of Slovakia’s democracy.

—Soňa Muzikárová

3. Who is in charge if Fico is incapacitated, and what should we watch out for from the Slovak government?

Whoever serves as acting prime minister, the person to watch is Defense Minister Robert Kaliňák, a long-time ally of Fico and a former interior minister. As defense minister, he implemented Fico’s decision to terminate Slovak military donations to Ukraine but did not stand in the way of Slovak military sales or deliveries to Ukraine. Capable and comfortable with the United States (an avid biker, he used to lead motorcycle trips through the American West with Slovak fire and police chiefs), Kaliňák could emerge as a leader in future Slovak governments should Fico’s Smer-SD Party remain in power.

—Daniel Fried

4. Based on what we know so far, what consequences could the shooting have for Slovakia’s politics?

Several members of Fico’s cabinet, including Deputy Prime Minister Tomáš Taraba and the minister of culture, Martina Šimkovičová, were quick to allege that the attack is a result of “the hate politics” spurred “by the opposition.”

Deputy Speaker of the National Council of the Slovak Republic Andrej Danko, in the initial hours after the attack, stated that the governing coalition would take a tougher stance on journalists, although he was not clear on how the media had—directly or indirectly—contributed to the attack.

These are signs that the attack might be weaponized by Fico’s cabinet against the opposition, painting liberals as the villain. The cabinet is likely to use this tragedy to further its political agenda by, for example, curbing media freedom. I expect the incident to help Fico and his affiliates capture more electoral support in the future.

—Soňa Muzikárová

5. Is there any disinformation or misinformation spreading following the shooting?

Even before news of the assassination attempt had broken in the West, Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of Russian state-controlled propaganda outlet RT, had already taken to Telegram to declare that Fico had been targeted for his pro-Russian sympathies. Within hours, tens of thousands of social media users were blaming the violence on some combination of EU and Ukrainian operatives. By early evening Slovak time, the Slovak Police issued a statement on their official Facebook page urging that both media institutions and the general public refrain from using comment systems, in order to stem the tide of dangerous speculation and hate speech.

The disinformation will get worse before it gets better. There has not been an act of violence in Europe of this sort in more than twenty years, and early reporting has linked the alleged assassin to both pro-EU and hardline Russian interests. In less than a month, citizens of twenty-seven EU member states will cast their votes to decide the future of Europe. Whatever the EU elections may have been about before, this is now part of the debate.

—Emerson T. Brooking is a resident senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council and coauthor of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media.

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Georgia’s government uses Kremlin playbook to consolidate grip on power

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland — Wed, 15 May 2024 23:13:15 +0000

Georgia is currently at the crossroads as the government pushes through contentious Kremlin-style legislation that opponents say will stifle civil society and prevent the country’s further European integration. At stake is the future trajectory of this small but strategically significant nation that plays an important role in the broader geopolitics of the post-Soviet space.

On May 14, the ruling Georgian Dream party passed the controversial “foreign agents” bill, which will oblige organizations that receive more than 20 percent of funding from abroad to register with the government or face fines. Despite claims to the contrary, this law resembles Russia’s own foreign agents legislation far more than the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

EU officials responded to the news from Tbilisi by suggesting adoption of the legislation could hamper Georgia’s bid to join the European Union. “The EU stands with the Georgian people and their choice in favor of democracy and of Georgia’s European future,” commented the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell. US officials have also voiced concern over the issue.

Georgian Dream officials appear unmoved by these appeals. Indeed, critics say the passage of the foreign agents law is part of intentional efforts to derail the country’s Western integration and bring Georgia back into the Kremlin orbit. They claim the legislation is intended to suppress civil society in the lead-up to parliamentary elections in October, and note that Georgian authorities are now adopting tactics that closely mirror Russia’s own efforts to stamp out domestic dissent and silence opponents.

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As unprecedented numbers have taken to the streets of Tbilisi to protest the country’s turn toward Moscow, the Georgian authorities have sought to crush protests with heavy-handed policing, including beatings, tear gas, and water cannons. Journalists and elected officials have been among those on the receiving end of violence.

In a further echo of tactics widely employed in Putin’s Russia, individual members of Georgia’s political opposition and activists have been assaulted in apparently targeted attacks that have taken place far from the protests. Others have been subjected to threatening phone calls and additional forms of harassment.

Meanwhile, the Georgian authorities are accused of copying the longstanding Russian practice of stage-managing pro-government rallies designed to distract attention from protests and create the illusion of popular support. One rally in late April featured thousands of public sector workers who had apparently been bussed into the Georgian capital from around the country and instructed to attend.

The rhetoric coming from Georgian Dream officials in recent weeks has increasingly resembled the anti-Western narratives and conspiracy theories favored by the Putin regime. In thinly veiled attacks on Georgia’s Western partners, Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, the unofficial leader of Georgian Dream, has decried civil society organizations as “pseudo-elites” controlled by patrons abroad, and has accused them of attempting to instigate revolution in Georgia. These allegations are virtually indistinguishable from Vladimir Putin’s complaints regarding so-called “color revolutions.”

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Officially, the Georgian authorities deny they are seeking to turn the country away from the path of European integration and reject claims of a pro-Kremlin agenda. Indeed, Ivanishvili continues to insist Georgia is currently closer than ever to joining the EU. The ruling party’s careful rhetoric around Georgia’s European choice is understandable given that 81% of Georgians support EU membership. However, the fact that Georgian Dream moved forward with the foreign agents law despite condemnation from the EU and large-scale public protests has severely undermined the credibility of the government’s claims.

Georgian Dream officials say the foreign agents law is intended to ensure transparency and prevent undue foreign influence in the country, but critics remain unconvinced. They argue that the legislation will be used as a tool to suppress civil society, and point to the chilling role similar legislation has played in Russia. If it comes into force, many fear the law will strengthen the ruling party’s grip on power ahead of Georgia’s coming elections and set the stage for a more authoritarian form of government.

If Georgian Dream is able to secure a convincing result in the October ballot, Ivanishvili has already outlined plans for a strict “political and legal condemnation” of his party’s domestic opponents. In light of the mounting violence against opposition figures and pro-democracy protesters in Tbilisi in recent days, such statements must be taken seriously.

Hundreds of thousands of Georgians have joined protests this spring in an emphatic display of support for the country’s European future, but the struggle looks likely to continue throughout the coming months. The Georgian government has already demonstrated its readiness to employ Kremlin tactics. The question now is how far they are willing to go.

Lucy Minicozzi-Wheeland is a master’s student in Regional Studies: Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia at Harvard and a Research Assistant at the Harvard Kennedy School.

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The Georgian government’s bid to adopt legislation reminiscent of Putin’s Russia is all the more remarkable as polls show that around eighty percent of Georgians favor integration with NATO and the EU. This has provoked a major public backlash within Georgia and has led to harsh criticism from the country’s Western partners. In a recent statement, the US State Department warned that the contentious legislation along with accompanying anti-Western rhetoric from Georgian Dream representatives placed the country on a “precarious trajectory” that could “jeopardize Georgia’s path to Euro-Atlantic integration.”

None of these appears to have deterred the Georgian authorities. As the crisis escalated in late April, the founder and unofficial leader of the Georgian Dream party, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, doubled down on his party’s increasingly conspiratorial, anti-Western posturing in a rare public address that was reminiscent of Kremlin propaganda. Ivanishvili’s speech was widely viewed as a major milestone in his party’s attempts to turn Georgia away from the West and toward Russia.

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With Georgian society at a geopolitical crossroads and engulfed in increasing violence amid a draconian crackdown on mass protests, many observers are drawing parallels with Ukraine’s 2013-14 Euromaidan Revolution. Some are even asking whether the country is now experiencing its own “Yanukovych moment,” a reference to the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian president who fled to Russia following months of unrest.

The two situations certainly appear to have much in common. On both occasions, the country’s pro-Western political forces and civil society protested against an increasingly authoritarian and Kremlin-friendly government in order to defend their basic democratic rights. On both occasions, the brutality of the regime’s response fueled a surge in public support for the protests.

Georgia’s broader political trajectory may also provide some insights into Russia’s plans if its invasion of Ukraine proves successful. The Georgian Dream party first came to power in 2012 at a time when the wounds of Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia were still raw. Over the past 12 years, the party has been able to gradually consolidate its grip on power, becoming steadily bolder in its promotion of pro-Kremlin and anti-Western positions. This has been achieved despite the overwhelmingly pro-Western mood in the country.

This kind of scenario appears to be what Russia had in mind for Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow’s initial plan was to decapitate the government in Kyiv and install a puppet regime that would end Ukraine’s Western integration and anchor the country firmly in the Kremlin orbit, despite strong Ukrainian public support for a European future.

While Russia’s initial blitzkrieg failed, the war continues and Moscow has clearly not abandoned its efforts to subjugate Ukraine. Indeed, recent reports of a foiled Russian plot to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior Ukrainian officials suggest the Kremlin still hopes to install a friendlier regime in Kyiv. As they look to address the realities of fierce public opposition to Russia throughout Ukrainian society, Russian policymakers will surely draw on their experience in Georgia over the past decade or so.

The current protests in Georgia are taking place as the country prepares for parliamentary elections in October. The fate of the Foreign Agents Law is expected to significantly impact the course of the coming vote, with Georgian Dream officials accused of planning to use the legislation to silence opponents. The outcome of the October election will tell us much about Georgia’s likely future geopolitical direction. It will also serve as a verdict of sorts on Moscow’s efforts to regain influence in the country despite the painful legacy of the 2008 invasion and the ongoing occupation of Georgian land. This will have huge implications for the wider southern Caucasus region, and may also help shape Russia’s approach to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Nicholas Chkhaidze is a Research Fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center.

In addition to exposing the Kremlin’s dwindling supply of tanks, this year’s strikingly modest Victory Day festivities have also drawn attention to other negative consequences of Russia’s ongoing Ukraine invasion. During the buildup to the holiday, a number of major Russian cities including Pskov, Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod announced they would not be staging traditional Victory Day parades this year. These cancellations were justified on security grounds, highlighting the growing threat posed by Ukraine to targets inside Russia.

Since the start of 2024, Ukraine has brought the war home to Russia with a highly successful long-range drone campaign against the country’s oil and gas industry, including air strikes against refineries located more than one thousand kilometers from the Ukrainian border. While Kyiv has largely refrained from attacks on civilian targets, Ukraine’s proven ability to strike deep inside Russia is a major blow to the Kremlin, which has vowed to shield the Russian public from the war and prevent any disruption to everyday life.

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The downgrading of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations is a personal blow for Putin, who has sought to place the holiday at the heart of efforts to revive Russian nationalism following the loss of status and perceived humiliations of the early post-Soviet period. This approach marked a departure from the Soviet years, when Victory Day was overshadowed by a number of more ideologically driven holidays such as May Day and the annual anniversary of the October Revolution. Indeed, during the 46-year period between the end of World War II and the fall of the USSR, the Soviet authorities held just three Victory Day military parades in Moscow.

It was Putin who masterminded the rise of Victory Day to its current position as Russia’s most important public holiday. Since the early 2000s, he has transformed Victory Day into the propaganda centerpiece of a pseudo-religious cult, complete with its own sacred symbols, feast days, saints, and dogmas. Anyone who dares question the Kremlin’s heavily distorted and highly sanitized version of the Soviet role in World War II is treated with the kind of ruthless severity once reserved for medieval heretics. Meanwhile, in a further nod to the continued potency of the World War II narrative in Putin’s Russia, opponents of the Kremlin are routinely branded as “fascists” and “Nazis.”

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The mythology surrounding Putin’s Victory Day cult is not just a matter of repairing battered Russian national pride. It has also helped strengthen perceptions of the Russian army as unbeatable. Both inside Russia and among international audiences, the pomp and propaganda surrounding the holiday have encouraged people to view the Russian army as simply too big and powerful to be defeated. This is complete nonsense. The past few centuries of Russian history are littered with resounding military defeats including the Crimean War, the Russo-Japanese War, and the failed Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Russia even managed to lose World War I, despite starting the war on the winning side.

The historically unjustified but widespread belief that Russian victory is somehow inevitable has helped shape the West’s weak response to the invasion of Ukraine. When the war began, most Western observers were convinced Ukraine would fall in a matter of days. Even after the Ukrainian military shocked the world by winning battle after battle and liberating half the land occupied by Russia, many have clung to the assumption that eventual Russian victory remains assured. This defeatist thinking has been an important factor hampering efforts to arm Ukraine adequately. It may yet become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

The sight of a lone tank on Red Square this week is a timely reminder that behind the facade of overwhelming strength, Putin’s Russia is far from invincible. For years, the Kremlin has sought to intimidate the outside world with carefully choreographed displays of military muscle-flexing. However, the invasion of Ukraine has revealed a very different reality. Since February 2022, Putin’s once vaunted army has seen its reputation plummet and has suffered a series of stinging battlefield defeats while failing to achieve a decisive breakthrough against its much smaller neighbor. The Russian military remains a formidable force and should not be underestimated, but the events of the past two years have demonstrated that it is also very much beatable. If Ukraine is finally given the necessary tools by the country’s partners, it will finish the job.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Bombs and disinformation: Russia’s campaign to depopulate Kharkiv

Maria Avdeeva — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:59:56 +0000

Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, is currently the Kremlin’s number one target. Since the start of 2024, Kharkiv has been the primary focus of a Russian bombing campaign that has sought to capitalize of Ukraine’s dwindling supplies of air defense ammunition in order to terrorize the civilian population and destroy vital infrastructure.

The Kremlin’s goal is to make Kharkiv “unlivable” and force a large percentage of its approximately 1.3 million residents to flee. Moscow hopes this will demoralize Ukraine and pave the way for the city’s capture by Russian forces during a widely anticipated summer offensive in the coming months.

Putin is not relying on missiles and drones alone to do the job of depopulating Kharkiv. In recent months, Russia has also unleashed an elaborate information offensive that aims to fuel panic and uncertainty among the city’s embattled population via a combination of aggressive propaganda and destabilizing disinformation.

Kharkiv has been on the front lines of the war ever since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Situated approximately half an hour by car from the Russian border, the city was one of the initial targets of the invading Russian army and witnessed heavy fighting in spring 2022. Following Ukraine’s successful September 2022 counteroffensive, which liberated most of Kharkiv Oblast and pushed Russian troops further away from the city itself, the Kharkiv population rose from a wartime low of around 300,000 to well over a million.

With delays in US military aid creating growing gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses, Russia has intensified the bombardment of Kharkiv since early 2024. A series of strikes in March destroyed the city’s main power plants, creating an energy crisis that has led to widespread blackouts. In mid April, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov warned that the city was now at risk of becoming a “second Aleppo,” a grim reference to the Syrian city partially destroyed almost a decade ago following heavy bombing by Russian and Syrian government forces.

The extensive use of highly destructive glide bombs has further exacerbated the situation and added to the psychological strain on the Kharkiv population, with many attacks on residential districts taking place in broad daylight. One of the most recent blows was the destruction of Kharkiv’s iconic television tower, a city landmark and also an important element of local communications infrastructure.

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Russia’s escalating bombing campaign has been accompanied by a major information offensive. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is one of numerous senior Kremlin officials to encourage a mood of mounting insecurity among Kharkiv residents by publicly speaking of a coming campaign to seize the city. In April, Lavrov noted Kharkiv’s “important role” in Vladimir Putin’s plans to create a demilitarized “sanitary zone” inside Ukraine.

This message has been reinforced throughout Russia’s tightly-controlled mainstream media space. During a revealing recent lecture to Russian students, prominent Kremlin propagandist Olga Skabeyeva argued that patriotic journalists should portray the bombing of Kharkiv region not as evidence of Russian aggression, but as part of efforts to establish a “sanitary zone” along the Ukrainian border with Russia.

Statements from Russian establishment figures on the need to destroy and depopulate Kharkiv have been accompanied by a steady stream of similar chatter on social media. Since January 2024, there have been growing signs of a coordinated campaign to flood the online information space with intimidating and alarmist posts pushing the idea that Kharkiv will soon become an uninhabitable grey zone.

The role of social media in Russia’s information offensive against Kharkiv cannot be overstated. Platforms like Telegram, TikTok, and X (formerly known as Twitter) have become battlegrounds for competing narratives and serve as platforms for carefully choreographed Russian propaganda. Groups of pro-Kremlin accounts frequently engage in the intensive promotion of key propaganda messages. These include the alleged hopelessness of Ukraine’s military position, the inability of the Ukrainian state to protect its citizens, and the likelihood of Kharkiv suffering the same fate as Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city with a prewar population of around half a million that was largely destroyed by the invading Russian army during the first months of the war.

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Russia’s information offensive features a strong disinformation component. This includes the distribution of fake statements supposedly released by the Ukrainian authorities. On one occasion, Kremlin accounts spread disinformation that the Ukrainian government was calling on residents to leave Kharkiv urgently in order to avoid imminent Russian encirclement. In a separate incident, Russian sources pushed fake Ukrainian government reports stating that Kharkiv was on the brink of a humanitarian collapse.

These elaborate fakes are typically presented in a convincing manner and closely resemble official Ukrainian government communications. They have even been accompanied by detailed information about “safe evacuation routes.” Inevitably, many Kharkiv residents are fooled by this disinformation and become unwitting accomplices in the dissemination of weaponized Russian fakes.

Russian accounts have also taken genuine news reports and distorted them in ways designed to mislead the public and maximize panic. For example, a series of planned evacuations from specific front line settlements was repackaged by Kremlin trolls as a complete evacuation of entire Kharkiv region districts.

In addition to fake government announcements and deliberate distortions, Kremlin-linked social media accounts are also actively spreading misleading video footage. One widely shared recent video purported to show long lines of cars evacuating Kharkiv while proclaiming that an “exodus” of the “ruined” city was underway. However, this video was later debunked as archive footage shot during the early days of the invasion in spring 2022.

Russia’s disinformation campaign seeks to sow fear and confusion among the Kharkiv population, says local resident Nataliya Zubar, who heads the Maidan Monitoring Information Service. “Disinformation clouds people’s judgment, leading to emotional reactions and stress,” she notes. “This fuels instability and places additional strains on the limited resources that are needed for the city’s defense and to address the growing humanitarian crisis Russia is creating.”

Kharkiv officials and civil society organizations are well aware of Russia’s ongoing information offensive. Work is currently underway to debunk false information and reduce the city’s vulnerability to information attack. These efforts include methodically exposing false claims, while also informing city residents of Russian information warfare tactics and educating them on ways to detect and counter disinformation. The stresses and strains of the emotionally charged wartime environment in today’s Kharkiv make this is a particularly complex task.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian authorities are developing a draft law to target the spread of deliberate disinformation via social media. This initiative mirrors similar undertakings in a number of other countries, but skeptics question whether legislative measures will prove effective against sophisticated state-backed information operations conducted across multiple media platforms.

Russia failed to take Kharkiv in the early weeks of the invasion more than two years ago. As the city braces for the possibility of a new Russian offensive in the coming summer months, local residents are equally determined to defy the Kremlin once again. In order to do so, they must withstand unprecedented aerial bombardment, while also guarding against the demoralizing impact of relentless Russian disinformation.

Maria Avdeeva is a Kharkiv-based Ukrainian security analyst and strategic communication expert.

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On the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion, fear of escalation was already deterring Western leaders from delivering weapons to Ukraine. Once the attack had begun, it took precious months for the Biden administration to send artillery and HIMARS missile systems. Almost an entire year had passed before Western partners finally agreed on plans to deliver a relatively small number of modern tanks.

This pattern of delays and half-measures shows no signs of changing. With the Russian invasion now well into its third year, Ukraine is still waiting to receive the first batch of F16 fighter jets. Meanwhile, officials in Kyiv are desperately calling on partners to provide them with long-range missiles and air defense systems.

The West’s preoccupation with avoiding escalation at all costs goes against basic military doctrine and has been instrumental in preventing greater Ukrainian battlefield success. When Putin’s invasion force was at its weakest in 2022, Ukraine was denied the support it needed to break through Russia’s vulnerable defensive lines in the south. By the time Kyiv’s partners had agreed to create the necessary offensive force, it was too late; Moscow had mobilized an additional 300,000 troops and fortified the front lines of the war.

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Throughout the invasion, Russia has consistently fed Western fears of escalation through a mixture of bellicose statements, back channel signalling, and clever influence operations. The Kremlin’s most effective intimidation tactic has been nuclear blackmail. In late 2022, for example, US intercepts began picking up vague but alarming “chatter” about Russian preparations for the use of nuclear weapons.

Many believe this was a deliberate ploy to boost the credibility of Putin’s public nuclear saber-rattling. It appears to have worked. The intel led to heated debate in the White House and nuclear wargaming in the Pentagon, with Biden administration officials engaging in renewed diplomatic outreach to Moscow. Crucially, concerns over a possible Russian nuclear response dampened Western enthusiasm to press home Ukraine’s advantage at a time when Putin’s army was retreating in disarray.

In addition to blunting Ukraine’s offensive capabilities, the West’s desire to avoid escalation is undermining Kyiv’s ability to defend itself. For the past two years, Ukraine has been blocked from using Western weapons against targets inside Russia. In recent weeks, US officials have even objected to Ukraine using its own weapons to attack Russian refineries.

These artificial restrictions have created an unprecedented situation that aggravates the existing imbalance of forces between Russia and Ukraine. While Russia is able to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure at will, Ukrainian commanders are severely limited in their ability to target the air bases, production facilities, and logistical hubs inside Russia that are being used to attack Ukraine.

The West’s emphasis on escalation management has prolonged the war in Ukraine, allowing Russia to overcome initial setbacks and regain the initiative. It has prevented the Ukrainian military from building on the momentum of late 2022, and has turned a dynamic war of movement into an attritional fight that heavily favors Russia. By allowing themselves to be intimidated by the threat of Russian escalation, Western leaders have granted Putin an effective veto over various categories of military aid for Ukraine. This lack of Western resolve has inevitably emboldened the Russian dictator.

Policymakers in Europe and the US must now decide whether they wish to continue with this losing strategy or finally commit to a Ukrainian victory. It is still not too late to adopt a more sensible military strategy, but the clock is ticking. Unless Ukraine is given the tools to defeat Russia on the battlefield, Putin will secure an historic victory that will transform the international security climate. If that happens, today’s emphasis on avoiding escalation will come to be seen as the biggest geopolitical blunder since the appeasement policies of the 1930s.

#BalkansDebrief – Why is France refocused on security in the Balkans? | A debrief with Alexandre Vulic

sjones — Mon, 15 Apr 2024 17:46:31 +0000

IN THIS EPISODE

The Western Balkans remain a security concern, particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina. Recently, France has deployed a battalion as part of the Strategic Reserve Force to assist the EUFOR mission and exercise a level of deterrence in Bosnia and Kosovo, two countries with security issues, where France wants to see progress.

Ilva Tare, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Europe Center, discusses regional security issues with Alexandre Vulic, Deputy Director General for Strategic Affairs, International Security, and Arms Control at the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.

Why does France consider the situation in Bosnia as stable yet fragile? What are the main concerns that threaten security in the region? How do cybersecurity, disinformation, and false narratives affect the Western Balkans? And how can France counter Russia’s influence, which is exercised via proxies and nationalist forces?

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Russian Orthodox Church declares “Holy War” against Ukraine and West

Brian Mefford — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 13:10:18 +0000

The Russian Orthodox Church has approved a remarkable new document that spells out the Kremlin’s intention to destroy Ukraine while also making the ideological argument for a broader confrontation with the Western world. The decree was issued during a March 27-28 congress of the World Russian People’s Council, which is headed by Russian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill. It calls the invasion of Ukraine a “Holy War” with the explicit aim of extinguishing Ukrainian independence and imposing direct Russian rule.

Churches often issue decrees stating official positions on key issues, but rarely do these proclamations involve calls to violence or territorial ambitions. Russia is mentioned 53 times in the 3000-word document, underlining the very clear focus on the Russian state’s earthly interests. “From the spiritual and moral point of view, the Special Military Operation is a Holy War, in which Russia and its people are defending the single spiritual space of Holy Russia,” the document states, using the Kremlin’s preferred euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The decree goes on to stress Ukraine’s status as part of the wider “Russian World,” while underlining the need to extinguish Ukrainian statehood once and for all. Following the conclusion of the current war, it states, “the entire territory of modern Ukraine should enter Russia’s exclusive zone of influence. The possibility of a political regime hostile to Russia and its people existing on this territory must be completely excluded.”

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The sentiments expressed in this recently approved document expand on previous statements made by Patriarch Kirill since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion more than two years ago. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has frequently asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are “one nation,” and is widely viewed as a key ideological supporter of the war. Kirill’s comments have led to widespread criticism, including a warning from Pope Francis to avoid becoming “Putin’s altar boy.”

The new decree positions Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as part of a larger spiritual struggle against the West, which it accuses of having “fallen into Satanism.” This is strikingly similar to the ideological arguments favored by Islamist radicals, who have long sought to portray the United States and other Western nations as “Satanic” as part of efforts to justify their extremist agenda. In addition to the Russian Orthodox Church, numerous senior Kremlin officials have sought to frame the war in Ukraine as an existential fight with Western “Satanism.” In a further chilling echo of the Islamist doctrine, Patriarch Kirill has also claimed Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine would have their sins “washed away.”

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The Russian Orthodox Church’s endorsement of language more typically associated with religious extremism should come as no surprise. After all, the entire Russian invasion of Ukraine has been framed as a crusade from the very beginning. Following the 2014 seizure of Crimea, Putin compared the occupied Ukrainian peninsula to Temple Mount and spoke of its spiritual importance to the Russian nation. He routinely insists Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has labeled Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

The recent confirmation of a holy war against Ukraine and the West comes at a pivotal point in Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since February 2022, Putin’s invading army has been unable to overcome Ukrainian resistance or break the country’s will to defend itself. With little current prospect of a decisive military breakthrough, the Kremlin is now turning increasingly to terror tactics, including a sharp escalation in the bombing of Ukrainian cities and the methodical destruction of Ukraine’s civilian power grid.

By defining the invasion in explicitly spiritual terms, the Russian Orthodox Church hopes to whitewash the war crimes being committed in Ukraine and encourage more ordinary Russians to volunteer. Moscow’s recent declaration of a holy war also sends an unmistakable message to anyone in the West who still believes in the possibility of striking some kind of compromise with the Kremlin. While Putin initially sought to justify the invasion as a pragmatic response to the growth of NATO, it is now apparent that he views the war as a sacred mission and will not stop until Ukraine has been wiped off the map of Europe.

Brian Mefford is the Director of Wooden Horse Strategies, LLC, a governmental-relations and strategic communications firm based in Kyiv, Ukraine. He is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

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The oligarch at the center of the scandal, Viktor Medvedchuk, has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is godfather to Medvedchuk’s daughter. Throughout the three decades following Ukrainian independence in 1991, Medvedchuk was a prominent figure in the country’s political life and a vocal advocate of Russian interests.

Medvedchuk’s personal relationship with Putin helped earn him a reputation as the Kremlin’s unofficial representative in Ukraine. This led US intelligence agencies to identify Medvedchuk as one of Moscow’s top choices to head a puppet Ukrainian administration in the event of a successful invasion.

When Russian troops crossed the border in February 2022, Medvedchuk initially went into hiding. However, he was detained by the Ukrainian authorities two months later, and was eventually traded for a large number of Ukrainian POWs in one of the most controversial prisoner exchanges of the war.

Regardless of his exile and loss of Ukrainian citizenship, Medvedchuk remains an important ally to Putin. His leadership of the Voice of Europe influence operation indicates Europe’s continued vulnerability to the Kremlin’s weaponized corruption. Whereas Ukraine, the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand all imposed sanctions on Medvedchuk and his associates some time ago, the European Union did not do so. As a result, Medvedchuk was still able to do business in Europe.

As a result of this apparent oversight, several of Medvedchuk’s EU-based assets are thought to have remained untouched until his involvement with Voice of Europe was uncovered. This gave him a degree of maneuverability with his EU-based financial assets that appears to have facilitated his allegedly illicit activities.

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In the wake of the recent revelations, the Czech authorities have imposed sanctions on Medvedchuk and other Kremlin-linked associates. Meanwhile, Belgian law enforcement agencies have opened probes into alleged bribes paid to serving MEPs from France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, and Hungary, with the Polish authorities also launching an investigation.

While these measures are welcome, it is not clear why EU authorities did not act earlier to counter the Kremlin’s weaponized corruption. Many now fear the current scandal is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Russian efforts to infiltrate democratic institutions and the media throughout the Western world. Looming elections on both sides of the Atlantic have added a sense of urgency to this debate.

In theory, the European Commission’s “freeze and seize” task force is meant to coordinate with the rest of the Russian Elites, Proxies, and Oligarchs (REPO) task force, which features the relevant national sanctions authorities from G7 member states and Australia. The fact that the EU’s sanctions listings still do not fully align with that of its REPO allies, especially on somebody as prominent as Medvedchuk, raises serious concerns over the effectiveness of this coordination.

The European Union should be setting an example when it comes to combating corruption. When recommending that the European Council open official EU accession negotiations with Ukraine in late November 2023, Commission Vice President Věra Jourová cautioned that Ukraine still had a long way to go in developing anti-corruption regulations, even as she praised the significant progress made by the Ukrainian authorities so far. Inevitably, questions are now being asked about the credibility of the EU’s own anti-corruption policies.

Recent claims of a major Russian influence operation operating in the heart of the EU should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers throughout the West. With the Kremlin clearly preparing for a long-term geopolitical confrontation, the need for vigilance will only grow. In response to this threat, transatlantic institutions should prioritize bolstering their ability to resist Russia’s weaponized corruption, while making sure the Kremlin’s agents are subject to the maximum available restrictions.

Francis Shin is a Research Assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center.

Today’s biggest news is a blank space

Frederick Kempe — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 17:21:17 +0000

You can recognize evil through its victims.

Among them, you’ll find the courageous, the indomitable, and the committed.

Count Alexei Navalny, the lawyer and opposition leader who died in prison a little more than a month ago at age forty-seven, in the first category. The Ukrainian people, now into their third year of a criminal full-scale war, represent indomitable resistance to murderous, territorial expansion.

Never forget, however, the armies of the committed, individuals whose lives and work run up against autocratic whim, individuals who collectively form the civil society that fuels democracy and threatens despots.

The Wall Street Journal honored one such individual, thirty-two-year-old Evan Gershkovich, in dramatic fashion today. It is the first anniversary of Russia’s imprisonment of Gershkovich, an accredited reporter who stands falsely accused of espionage. His value to Russian President Vladimir Putin is as a hostage for eventual trade—and as a deterrent to Western media, many of which have pulled their reporters from Russia or severely limited their work.

The five-column, page-one, all-caps headline read “ONE YEAR STOLEN: HIS STORY SHOULD BE HERE.” Beneath it, down most of the page and across five full columns, is only white space, a monument to the buoyant spirit of Gershkovich and, of course, so many others. As another story that anchored the bottom of the page reports, “Authoritarians Threaten Journalists Around Globe.”

“His Story Should Be Here”

Today’s front page of The Wall Street Journal.

One year stolen. We will not rest until Evan Gershkovich is free.#IStandWithEvan pic.twitter.com/SVsezqwzS7
— WSJ Communications (@WSJPR) March 29, 2024

Today’s edition makes for an inspiration and a collector’s item for all those who love freedom. Perhaps more important, don’t miss the investigative page-one story from yesterday’s edition. It reported on Oval Office talks between US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz aimed at freeing Evan as part of a prisoner swap that would have included Navalny in exchange for Vadim Krasikov, a Russian hit man serving a life sentence in Germany.

One week after that meeting, word of which reached the Kremlin through an intermediary, Navalny died of what only the most cynical would call natural causes.

“It happens,” Putin remarked to reporters the night after Russia’s presidential election. “There is nothing you can do about it. It’s life.”

I spent a quarter of a century working for the Wall Street Journal, much of it reporting from the front lines of freedom, including Moscow, Warsaw, Berlin, Beijing, Kabul, Beirut, Baghdad, and Panama City. Everything I learned tells me this: Forgetting Evan would be as short-sighted as abandoning Ukraine.

The forces of good won the Cold War because of a consistent US and allied effort. That’s precisely what’s lacking now, in the face of a gathering threat. The United States and its partners have the tools to build upon the Cold War’s victory, but it’s not yet clear they have the will.

One can only hope the Wall Street Journal can fill that white space soon with more uplifting stories about the courageous, the indomitable, and the committed. The future depends on it.

Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on Twitter: @FredKempe.

This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points Today newsletter, a column of quick-hit insights on a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.

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Putin has repeatedly used terror attacks to tighten his grip on Russia

Olivia Yanchik — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 21:33:38 +0000

The March 22 terror attack on a Moscow concert hall was the deadliest in Russia for almost two decades. While the official investigation into the attack is still underway, it is already becoming increasingly clear that the Kremlin intends to ignore overwhelming evidence of Islamic State responsibility in order to accuse the Ukrainian authorities and their Western partners of orchestrating the killings.

This opportunistic attempt to blame Ukraine is fueling widespread speculation that the attack will lead to an escalation in Russia’s ongoing invasion. Based on past experience throughout Vladimir Putin’s 24-year reign, many also anticipate that the Russian dictator will use the atrocity to launch a further domestic crackdown.

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Putin first emerged on Russia’s political stage against a backdrop of terrorist attacks. When he was appointed Prime Minister in August 1999, Putin was largely unknown to the wider Russian public. Weeks later, the country was rocked by a series of apartment bombings in Moscow and southern Russia.

Putin’s hard-line response to these attacks saw him rise to national prominence. This paved the way for his presidential election win in early 2000, while also serving as justification for the Second Chechen War. Putin’s use of macho street slang was welcomed by many, including his famous pledge to flush terrorists “down the toilet.”

In October 2002, armed militants seized a theater in the center of Moscow and held almost one thousand audience members hostage. The ensuing standoff ended in tragedy when a botched intervention by Russian security forces led to the deaths of more than 100 hostages. This incident was to become another key turning point in the Putin era.

In the wake of the theater siege, Putin passed a series of anti-terrorism laws restricting civil liberties. He also significantly strengthened Kremlin control over the Russian media, making it far more difficult for journalists to report critically on the authorities. Crucially, Putin sought to frame the theater attack as an act of “international terrorism.” This played an important role in transforming international perceptions of Russia’s fight against Chechen separatism by equating it with the US-led “War on Terror.”

The largest terrorist attack of the Putin era came in September 2004, when militants stormed a school in Beslan during traditional ceremonies to mark the first day of the new academic year. This high-profile crisis ended in carnage and the deaths of more than 300 hostages. The Beslan massacre transformed the political landscape in Russia. In the wake of the tragedy, Putin moved to end the direct election of regional governors and return to a system of appointment by the Kremlin. This reversed what was widely regarded as one of the main democratic achievements of the Yeltsin era.

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Throughout the 2010s, Russia experienced sporadic suicide bombings across the country. In 2017, an attack on the St. Petersburg metro system led to new restrictions imposed on the popular Telegram messaging app, after an investigation concluded that the platform had been used by terrorists to coordinate their activities.

With today’s Russia already an increasingly authoritarian state, it is not clear what measures remain available to the Kremlin in response to the recent Moscow attack. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the last vestiges of an independent press and civil society have been largely extinguished, while draconian legislation has criminalized any criticism of the war.

Some fear that the Moscow attack may spark a backlash against Russia’s large community of labor migrants, many of whom are Muslims from Central Asia. Meanwhile, some officials are already calling for the reintroduction of the death penalty. Given the scale of the attack and the rhetoric currently coming out of the Kremlin, most expect the response to be severe.

The March 22 attack in Moscow has seriously damaged Putin’s carefully crafted public image as a strongman ruler who offers his subjects security in exchange for restrictions on their personal freedoms. In order to reestablish his credentials, Putin is likely to target his enemies in Ukraine and the West. In line with past practice, he will also look to tighten his grip inside Russia itself.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Putin adds Islamist terror to the list of absurd excuses for Ukraine invasion

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 21:09:13 +0000

Over the past week, representatives of the Islamic State have gone to considerable lengths to confirm they were behind the March 22 attack on a Moscow concert hall that left more than 140 people dead. In the immediate aftermath of the killings, the radical Islamist group issued a series of statements claiming responsibility. They then went even further, circulating visual proof including graphic bodycam video footage filmed by one of the assailants.

Despite overwhelming evidence pointing to Islamic State terrorists, Vladimir Putin seems intent on blaming Ukraine. While the Russian dictator has acknowledged the atrocity was carried out by Islamist militants, he has repeatedly indicated that Ukraine and the country’s Western partners are the real culprits.

The first clear sign that Putin would seek to implicate Ukraine came on the day after the attack. In an official address to the nation, Putin announced that four suspects had been caught while attempting to reach Ukraine, before accusing the Ukrainian authorities of “preparing a window” for them to cross the border.

This version of events made little sense, given the massive military presence along Russia’s wartime border with Ukraine and the intense security spotlight on the wider region. Putin’s far-fetched story of a Ukrainian escape plan has subsequently been further undermined by his closest ally, Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who has stated that the terror suspects initially attempted to flee across the border into Belarus and not Ukraine.

None of this has deterred Putin. On the contrary, the campaign to blame Ukraine has continued to gain momentum in the wake of the Moscow massacre. The Kremlin-controlled Russian state media has openly questioned the claims of responsibility made by Islamic State, and has directly accused Ukraine of being behind the terror attack.

Russian officials have followed suit, with Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev stating that Ukraine was “of course” responsible for the attack and Russian Parliamentary Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin naming “the bloody regime of Ukraine” along with Washington and Brussels as the organizers of the atrocity. Meanwhile, Putin himself has doubled down on his earlier accusations, and has attempted to position the Moscow terrorist attack as part of a ten-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials have rejected Russia’s groundless accusations, suggesting instead that Putin is seeking to exploit the tragedy in order to provide further false justification for the invasion of Ukraine. “Do not let Putin and his henchmen dupe you,” commented Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Their only goal is to motivate more Russians to die in their senseless and criminal war against Ukraine, as well as to instill even more hatred for other nations, not just Ukrainians, but the entire West.”

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Russia has yet to produce any credible evidence supporting its claims of a Ukrainian role in the Moscow terror attack. Instead, the Kremlin appears content to rely on a combination of unfounded allegations, conspiracy theories, and innuendo. This is entirely in keeping with the cynical information strategy that has accompanied the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which has been based on deceit and distraction from the very beginning.

When Putin first launched the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2014, he did so with a lie so large and so transparent that in retrospect it is difficult to believe it actually happened. As his troops methodically seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, the Kremlin dictator appeared before global audiences and repeatedly denied any Russian military involvement whatsoever. Instead, he insisted that the thousands of well-armed and disciplined troops involved in the operation were actually local militias.

This astonishing duplicity set the tone for the following eight years as Putin expanded the war by occupying much of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. Throughout this period, the Kremlin refused to acknowledge any direct role in hostilities and maintained an official policy of blanket denials, despite the fact that the presence of the Russian army in eastern Ukraine was the world’s worst kept secret. In addition to denying Russia’s obvious involvement, the Kremlin also waged an unprecedented information war to discredit and dehumanize Ukrainians.

For the past decade, the most consistent element of Russia’s anti-Ukrainian disinformation offensive has been the depiction of modern Ukraine as a “Nazi” state. This has been a Kremlin propaganda trope for many decades and was a prominent element of Soviet attempts to demonize Ukraine’s statehood ambitions during the Cold War. Putin has enthusiastically revived this tradition and has used it to justify his quest to extinguish Ukrainian independence. Few were surprised in February 2022 when he cited “de-Nazification” as the main goal of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Putin’s “Nazi Ukraine” propaganda resonates well with Russian audiences drenched in the Kremlin’s World War II mythology, but has been significantly less effective internationally. It is not hard to see why. After all, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish, while support for far-right political parties in Ukraine is lower than in most other European countries, with a coalition of Ukrainian nationalist parties receiving just 2% of the vote in the country’s most recent parliamentary election in 2019. Indeed, the entire “Nazi Ukraine” narrative is so ridiculous that even US media personality Tucker Carlson, who can usually be relied upon to echo Kremlin talking points, recently admitted it was “one of the dumbest things I’d ever heard.”

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The Kremlin’s attempts to blame the war on NATO expansion have proved far more persuasive among international audiences, but even this seemingly rational explanation has been undermined by Russia’s own recent actions. Putin has frequently stated that NATO enlargement since 1991 poses an intolerable security threat to Russia, but when neighboring Finland and nearby Sweden responded to the invasion of Ukraine by joining the alliance, he reacted with almost complete indifference and made no effort to obstruct the process.

The contrast between Putin’s evident lack of interest in NATO’s Nordic enlargement and his bellicose denunciations of Ukraine’s far flimsier ties to the alliance could hardly be starker. Far from threatening a military response, the Russian ruler actually downplayed the entire issue of Finnish and Swedish membership, and even withdrew the bulk of his troops from the border with Finland. Clearly, Putin understands perfectly well that NATO poses no security threat to Russia itself, and only objects to the alliance if it prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors.

In addition to imaginary NATO threats and phantom fascists, Putin has now added Islamist terrorism to the expanding list of absurd excuses for the invasion of Ukraine. This relentless flood of disinformation is designed to cloud perceptions and disguise the naked imperialism driving Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As the invasion has unfolded, Putin has become increasingly frank about his true motivations, especially when addressing domestic audiences. In summer 2022, he compared his invasion to the imperial conquests of eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. Months later, he announced the annexation of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces while claiming they would now be part of Russia “forever.” With increasing frequency, Putin denies Ukraine’s right to exist and characterizes the war as a crusade to reclaim “historically Russian lands.”

Ukrainians are painfully aware of Russia’s genocidal goals and have long since grown used to the shameless disinformation being pushed by the Kremlin to justify the invasion of their country. In recent days, many Ukrainians have responded to allegations of their alleged involvement in the Moscow terror attack with typical gallows humor, quipping that according to Putin, “Ukraine is a Nazi Islamist state headed by a Jewish President.”

The Kremlin’s ludicrous conspiracy theories certainly deserve to be ridiculed, but the implications for millions of Ukrainians are no laughing matter. As Russian dissident Garry Kasparov noted this week, “mocking the absurdities of authoritarians is a worthy endeavor, as long as we never lose sight of how dictatorships like Russia use their laughable lies to justify oppression and murder.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Braw in Europe’s Edge on the Russian Orthodox Church

Elisabeth Braw — Tue, 26 Mar 2024 19:39:00 +0000

Original source

On March 26, Transatlantic Security Initiative senior fellow Elisabeth Braw wrote a piece for CEPA’s Europe’s Edge discussing the Russian Orthodox Church’s political significance.

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Vladimir Putin’s history obsession is a threat to world peace

Nicholas Chkhaidze — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 20:29:14 +0000

History has always served as an ideological battlefield, but few rulers in the modern era have weaponized the past quite as ruthlessly as Vladimir Putin. For more than two years, the Russian dictator has sought to justify Europe’s largest invasion since World War II by portraying it as a sacred mission to reclaim “historically Russian lands.”

Putin’s preoccupation with history has become increasingly evident as his reign has progressed, and is closely linked to his deep-seated resentment over the perceived historical injustice of the 1991 Soviet collapse. As early as 2005, Putin was lamenting the breakup of the USSR as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”

This sense of injustice has helped fuel Putin’s obsession with Ukraine, a neighboring country that many Russians still regard as a core part of their own nation’s historical heartlands. The existence of an independent Ukraine has long been resented by Putin as a symbol of modern Russia’s retreat from empire. Since the early years of his reign, he has made the subjugation of Ukraine one of his foreign policy priorities.

During the initial stages of the Kremlin campaign to reassert Russian authority over independent Ukraine, considerable effort was made to undermine the historical legitimacy of the Ukrainian state among Russian audiences and inside Ukraine itself. As Russian aggression against Ukraine escalated, the Kremlin’s war on Ukrainian history also expanded, with Ukrainians demonized as “Nazis” and dismissed as an “artificial nation.”

Years of increasingly hostile rhetoric paved the way for military aggression. When Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine in spring 2014 with the seizure of Crimea, he began referring to southern and eastern Ukraine as “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”). His decision to revive long-forgotten imperial terminology from the Czarist era was the clearest indication yet that Putin intended to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and reverse more than a century of European history.

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Putin formalized his denial of Ukrainian statehood in a controversial history essay published in July 2021. Entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” this remarkable document laid out Putin’s rejection of Ukraine’s right to exist, while arguing at length that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Putin’s essay laid the ideological groundwork for the full-scale invasion that commenced months later.

Over the past two years, history has remained a key front in the struggle to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. During the first summer of the war, Putin directly compared himself to Peter the Great and likened the invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century Russian Czar’s wars of imperial conquest.

A year later, Putin ordered the launch of new history textbooks for Russian schoolchildren along with curriculum changes with the apparent aim of legitimizing the ongoing military campaign to destroy the Ukrainian state and nation. This was part of a broader trend within Russia to bring the country’s official historical narrative into line with Putin’s increasingly radical brand of revisionism.

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Strikingly, Putin chose to use his high-profile February 2024 interview with US media personality Tucker Carlson as a platform to frame the war in Ukraine as a quest for historical justice. While Carlson clearly wanted Putin to blame NATO and the US for the invasion, Putin himself preferred to embark on a rambling half-hour history lecture explaining the ancient roots of Russia’s claim to Ukraine.

Other senior Russian officials have taken their lead from Putin’s weaponized version of history. The most prominent example of this trend is former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who regularly employs historical references in his frequent attacks on Ukraine and the wider Western world. “One of Ukraine’s former leaders once said Ukraine is not Russia. That concept needs to disappear forever. Ukraine is definitely Russia,” he declared in March 2024.

With the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine now in its third year, Putin’s historical motivations are becoming more and more apparent. He regularly declares that major Ukrainian cities such as Odesa and entire regions of Ukraine are “historically Russian,” indicating that his imperial ambitions are still far from satisfied.

Many are now asking how far Putin intends to go. He has often expressed his belief that the Soviet Union was the Russian Empire under a different name. If Putin takes his crusade to reclaim “historically Russian lands” further and expands the definition to include all of the former Czarist domains, this would place more than a dozen additional countries at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine.

Putin has weaponized history to justify the genocidal invasion of Ukraine and dehumanize the entire Ukrainian nation. Unless he is stopped in Ukraine, the Russian dictator will use the same bogus historical arguments to launch new imperial adventures.

Nicholas Chkhaidze is a Research Fellow at the Baku-based Topchubashov Center.

If these punishing terms had been implemented in spring 2022, It would surely only have been a matter of time before a disarmed and isolated Ukraine found itself facing a fresh Russian invasion with little hope of defending itself. In other words, Putin’s widely touted peace proposal was in fact an attempt to secure the surrender of the Ukrainian state.

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The publication of Putin’s punitive peace plan did not deter Pope Francis from entering the debate in early March with his own controversial call for Ukraine to “have the courage to raise the white flag” and negotiate with Russia. The Pope’s comments sparked outrage in Ukraine and across Europe, with a number of senior officials condemning the religious leader. Days later, the Vatican was forced to backtrack, with Cardinal Pietro Parolin clarifying that the onus in any future peace process should be on Russia as the “aggressor” country.

The most ominous recent contribution to the debate over possible future negotiations has come from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Following his meeting with former US President Donald Trump in Florida, Orban announced that if re-elected in November, Trump plans to cut all US support for Ukraine. “If the Americans don’t give money, the Europeans alone are unable to finance this war. And then the war is over,” commented the Hungarian leader.

These revelations were not entirely unexpected. Indeed, the current deadlock in Congress over US military aid for Ukraine is widely seen as a reflection of Donald Trump’s personal position. Nevertheless, Ukrainians were dismayed by Orban’s claims that Trump’s vision for peace amounts to abandoning Ukraine and letting Russia win. Far from ending the war, this approach would mean the end of Ukraine.

Putin himself has since underlined the obvious flaws in Trump’s strategy. In a March 13 interview, the Kremlin dictator dismissed the idea of peace talks at a time when his army has regained the battlefield initiative thanks in large part to Ukraine’s mounting weapons shortages. “It would be ridiculous for us to start negotiating with Ukraine just because it’s running out of ammunition,” Putin stated.

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At present, the potential negotiating positions of Russia and Ukraine remain poles apart. While Kyiv insists on a complete end to the Russian occupation of Ukrainian territory and the payment of reparations for war damage, the Russian leadership is becoming more and more maximalist in its demands. Putin and other senior officials have long insisted Ukraine cede five partially occupied provinces to Russia. With Russia’s military prospects improving and international support for Ukraine wavering, the Kremlin now appears to embracing even more ambitious goals.

Putin used his high-profile February 2024 interview with US media personality Tucker Carlson to position the war as an historic mission to reclaim “Russian lands.” Meanwhile, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has gone even further, declaring in early March that “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

These maximalist statements tally with the Kremlin’s increasingly vitriolic anti-Ukrainian propaganda, which portrays Ukraine as an enemy of Russia and an instrument of the West’s anti-Russian policy. For the past two years, the invasion of Ukraine has been depicted by the Kremlin as an existential struggle, with Russia’s national survival dependent on the total subjugation of Ukraine.

This framing makes it difficult to see how any kind of negotiated settlement could prove enduring. On the contrary, while Moscow may seek to temporarily pause hostilities for strategic reasons, it is now obvious that the Putin regime has committed Russia to a long-term war of aggression with the clear goal of destroying Ukraine.

Ukrainians are well aware of Russia’s genocidal agenda. They see the daily incitement to genocide on Kremlin TV, and are regularly confronted with fresh evidence of efforts to eradicate Ukrainian identity throughout occupied regions of Ukraine. Understandably, the vast majority of Ukrainians see no room for compromise between Russian genocide and their own survival. Instead, they are committed to fighting on until Ukraine can achieve the basis for long-term national security.

There are indications that Ukraine’s partners are increasingly recognizing the need for comprehensive security guarantees. Since January 2024, Ukraine has signed a series of bilateral security agreements with partner countries including Britain, France, and Germany. While these documents do not qualify as military alliances, they do formalize current cooperation while outlining avenues for future defense sector partnership.

In recent weeks, French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the stakes further by refusing to rule out the deployment of Western troops to Ukraine. Macron’s suggestion has sparked considerable alarm among European leaders, but supporters have noted that the West gains nothing by signalling its own red lines to the Kremlin. Bilateral security agreements and the French President’s increasingly bold rhetoric cannot replace the unrivaled security provided by NATO membership, but these recent developments do indicate growing recognition in Western capitals that European peace depends on a secure Ukraine.

With Russia’s invasion now in its third year, factors such as Ukraine’s failed 2023 counteroffensive and creeping Ukraine fatigue among the country’s Western partners are contributing to calls for a compromise settlement to end the war. At the same time, Putin appears more confident than ever that he can achieve his expansionist goals and is clearly in no hurry to return to the negotiating table.

In the current circumstances, the best way to secure a lasting peace is by demonstrating to the Kremlin that Russia’s hopes of extinguishing Ukrainian statehood are futile. Putin only understands the language of strength. With this in mind, Ukraine’s international partners must send an unambiguous message to Moscow by ditching their “as long as it takes” mantra and deploying the full weight of their overwhelming economic and technological superiority. This would be more than enough to give Ukraine a decisive battlefield advantage and set the stage for victory over Russia.

Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians themselves, but they also recognize that a premature peace with Putin would only lead to more war. Advocates of a negotiated settlement would be wise to listen to these Ukrainian concerns before calling on Kyiv to compromise with the Kremlin. As Winston Churchill observed, meeting jaw to jaw is better than war. However, in this particular case, it should be evident to all that there can be no durable peace in Europe until Ukraine is safe from Russian aggression.

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Danilov has led Ukraine’s influential National Security and Defense Council since October 2019, and has been at the heart of Ukrainian attempts to galvanize international opposition to Russia’s invasion. He readily admits that these efforts have been consistently hampered by Russia’s sophisticated and highly effective disinformation strategies. Looking back at the past two years, Danilov says this experience has underlined the growing importance of information warfare in shaping today’s multidimensional battlefield. “We all make decisions based on the information we have. While there is now an unprecedented amount of information available, it is also apparent that this information can be easily manipulated and distorted.”

Today’s increasingly chaotic and overloaded information landscape is helping Russia conceal its true intentions in Ukraine and disguise its geopolitical ambitions, says Danilov. He frames the ongoing invasion of Ukraine as the central stage in a far broader global confrontation between the democratic world and the resurgent forces of autocracy led by Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, but cautions that such clarity is often lacking during his interactions with Ukraine’s Western partners.

The 61-year-old Ukrainian Security Council Secretary bemoans the absence of a modern-day Reagan or Churchill with the necessary vision to see the Russian threat in its true historical context. Unless today’s generation of Western leaders urgently acknowledge the scale of the challenge, he predicts they will soon be confronted by a very different and more hostile international environment. “Too many countries remain stuck in an information fog and do not realize that World War III is already underway. The whole world is engaged in the current war in one way or another, even though Ukraine is the only country doing the actual fighting against Russia.”

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With no end in sight to Russia’s invasion, the diplomatic debate in many Western capitals currently revolves around the question of Vladimir Putin’s ultimate war aims and how far he is prepared to go. To Danilov, the answer is disarmingly simple: Putin wants to completely transform the geopolitical climate and will keep going until he is stopped. If Ukraine should fall, Danilov is convinced Russia will expand its aggression further. He believes the countries most immediately at risk will be the former member states of the Warsaw Pact. “Putin made his intentions perfectly clear in his December 2021 ultimatum to the West, when he called for NATO to withdraw from Central and Eastern Europe. Just look at the map; it’s all there.”

Returning to the status quo of the early 1990s is unlikely to satisfy the Russian dictator, Danilov says. He argues that Putin’s foreign policy objectives ultimately stretch far beyond the old Iron Curtain and include the breakup of the European Union itself. This would allow Putin to divide and conquer Europe. “One of Putin’s key goals is the destruction of the EU. It is very difficult for the Kremlin to deal with a united Europe; this puts Russia at a significant disadvantage. Putin would much prefer to splinter the EU and negotiate with each European country separately.”

This does not mean Russia is preparing to imminently invade Belgium or occupy Brussels, of course. On the contrary, the Kremlin is far more likely to employ the kind of hybrid warfare tactics honed in Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. Indeed, Danilov argues that Moscow has been engaged in an active campaign of hybrid hostilities inside the European Union for a number of years, and accuses European leaders of turning a blind eye to this unwelcome reality. “Russia’s hybrid war against the EU is already well underway, but some Western countries prefer not to acknowledge it. Putin constantly commits acts of hybrid aggression against Europe, but many Europeans are reluctant to draw the obvious conclusions as this would force them to recognize the threat and respond.”

Putin’s other great strategic priority is the dissolution of NATO. While skeptics argue that the Russian military is currently in no shape to take on NATO, Danilov believes Putin could potentially achieve his goal by discrediting the alliance rather than defeating it in a conventional war. With Western weakness increasingly evident in Ukraine, Putin may seek to test the shaky resolve of NATO leaders by staging some kind of border provocation. According to Danilov, if the alliance fails to produce an adequate response, there is a very real chance that member countries will quickly lose faith in collective security and seek alternative arrangements. NATO may be able to formally survive such a blow, but the damage to its credibility would be fatal. “When you have a maniac on the loose in your neighborhood, the task is to stop him as soon as possible and not engage in negotiations or other nonsense,” Danilov says.

Based on his own extensive interactions with NATO commanders over the past two years, Ukraine’s Security Council Secretary has full confidence in the alliance’s military leadership and believes they are under no illusions regarding both the nature of the Putin regime and urgency of the threat facing the West. However, he also stresses that the same cannot necessarily be said for Europe’s political leaders. This is a recipe for potential disaster, says Danilov. “Putin is the Hitler of our era. The current situation is strikingly similar to the 1930s, when military men warned of the mounting danger but were overruled by politicians who preferred to appease Hitler. If we make the same mistake again, it could mean the eclipse of the West.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Together with colleagues Evgeniy Maloletka and Vasilisa Stepanenko, Chernov is credited with informing the outside world of the horrors unfolding inside the besieged city. “Those shots that went out were very important. They went on the Associated Press and then to thousands of news outlets,” Chernov would later recall. “However, I thought I should do something more with the 30 hours of footage I had.” The Ukrainian director explained that he wanted to tell the bigger story of the siege and bring home to international audiences the scale of the death and destruction following Russia’s invasion.

The resulting documentary has met with considerable critical success. Chernov’s film first made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won an audience award. Prior to receiving Oscar recognition, “20 Days in Mariupol” was also named best documentary by the Directors Guild and BAFTA. This recognition makes the film an important contribution to international understanding of Russia’s invasion.

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Russia’s spring 2022 destruction of Mariupol is widely seen as one of the worst war crimes of the twenty-first century. A thriving Ukrainian port city with a prewar population of around half a million, Mariupol was surrounded by Russian forces during the first days of the invasion. What followed was a siege marked by barely imaginable levels of suffering and destruction.

While there is currently no way of independently determining the overall death toll in Mariupol, conservative estimates indicate tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians were killed. Satellite footage has identified thousands of new graves in an around Mariupol, while many more victims were buried in makeshift plots throughout the ruined city or trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings. The situation has been further complicated by the large-scale forced deportation of residents by the Russian occupation authorities.

Difficulties in identifying the victims of Mariupol reflect broader obstacles to calculating Ukrainian civilian losses from Russia’s invasion. With international aid organizations barred from areas under Kremlin control, it is impossible to accurately assess the number of civilians killed by the Russian military. As a result, official figures for confirmed Ukrainian civilian losses are comparatively low. Human rights groups say this presents a misleading picture of the invasion that fails to reflect the true scale of the carnage. While UN officials have reported over 10,000 civilian deaths, they also acknowledge that the real toll is likely to be “significantly higher.”

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Chronicling the destruction of Mariupol is particularly important in light of a comprehensive Kremlin campaign to cover up evidence of Russian war crimes. Following the end of the siege in spring 2022, the Russian occupation authorities immediately began demolishing damaged residential districts and cordoning off atrocity sites such as the city’s drama theater, where hundreds are thought to have died in a targeted Russian air strike. Efforts were soon underway to rebuild Mariupol as a Russian city and repopulate it with new arrivals from Russia.

Although dozens of other Ukrainian towns and cities have been similarly devastated and remain in a state of near complete ruin, Moscow has clearly singled out Mariupol as a reconstruction priority and is seeking to transform the occupied city into a showpiece for the invasion. Meanwhile, Kremlin officials have shamelessly sought to blame Ukraine for the deaths of so many Mariupol residents. Speaking in February 2024, Russian Ambassador to Britain Andrei Kelin claimed Ukraine “could have surrendered much earlier.”

The Oscar success of “20 Days in Mariupol” should now help to undermine the Kremlin’s disinformation efforts and increase awareness about Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted the importance of the award, calling it a timely reminder of Russia’s destructive goals and the need to maintain international support for Ukraine. “The horrors of Mariupol must never be forgotten,” he stated. “The entire world must see and remember what the inhumane Russian invasion brought to our people.”

Following his Oscar win, documentary maker Mstyslav Chernov echoed this sentiment. Speaking after Sunday’s ceremony, the Ukrainian director complained that Ukraine has recently become a “bargaining chip” for politicians around the world. Instead, he stressed that international attention should be firmly focused on protecting the Ukrainian civilians who are being attacked and killed. “This is not a political question. This is a humanitarian catastrophe.”

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

The local residents we met during our recent visit recalled how the most violent Russian troops had seemed to sincerely believe that by killing Ukrainians they were saving Russia. Nevertheless, those who lived through the occupation did not express fear. Despite facing desperate living conditions and constant insecurity, there was no sense of despair. Instead, they were surer than ever in their identity. We are Ukrainians, they told us.

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Vladimir Putin provided ample indication of his intentions during the buildup to the February 2022 invasion. In a remarkable summer 2021 essay, he argued at length that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), while portraying independent Ukraine as an artificial and hostile entity. This document was widely interpreted as a declaration of war on Ukrainian national identity. It was soon being distributed to Russian soldiers, with the aim of convincing them that it was both necessary and justified to apply the harshest possible measures against anyone who insists on identifying as Ukrainian.

Once the invasion began, it was immediately apparent that this was a war against every aspect of Ukrainian national identity including language, culture, and heritage. This genocidal agenda was spelled out in a high-profile editorial that briefly appeared on Kremlin media platforms in the first days of the invasion before being quietly deleted once it became clear that the triumphant tone of the article was premature. Employing the lexicon of imperial conquest, the author credited Putin with solving the “Ukrainian question” for future generations, and trumpeted the restoration of Russia to its “historic fullness.”

As the invasion unfolded, advancing Russian troops were soon putting the Kremlin’s imperialistic ideology into practice. In a chilling echo of tsarist and Soviet crimes against humanity, Ukrainian community leaders, activists, and patriots were hunted down and abducted, while hundreds of thousands of people living in occupied areas were subjected to forced deportation. Those who remained were confronted with blanket russification and pressured to accept Russian citizenship.

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The Russian invasion has also targeted Ukraine’s national heritage. Hundreds of cultural heritage sites have been damaged or destroyed including museums, galleries, churches, and places of historical importance. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian artifacts and priceless national treasures have been stolen and shipped back to Russia, where they have in many cases been repackaged as Russian relics. Significant numbers of Russian academics and museum curators have acted as accomplices in these crimes.

Today’s war on Ukrainian culture is reminiscent of the Stalin regime’s campaign to destroy an entire generation of Ukrainian cultural leaders during the early decades of the Soviet era. This doomed generation of 1920s and 1930s Ukrainian poets, writers, and artists has come to be known as the “Executed Renaissance.” Like their Soviet predecessors, Putin’s invading army has also targeted contemporary writers, musicians, and artists as living symbols of Ukrainian cultural identity.

In a very real sense, Russia’s total war against Ukrainian identity and culture is actually an admission of failure. It reflects the fact that Ukrainians have resoundingly rejected the Kremlin’s so-called “Russian World,” recognizing it as a ploy to subjugate Ukraine. This has left Putin with no option but to resort to force.

Russia’s invasion recently passed the two-year mark with no end in sight. But while nobody knows when or how the war will end, it is already apparent that Russia will not succeed in erasing Ukraine. On the contrary, the invasion has helped fuel an unprecedented consolidation of Ukrainian identity that many have likened to a national coming of age. Putin believed Ukraine was weak and would soon collapse under the overwhelming weight of his invading army. Instead, Ukrainian national identity has been strengthened in a manner so profound that it may only become fully apparent in the decades to come.

Danylo Lubkivsky is director of the Kyiv Security Forum. He is the former Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine and ex-Chair of Ukraine’s UNESCO Commission.

Putin is on an historic mission and will not stop until he is finally defeated

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:34:27 +0000

There was no escaping the mounting sense of gloom in late February as the world marked the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale Ukraine invasion. While a chorus of international leaders voiced their determination to continue standing with Ukraine, it is now evident that Russia holds the upper hand as the conflict evolves into a grinding war of attrition. Indeed, with the future of US military aid in doubt, the mood among Ukraine’s partners is visibly darkening as thoughts turn to the disastrous consequences of a potential Russian victory.

In recent weeks, more and more Western leaders have begun publicly warning that their countries may soon become targets of Russian aggression. The latest leader to sound the alarm was French President Emmanuel Macron, who stated on February 26 that Russia could attack NATO member states “in the next few years.” Macron also sparked a heated debate by refusing to rule out sending Western troops to Ukraine.

Not everyone believes a victorious Putin would inevitably go further. Many remain skeptical and claim the Russian dictator is only interested in Ukraine. Others point to the Russian army’s well-documented difficulties during the current invasion as evidence that any Russian attack on the NATO alliance would amount to military suicide. These arguments reflect a fundamental failure among many in the West to grasp the true motives behind Russia’s invasion and the nature of the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions.

When Putin first launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he initially sought to portray it as a defensive measure against “Ukrainian Nazis” and NATO expansion. However, as the conflict has unfolded, it has become increasingly apparent that the Kremlin is waging an old-fashioned colonial war of imperial expansion.

In summer 2022, Putin directly compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. Months later, he proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian provinces while declaring them to be “historically Russian lands.” He has since asserted that “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind,” and has issued orders for all traces of Ukrainian national identity to eradicated from areas of Ukraine under Kremlin control.

Putin’s historical motivations were perhaps most immediately obvious during his recent interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson. While Carlson openly encouraged Putin to blame NATO and the US for the invasion, the Russian ruler preferred to embark on a half-hour history lecture that placed the origins of the current war firmly in the distant past. Rather than seeking to justify his invasion in terms of contemporary geopolitics, Putin chose to argue that Ukraine was historically Russian and therefore a legitimate target.

Putin’s chilling dream of reclaiming “historically Russian lands” puts a large number of countries at risk of suffering the same fate as Ukraine. The Kremlin strongman is notorious for lamenting the collapse of the Soviet Union, but his revisionist ambitions actually extend beyond the boundaries of the former USSR. On numerous occasions, Putin has expressed his belief that the Soviet Union was in fact a continuation of the Russian Empire, while the fall of the USSR was “the disintegration of historical Russia.” “What had been built up over 1000 years was largely lost,” he commented in December 2021.

Based on this twisted logic, the historical arguments used by Putin to justify the invasion of Ukraine could be equally applied to any country that was once part of the Russian Empire. This would result in a list of potential targets including Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Poland, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the whole of Central Asia, not to mention Alaska. Anyone tempted to dismiss the idea of Russia invading these countries should consider that just ten years ago, most Ukrainians were equally sure such things were impossible in the twenty-first century.

Nor is Putin solely motivated by his deep-seated desire to reverse Russia’s imperial decline. He also sees the invasion of Ukraine as a fight to end the era of Western dominance and establish a new multi-polar world order. After decades spent bristling at Russia’s reduced status and the perceived humiliations of the post-Soviet period, he is now attempting to frame the war in Ukraine as a battle against Pax Americana to shape the future of international relations. Putin believes victory over Ukraine would represent a decisive breakthrough that would undermine the entire post-1991 world order and reverse the verdict of the Cold War.

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Doubters argue that the Russian army is currently in no shape to undertake any further invasions, never mind confronting the military might of NATO itself. This reasoning is superficially persuasive. After all, Putin’s army has seen its reputation as the world’s number two military take a severe battering in Ukraine. Russian commanders have lost a series of key battles and have suffered catastrophic losses in both men and equipment that have left them increasingly dependent on the brute force of primitive human wave tactics.

Despite these setbacks, it would be foolish to underestimate Russia’s military potential. In the past two years, Putin has placed the entire Russian economy on a war footing. Armaments factories are now working around the clock and are already comfortably outproducing the entire NATO alliance in terms of artillery shells and other key armaments. Russia may have lost hundreds of thousands killed and wounded in Ukraine, but the Kremlin still has vast untapped reserves of fighting age men who can be mobilized in time for the next big invasion.

Skeptics also tend to overlook the likely impact of victory in Ukraine on Russia’s military capabilities. In practical terms, the conquest of Ukraine would secure hundreds of thousands of additional conscript troops and a vast array of new weapons for the Russian army. Control over Ukraine would significantly enhance the Kremlin war machine by offering renewed access to a range of major Ukrainian enterprises that previously played key roles in the Soviet military industrial complex. It would make Russia the dominant force on global agricultural markets, handing Moscow enormous leverage that could be used to bribe allies and deter opponents.

Crucially, success in Ukraine would provide Putin with enormous additional momentum while simultaneously destabilizing and demoralizing the whole democratic world. Inside Russia, pro-war sentiment would be further strengthened and Putin’s messianic vision of a new Russian Empire would be vindicated. Internationally, Russia’s existing allies would feel free to increase their support, while the countries of the nonaligned Global South would rush to strengthen ties with the triumphant Kremlin. In such a favorable geopolitical climate, Putin would doubtless find it difficult to resist the temptation to escalate his confrontation with the West. Indeed, he would almost certainly see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve his historic mission.

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This does not mean we should expect to see Russian tanks on the streets of NATO capitals any time soon. Putin knows he can reach his goals by discrediting NATO rather than actually defeating the alliance on the battlefield. With this in mind, the Kremlin would be far more likely to opt for the kind of hybrid tactics employed during the early stages of the Ukraine invasion in 2014. Indeed, it is all too easy to imagine unidentified Russian troops operating inside NATO territory behind a veil of barely plausible deniability.

An escalation of hybrid warfare against the NATO alliance would enable Moscow to exploit the lack of resolve and fear of escalation demonstrated by Western leaders over the past two years in Ukraine. Would the current generation of US, German, or French leaders be prepared to involve their countries in a war with Russia over an ambiguous “pro-Russian” uprising in an Estonian border town? If not, the absence of a decisive response could fatally undermine NATO’s core commitment to collective defense. The alliance might formally survive such a blow, but the loss of credibility would be catastrophic. It would not be long before individual NATO member countries started forming separate security arrangements of their own and began offering concessions to the Kremlin.

Even if Putin chooses not to test NATO directly, a Russian victory in Ukraine would transform the international security environment and dramatically increase the risk of a truly global war. European countries would be forced to rapidly rearm, with defense budgets soon ballooning to levels that far surpass the current costs of supporting the Ukrainian war effort. Those who begrudge today’s spending on Ukraine would find themselves confronted with security expenditure five or ten times higher.

Putin himself has provided ample evidence that his goals extend far beyond the reconquest of Ukraine. He makes no secret of his commitment to reclaiming what he regards as historically Russian lands, and believes he is fully justified in using military force to do so. Putin’s revisionist agenda is inextricably linked to his other great passion, namely the revival of Russia’s great power status as part of a post-Western world dominated by a handful of regional behemoths. These imperial ambitions led directly to the invasion of Ukraine and make further escalations virtually inevitable unless Russia is defeated.

Ultimately, it is impossible to predict exactly what Putin will do if he wins in Ukraine. He may initially choose to pursue low-hanging geopolitical fruit by seizing small neighborhood countries like Moldova or Georgia. Alternatively, he might seek to press home his advantage against a weakened West by embarking on far bolder military gambits targeting the Baltic states or the Suwałki Gap. Of the many possible post-Ukraine scenarios for Russia, the least likely of all is the idea that an emboldened and victorious Putin would simply stop.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

“Ukraine is Russia”: Medvedev reveals imperial ambitions fueling invasion

Taras Kuzio — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:44:06 +0000

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has provided chilling confirmation that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is an old-fashioned imperial war with the end goal of extinguishing Ukrainian identity. Speaking at a March 4 festival in Sochi, Medvedev spelled out his rejection of Ukrainian statehood and elaborated on the imperial objectives underpinning Russia’s ongoing invasion. “One of Ukraine’s former leaders once said Ukraine is not Russia. That concept needs to disappear forever,” he declared. “Ukraine is definitely Russia.”

Medvedev was referring to former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma’s 2003 book, “Ukraine Is Not Russia.” However, Russia’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine are far older and can be traced back hundreds of years. Beginning in the early decades of the eighteenth century, generations of Russian rulers have sought to erase the entire notion of a separate Ukrainian nation. They have employed a range of tools including settler colonialism, blanket russification, artificial famine, and the ruthless suppression of Ukrainian national identity.

The 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union led to a brief pause in this campaign. However, since the early years of his reign, Vladimir Putin has resurrected Russia’s historic claims to Ukraine. When Russian military aggression against Ukraine first erupted in spring 2014, the Kremlin soon began referring to southern and eastern Ukraine by the Tsarist era colonial name of “Novorossiya” (“New Russia”). Eight years later following the launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Putin announced the annexation of these Ukrainian regions while labeling them “historically Russian lands.”

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Putin initially sought to portray the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a crusade against “Ukrainian Nazis” and a response to decades of NATO expansion. However, as the war has unfolded, he has become increasingly open about the true nature of his imperial agenda in Ukraine. Putin has directly compared the current invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian ruler Peter the Great, and spent much of his recent high-profile interview with American media personality Tucker Carlson attempting to justify today’s war by arguing that Ukraine was historically part of Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s influential Security Council, is notorious for echoing Putin’s imperialistic language toward Ukraine. Indeed, he has frequently been even more outspoken than Putin in his denial of Ukrainian statehood and his attacks on Ukraine’s allies. In recent months, Medvedev has warned of possible nuclear attacks on Washington, Berlin, and London, and has vowed to seize more Ukrainian territory including Kyiv.

All this is a far cry from Medvedev’s public persona in 2008 when he replaced Putin as Russian President. At the time, many in the West saw Medvedev as a liberal reformer who would steer Russia toward closer partnership with the West. In fact, the entire Medvedev presidency was a ploy designed to help Putin navigate a two-term constitutional limit before resuming his reign in 2012.

As his political star has waned, Medvedev has sought to reinvent himself as a Russian nationalist hawk. Although often derided as a somewhat buffoonish figure, the former head of state actually plays an important part in Russia’s carefully choreographed political theater. Following the death of Russian nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky in 2022, Medvedev has largely replaced Zhirinovsky as the Kremlin’s unofficial “court clown.”

In this role, Medvedev often makes outrageous statements and voices extremist opinions. This allows the Kremlin to gauge Russian public opinion and test international reaction, while also making Putin himself appear moderate in comparison. With Russia now actively seeking to deter international support for Ukraine by playing on Western fears of escalation, Medvedev’s often colorful threats have become a key element of the Kremlin’s information operations.

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Medvedev’s latest outburst is nothing new, of course. Indeed, senior Russian officials have been publicly questioning Ukraine’s territorial integrity since the early years of the post-Soviet era. This undercurrent of unapologetic imperialism was one of the main reasons why independent Ukraine’s second president, Leonid Kuchma, chose to write a book debunking Russia’s claims to his country. The publication of “Ukraine Is Not Russia” in 2003 directly challenged the Kremlin’s attempts to portray Ukrainians and Russians as indivisible, and was widely viewed in Moscow as a hostile act. Clearly, many within the Russian elite have not forgotten this very public rejection by a country they condescendingly regard as a younger sibling.

In the years following the appearance of Kuchma’s book, Ukraine underwent two pro-democracy revolutions, while Russia grew increasingly authoritarian. For the past decade, Russia’s escalating military aggression against Ukraine has served to further deepen the divide separating the two countries. As Ukrainian society has turned away from the Russian past and sought to embrace a European future, Russian public opinion toward Ukraine has become increasingly radicalized. Genocidal anti-Ukrainian rhetoric is now an everyday feature of the country’s political discourse and has been completely normalized throughout the Kremlin-controlled Russian media.

By declaring that “Ukraine is definitely Russia” and referring to the country as “an integral part of Russia’s strategic and historical borders,” Medvedev has made a mockery of international calls for a negotiated settlement to end the war. His unambiguous comments should be more than enough to remove any lingering doubts that Russia is committed to the destruction of Ukraine as a state and as a nation.

In such circumstances, any talk of a peace deal without Ukrainian victory is delusional. There can be no meaningful middle ground between Russia’s genocidal goal and Ukraine’s national survival. Instead, attempts to compromise with the Kremlin would be perceived in Moscow as an opportunity to rearm and regroup before launching the next phase of the invasion.

Many people like to laugh at Dmitry Medvedev. On social media, he is routinely depicted as an angry little man whose absurd antics are a symptom of Russia’s dysfunctional politics and his own personal struggle to remain relevant. However, there is nothing funny about the message he is now delivering. Medvedev’s comments confirm the imperialistic aims of the 2022 invasion and signal Moscow’s intention to wipe Ukraine off the map. With hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians already feared dead and dozens of Ukrainian cities reduced to rubble, his threats must be treated as deadly serious.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He was awarded the Peterson Literary Prize for his book “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality” (Routledge, 2022).

Bowing to Putin’s nuclear blackmail will make nuclear war more likely

Peter Dickinson — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:01:18 +0000

Russia could respond with nuclear weapons if the West sends troops to Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has warned. In his annual State of the Nation address on February 29, the Russian dictator said any attempt to deploy Western troops in Ukraine “threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilization.”

This was the latest and most explicit in a series of nuclear threats made by Putin since he first ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago. When announcing the invasion, Putin warned against any Western intervention with promises of consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history.” Four days later, he ordered Russia’s nuclear forces to be put on high alert.

Following Russia’s defeat in the March 2022 Battle of Kyiv, Putin sought to deter the West from arming Ukraine by promising a “lightning-fast” response and strongly hinting that he was ready to use nuclear weapons. “We have all the tools for this that no one else can boast of having,” he declared. “We won’t boast about it: We will use them if needed and I want everyone to know that. We have already taken all the decisions on this.”

Prior to this week’s statement, Putin’s most notorious nuclear threats came during a televised September 2022 address to announce Russia’s first mobilization since World War II. With the Russian army retreating in disarray in Ukraine, Putin referenced his country’s nuclear arsenal and vowed to use “all means at our disposal” to defend Russia. “This is not a bluff,” he declared.

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Ukraine has repeatedly called Putin’s bluff, exposing the emptiness of the Russian dictator’s nuclear bluster. Just weeks after his September 2022 speech, the Ukrainian military liberated Kherson, the only regional capital captured by Russia since the start of the invasion and a city that Putin himself had just trumpeted as “forever Russian.” Rather than reaching for the nuclear button, Putin reacted to this embarrassing defeat by ordering his troops to quietly withdraw.

Russia has responded in similar fashion to setbacks in the Battle of the Black Sea. Kremlin officials have long sought to position Crimea as a red line for Russia, but this has not prevented Ukraine from damaging or sinking approximately one-third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This humiliation has not provoked a nuclear response from Putin. Instead, the bulk of his fleet has retreated from its traditional home port in occupied Crimea to the safety of Russia.

While Ukraine has refused to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear blackmail, the same cannot be said for the West. Putin’s thinly veiled threats may appear crude and primitive, but there can be little doubt that they have been instrumental in fueling the crippling fear of escalation that has plagued Western decision-making ever since the first days of the invasion. This has led to the disastrously slow delivery of military aid to Ukraine and the outright denial of weapons systems that could have set the stage for a Ukrainian victory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has identified this Western fear of escalation as the single biggest obstacle to his country’s war effort. “Nothing has harmed our coalition more than this concept,” he commented in January 2024.

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Unless this changes, the damage will not be limited to Ukraine. If the mere suggestion of a possible nuclear escalation is enough to deter the West from preventing Russia’s takeover of Ukraine, Putin will inevitably employ the same tactics against other countries. He is already openly portraying the current invasion as a sacred mission to reclaim “historically Russian lands.” With more than a dozen other countries also potentially qualifying as “historically Russian,” it is all too easy to image further invasions in the coming years accompanied by more of Putin’s thinly veiled nuclear threats.

Nor will the implications be restricted to Russia’s wars of aggression. On the contrary, fellow autocrats around the world will take note of Putin’s success in Ukraine and draw the logical conclusions for their own expansionist agendas. If nuclear intimidation works for Moscow, why not for Beijing or Pyongyang?

This has the potential to spark a dangerous arms race. If Russia manages to normalize nuclear intimidation as a foreign policy tool, numerous countries will soon be scrambling to acquire nuclear arsenals of their own. There are indications that this issue is already being discussed in some quarters. Speaking in February 2024, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski warned that if additional US support for Ukraine is not forthcoming, “some countries will start hedging, and others will be considering developing their own nuclear weapons programs.”

By allowing themselves to be intimidated by Putin’s nuclear threats, Western leaders risk plunging the whole world into a dark new era of insecurity and aggression. Russia’s successful use of nuclear blackmail in Ukraine will transform attitudes toward nuclear weapons and undermine decades of nonproliferation efforts. Nukes will become an essential tool for any country that wishes to avoid being bullied by their neighbors. The potential for nuclear war will increase dramatically, as will the possibility of stray nukes falling into the hands of non-state actors.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to use nuclear intimidation as part of his Ukraine invasion is a reckless gamble that reflects his firm belief in Western weakness. Unless the West proves him wrong, the consequences for global security will be catastrophic.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

In 2023, Russia continued to extend its information influence operations in Europe and the South Caucasus. The Kremlin has strategically capitalized on existing disagreements and developments within these areas to undermine Ukraine and enhance Russian influence on the ground, employing varying tactics based on the specific sociopolitical context for the target country. In EU countries, for example, sophisticated online operations such as the pro-Kremlin “Doppelganger” campaign advocated for the lifting of sanctions and presented Russian gas as vital for the EU economy; in Moldova, however, Russia cut Gazprom supplies and framed the pro-EU government and Ukraine as responsible for socioeconomic hardships.

We observed another common thread: the promotion of warmongering narratives, taking various forms but ultimately structured to foster domestic fears of war in targeted countries. In Poland and Ukraine, Russia attempted to sow discord in their partnership by spreading disinformation that Poland harbors hostile intentions toward Ukraine. In Moldova, Russian propaganda suggested that Moldovan and Ukrainian forces were planning to intervene in Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria. Similarly, since 2022, the Georgian government has exploited the fear of war with Russia as a means to diminish local support for Ukraine and advance its domestic political agenda. The DFRLab observed a similar trend in two South Caucasus countries, Georgia and Armenia. Despite Armenia’s strained relations with Russia, the country grew its trade relationship with Russia. In Georgia, the ban on direct flights to and from Russia was lifted and trade has increased since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, particularly in importing oil and gas. In both countries, propaganda campaigns attempted to manipulate the populace by drawing parallels with the situation in Ukraine, framing its path as leading inexorably to war. In Georgia, government propaganda went further by accusing the US Agency for International Development (USAID) of plotting a revolution, a narrative also promoted in Azerbaijan.

Case study: Russia-based Facebook operation targeting Europe

Operation Doppelganger is the largest and most persistent pro-Kremlin online information influence campaign aimed at undermining Ukraine in Europe. The DFRLab, EU DisinfoLab with Qurium Media Foundation, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and multiple European media outlets targeted by the campaign first investigated Doppelganger in the summer of 2022. In June 2023, French media resurfaced the ongoing campaign, citing a deeper investigation by Viginum, a technical and operational service of the French government responsible for vigilance and protection against foreign digital interference. Viginum, Qurium, and EU DisinfoLab found many technical pieces of evidence linking the campaign to Russia: the use of Russian web infrastructure to host domains involved in the campaign; the use of the Russian language in video file names; the presence of three different time zones in video file metadata, specifically finding that the videos created at GMT+8 match with the Irkutsk region in Russia and connecting some to the Telegram channel War on Fakes, a Russian news service known for using fact-checking tropes to disseminate disinformation or denials of Russian atrocities.

In September 2022, Meta took down 1,633 Facebook accounts, 703 Facebook pages, twenty-nine Instagram profiles, and one Facebook group connected to the campaign. In its announcement of the takedown, Meta wrote that, though the company had blocked posts with external links to the operation’s domains from appearing on its platforms, “they attempted to set up new websites, suggesting persistence and continuous investment in this activity across the internet.” In December 2022, Meta attributed the campaign to two companies in Russia, Structura National Technology and Social Design Agency (Агентство Социального Проектирования).

The campaign started as early as May 2022. It used over fifty domains impersonating (e.g., spoofing) existing media outlets in Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Links to forged articles hosted on the spoofed domains were then shared on social media platforms, mostly Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The campaign employed paid advertising and seems to have bought interactions to garner engagement with the posts.

The content of the influence campaign seemed intended to undermine the Ukrainian government and people, to advocate for the sanctions on Russia to be lifted, to emphasize the worsening European economy notionally because of the sanctions, and to push for allies to stop supplying Ukraine with weapons.

Posts and articles appeared in multiple languages with often poor proficiency, indicating non-native authors or the use of a machine-translation tool. While conducting its research into Doppelganger, Qurium noticed geoblocking used for certain hyperlinks amplified via social media. For instance, if a reader connected from a German internet protocol (IP) address, the false article in German would appear. If connected from outside Germany, a text from “Old Sultan,” a German fairy tale, would appear.

The spoofed websites used the graphic design of the legitimate websites operated by the media outlets. The easiest way to determine if a website was spoofed was by looking at top-level domains (TLDs), frequently with many different, nearly identical URLs used to spoof a single outlet. Of just reputable German outlets, seemingly the priority in September 2022, Qurium identified nine TLDs impersonating Der Spiegel, eight spoofing Bild, and eight mimicking T-Online. Qurium also mentioned that French outlet 20 Minutes was similarly spoofed. In June 2023, Viginum identified additional instances of 20 Minutes being impersonated, as well as Le Monde, Le Parisien, and Le Figaro. Though expansive in terms of digital assets used and the number of languages it targeted, the campaign garnered little engagement. Similar campaigns appeared in Ukraine. Russians created websites masquerading as Ukrainian media websites to promote narratives of despair and the uselessness of resisting Russia. These webpages featured identical pages, stealing even real journalists’ names, providing their content with unearned legitimacy. While such campaigns are usually delivered via Facebook ads, they also act as parasites by laundering their disinformation through the reputations of the well-known media brands they spoofed.

Screenshots of a real story in reputable Ukrainian outlet UNIAN (top), compared with a nearly identical forgery (bottom), which was promoted in a Facebook ad. (Source: Unian, top; Unian.in/archive, bottom)

Similarly, malign actors use the official logos and insignia of the Ukrainian government and international organizations to scam Ukrainians’ data or nudge them to subscribe to dubious Telegram channels, promising financial support. Such campaigns have multiple objectives: spreading discouraging narratives, undermining Ukrainians’ resilience and resistance, stealing personal data, or promoting narratives while using victims’ individual pages. Despite efforts to block such campaigns in Ukraine and abroad, they constantly reappear on popular platforms, promoting conspiracies or damaging Ukraine.

Case study: Poland

In 2023, pro-Kremlin actors expanded their efforts to undermine the relationship between Ukraine and Poland by sowing discord between the two nations. Russian and Belarusian actors attempted to influence Poland’s October 2023 parliamentary elections, specifically malicious activities against Poland primarily in three domains: information environment, cyberspace, and on the ground in Poland.

Since February 2022, Poland has hosted the largest number of Ukrainian refugees, causing pro-Kremlin actors to push false claims about refugees in Polish in an attempt to portray Ukrainian refugees in a negative light and to exacerbate anti-refugee sentiments within Polish society. In August 2023, Polish-language Telegram channel Niezależny Dziennik Polityczny (Independent Political Journal), which is believed to be managed by pro-Kremlin actors outside Poland, and pro-Kremlin Russian media outlet EurAsia Daily wrote that Polish authorities were allegedly hiding that Ukrainian refugees were supposedly responsible for a Legionella bacteria outbreak, which reportedly killed at least five people in the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszów in August and September 2023. Disinformation targeting Ukrainian refugees in 2023 also encompassed other false narratives, such as the notion that the Polish government cares about Ukrainian refugees more than Polish citizens, that Ukrainian refugees push Polish citizens out of the labor market, that refugees represent a burden for the Polish economy, and that they violate Polish law and undermine public order, among other distortions and falsehoods.

On the other side, pro-Kremlin actors tried to antagonize the Ukrainian people against Poland by pushing false claims about Poland’s supposedly hostile intentions toward Ukraine. In August 2023, Russian Defense Minister Shoigu falsely claimed that Poland was planning to create a Polish-Ukrainian Union with the goal of occupying Ukraine’s territories. Anonymous Russian Telegram channels also disseminated a fabricated statement purportedly from Poland’s former ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) demanding that Ukraine give Poland the city of Lviv in exchange for Polish support in the war against Russia.

Pro-Kremlin actors also tried to intimidate Polish society by pushing fabricated content about the presence of Wagner fighters near the Polish border. After President of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko stated on July 23, 2023, that the Wagner Group’s mercenaries stationed in Belarus had asked for permission “to go on a trip to Warsaw and Rzeszów,” Russian Telegram channels started to disseminate forged photos that allegedly confirmed the presence of Wagner fighters on the Polish-Belarus border. It seemed that this campaign aimed to sow fear in Poland by suggesting that the Wagner Group would target Poland if the nation continued to support Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russian security services managed to recruit spy groups on the ground in Poland, which were uncovered by Polish security services. In March 2023, the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW) arrested twelve people, charging them with collaborating with the Russian secret service, conducting intelligence activities against Poland, and preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Russian intelligence to obstruct delivery of weapons to Ukraine through Poland. In November 2023, Poland arrested an additional sixteen foreigners, accusing them of being part of a network spying on Poland on behalf of Russian secret services. The alleged assignments for this second group included, among other tasks, “monitoring and documenting the passage of transports with military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, or carrying out preparations for the derailment of trains transporting aid to Ukraine.” On August 14, ABW announced the detention of two Russian citizens who had allegedly conducted clandestine activities in Poland on behalf of Russia. The ABW press release stated that the suspects distributed three hundred Wagner recruitment leaflets around Krakow and Warsaw, and they were accused of acting on behalf of a foreign intelligence agency to the detriment of Poland.

Case study: Moldova

In terms of Russian influence, the nation of Moldova is among the most vulnerable. Like Ukraine, it faces territorial issues arising from separatist movements backed militarily and politically by Moscow, and Moldovan President Maia Sandu has expressed open interest to joining a “larger alliance,” but without naming NATO specifically—the type of statement Russia considers provocative.

Since the outset of the war, Moldovan authorities have consistently and strongly denounced Russian aggression in Ukraine, and its relationship with Russia worsened once missiles targeting Ukraine repeatedly entered Moldovan airspace. Russia’s air strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities led to power outages in Moldova and halted the import of electrical energy from Ukraine, which constitutes nearly 30 percent of Moldova’s power consumption.

Blackmail for access to energy provided another source for Russia to pressure Moldova: starting in October 2022, Russia’s state-owned oil company, Gazprom, progressively reduced gas supplies to the country by nearly 50 percent. This decision was primarily aimed at exerting pressure on Moldova’s pro-European government, which had been grappling with widespread social protests triggered by an increase in gas prices. Russia also used this situation to level baseless accusations against Kyiv, claiming that the decrease in gas flows was due to Ukraine’s purported refusal to permit larger gas volumes through the Sochranivka station in the Rostov region, a claim the Ukrainian gas transit operator denied. Gazprom also accused Ukraine of diverting gas meant for Moldova, but Moldovan authorities refuted that claim too, clarifying that the gas volumes referenced by Gazprom as remaining on Ukrainian territory were actually the savings and reserves of the Republic of Moldova stored in warehouses in Ukraine.

Initially cautious about imposing extensive sanctions on Russia due to its energy dependence, Moldova later joined in the international sanctions effort after it diversified its own energy sources. In response, Russia has repeatedly claimed that Moldova lacks full sovereignty over its decisions and acts at the behest of its “Western curators,” a narrative echoed by Moldova’s pro-Russian politicians. Moscow also depicts Moldova as a NATO testing ground for geopolitical confrontation with Russia, warning that it could face a fate similar to Ukraine. By insinuating that Moldova is a potential conflict zone, Russian propaganda seeks to instill fear and cultivate distrust in the Moldovan government among its citizens, thereby diminishing public support for neighboring Ukraine.

Russian actors frequently introduce the idea of potential military intervention in the breakaway region of Transnistria by Moldova, Ukraine, or NATO, a narrative intending to raise tension and delegitimize the governments of Moldova and Ukraine. Previously, the DFRLab reported on the dissemination of alarmist narratives surrounding Transnistria, sowing discord in Moldova and providing a supposed justification for intervention.

In a continuation of the narrative, before and during the European Political Community summit in Moldova (which involved forty-five heads of state), unverified information circulated on Telegram suggesting that Presidents Sandu and Zelenskyy had agreed on a potential Ukrainian military intervention in Transnistria. According to anonymous sources, the supposed interventions were intended to divert the attention of Russian troops and take control of the ammunition depot in the Transnistrian city of Cobasna. Sandu’s office promptly denied the claim.

Moldova has implemented different measures to safeguard its information space from Russian influence and propaganda, including prohibiting the rebroadcasting of Russian news and political talk shows, blocking over fifty Russian-affiliated news websites, suspending licenses for twelve television channels engaged in disinformation, and expelling the director of Russian state news agency Sputnik in Moldova, Vitali Denisov, due to concerns about national security. On December 15, 2023, the Moldovan Parliament adopted a new National Security Strategy, explicitly naming Russia for the first time as an existential threat to Moldova. It marks a significant milestone as the first official public document in the thirty-two years since Moldova gained independence to categorize Russia formally as an adversary.

Case study: Georgia

Following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Georgia increased its trade with Russia while simultaneously joining in international financial sanctions against Russia. Throughout that year, Russian products comprised a growing proportion of the oil and gas sector in the country, allowing economic-related narratives to flourish.

As the country prepares for parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2024, the ruling Georgian Dream party has heightened its rhetoric, amplifying anti-Western conspiracy theories about foreign-instigated coup attempts within the country. Following the start of the war, the ruling party intensified its anti-Western rhetoric and attempted to introduce controversial bills intended to crack down on civil society and independent media.

In May 2023, Russia lifted its ban on Georgian airline flights and abolished visa requirements for Georgian citizens. The Georgian government’s decision to resume flights to Russia drew criticism from the EU and Ukraine, as well as resulting in protests in Georgia. That same month, Tbilisi City Hall procured trucks worth more than four million GEL (approximately US$1,100,000) from the sanctioned Russian company Kamaz. On May 24, during the Qatar Economic Conference, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili stated that the Georgian economy would face collapse if the country were to impose broad economic sanctions on Russia, even though Georgia was already imposing narrower financial sanctions on Russia.

On September 14, 2023, the United States imposed sanctions targeting various sectors of Russia’s economy. The list also included Otar Partskhaladze, a former prosecutor general of Georgia who is part of Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili’s close inner circle. Partskhaladze was sanctioned alongside Aleksandr Onishchenko, an officer in Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). In its sanctions announcement, the US Department of State noted, “Onishchenko and the FSB have leveraged Partskhaladze to influence Georgian society and politics for the benefit of Russia. Partskhaladze has reportedly personally profited from his FSB connection.”

Later that fall, Georgia’s State Security Service (SSSG) claimed, as reported by independent Georgian media outlet Civil.ge, that groups inside and outside of Georgia were “plotting to orchestrate destabilization and civil unrest in the country” with an aim of “forcible overthrow of the government” and “a scenario similar to the ‘Euromaidan’ protests held in Ukraine in 2014.” In a follow-up statement, the SSSG accused USAID of funding a program that brought Serbian trainers to Georgia in order to train local activists in violent tactics to overthrow the country’s government. Later, Russian and Azerbaijani pro-government outlets exploited these accusations to further spread conspiracies blaming the United States for arranging revolutions abroad.

Case study: Armenia

Russia’s relationship with Armenia has deteriorated in recent years, with the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh to neighboring Azerbaijan in late 2023 eventually marking a new low point.

After Armenia’s 2020 war with Azerbaijan, Russia brokered a cease-fire and stationed around 2,000 peacekeepers along the contact lines in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor (which remained the only overland link between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh after the war) for a designated period of five years with an option to extend. With the cease-fire agreement in force, the prospect of declining Russian influence in Armenia seemed low, as it came to depend on Russia.

Azerbaijan’s invasion of Armenian territory in September 2022, however, showcased that Russia and the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) were not fulfilling their obligations. As Russia continued its war against Ukraine, it stopped supplying weapons to Armenia, and Armenia in turn repeatedly refused to participate in CSTO drills, both of which led to a further deterioration of the relationship.

Russian propaganda, meanwhile, unrelentingly blamed the Armenian government for the souring relations. On September 8, 2023, Moscow summoned the Armenian Ambassador to Russia and warned him over what it saw as a series of “unfriendly moves,” including Armenia’s joint military exercises with the United States, a humanitarian visit to Ukraine by the wife of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Armenia’s plans at the time to ratify the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute. Russia also expressed dissatisfaction with Armenia’s detention of a pro-Russian Sputnik columnist and a blogger.

However, on September 19, 2023, under the watch of Russian peacekeepers, Azerbaijan initiated an offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh following a ten-month blockade, ultimately gaining complete control of the disputed territory and committing ethnic cleansing against Armenians.

This event sparked protests in Armenia, which Russia also fueled. In September 2023, the DFRLab analyzed Kremlin narratives and propaganda aimed at deflecting responsibility from its part in the crisis and efforts to portray Pashinyan as the responsible party for the sour relationship with Russia and the war with Azerbaijan. One of those narratives, spread mostly in Russian media and Telegram posts, aimed to portray Pashinyan as a traitor. At the peak of civil turmoil in Armenia, pro-Kremlin Telegram channels exacerbated public anger by disseminating false information and encouraging the overthrow of the government.

Russian propaganda also regularly targeted Armenia with anti-Zelenskyy narratives to boost the pro-Russian claim that both Zelenskyy and Pashinyan are Western puppets. This tactic aimed to exploit Armenian sentiment using Nagorno-Karabakh, drawing unfavorable comparisons between Armenian and Ukrainian leaders to undermine Ukraine. They alleged that Pashinyan had chosen to strengthen his connections with the West at the expense of Armenia’s relationship with Russia.

On October 3, 2023, despite repeated warnings from Russia, Armenia ratified the Rome Statute, which obliges the country to follow ICC rulings and warrants, including an obligation to arrest Putin should he arrive on Armenian soil. Later that month on October 25, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Prime Minister Pashinyan said that he no longer saw any benefits in maintaining Russian military bases in Armenia. The interview came two days after Armenia signed a defense cooperation agreement with France that includes arms sales.

Later that same month, Russian state Channel One aired a program portraying Pashinyan as a Western puppet with mental health issues. The segment, dubbed “Nikol Pashinyan: a harbinger of disaster,” made unfavorable comparisons between Pashinyan, former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and Zelenskyy, reinforcing the narrative that all three are Western puppets. The next day, Armenia delivered a note of protest to the Russian ambassador to Armenia.

Despite worsening political ties, Armenia’s economic ties with Russia deepened, with exports tripling in 2022. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has significantly reinforced its influence on Armenia’s economy. The country’s finance minister, Vahe Hovhannisyan, highlighted that most of the exports to Russia are reexports. Thus, Armenia covers some of the needs of the Russian market that arose as a result of Ukraine-reinvasion related sanctions, by exporting goods from other countries through Armenia.

Armenia heavily relies on Russia for energy; it imported 87.7 percent of its gas in 2022 from Russia. This dependency is essential due to the favorable pricing and its limited self-sufficiency, at 20 percent to 30 percent. Given the lack of alternatives to Russian gas and Armenia’s inability to cover its energy needs locally or through imports from other countries, Russian gas supply and its pricing remain a tool for blackmail. For example, two months after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Armenia agreed to pay for Russian gas in rubles. Armenia was also identified as a potential transshipment point for restricted items to Russia or Belarus, which led to two Armenian companies being sanctioned in 2023.

Case study: Azerbaijan

Two days prior to the February 2022 invasion, Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a new agreement in Moscow, which Aliyev described as elevating the relationship to a new level, that of an alliance. The following day, a pro-government media outlet published a report arguing Russia was not imposing its will on Azerbaijan, despite the timing of the document; on the contrary, the outlet claimed, it instead showed more mutual commitments by Russia and decreased Russian influence in the country.

Following the start of the war, Azerbaijan started to import Russian gas, despite a broader international push to make Russia a pariah in the world of international finance and trade. By 2023, Russia was Azerbaijan’s third biggest trade partner.

But other tensions soon came into play. Azerbaijan has a long-standing, hard-line position regarding breakaway republics based on the principle of territorial integrity; yet when Russia officially recognized the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics, Azerbaijan remained silent. Meanwhile, just a month before the new alliance agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan in 2022, President Aliyev visited Ukraine in January and signed a joint declaration with Ukraine stating the commitment of both nations to supporting their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Since February 2022, Azerbaijan has officially sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine totaling more than US$30 million, in the form of infrastructure, energy, and reconstruction support. Throughout 2023, Russian sources spread claims that Azerbaijan secretly sent military aid to Ukraine; in response, an Azerbaijani pro-government website blamed Armenian and Russian outlets for spreading lies. In December 2023, pro-government media agency Trend published an article debunking the military aid allegations based on a statement from the Media Development Agency (MEDIA), a government agency created by presidential decree that is also being weaponized to clamp down on independent media.

Kremlin-aligned narratives increased significantly after September 2023, when Azerbaijan took full control of Nagorno-Karabakh. That month, Azerbaijan launched a military attack on the region, an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan populated by ethnic Armenians following the war in the 1990s that resulted in the displacement of over half a million Azerbaijanis. Following one day of fighting in September 2023, Azerbaijan claimed full control over the region; over 100,000 ethnic Karabakh Armenians fled the territory, and the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic ceased to exist.

A month later, after Azerbaijan’s attack, a defense cooperation agreement was signed between Armenia and France, and in November, France announced selling military weapons to Armenia. When the actual agreement was announced, Azerbaijani pro-government internet television channel Baku TV broadcasted a program with the headline “Ukraine scenario in Caucasus: What is the West forcing Armenia to do?”—suggesting that the real reason behind Western support to Armenia is to challenge Russia. Other news websites pushed similar narratives with headlines such as “Paris wants to turn Armenia into Ukraine” or “the US’s plan to turn Armenia into the ‘Ukraine of the Caucasus.’ ”

Moreover, Azerbaijani news outlets pushed similar reports based on interviews with Russian political experts. These claims in Azerbaijani media coincide with the same period that the Armenian government started to distance itself from Russia.

Karabakh-related reports by Russian sources were sometimes criticized by pro-government media outlets, however. In 2022, Azerbaijan blocked access to Russian state-owned RIA Novosti due to its interview with Artak Beglaryan, the minister of state of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. According to local fact-checking organization Fakt Yoxla, in May, June, and July of 2023, Azerbaijani media outlets published multiple reports accusing Russia or Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh of allegedly helping the region’s Armenian forces to deploy illegal arms or to create provocations. Just a month later, in August 2022, four Sputnik Azerbaijan workers in Azerbaijan resigned after refusing to publish information from the Russian Defense Ministry about Karabakh, explaining that the request from management was to cover violations of the cease-fire in Nagorno-Karabakh in a way that was “contrary to Azerbaijan’s position.” It was only in October 2022, after state-run Russian First Channel called Nagorno-Karabakh an “independent state,” that Azerbaijani state-owned television channel AZTV first referred to Russia’s war in Ukraine as “Russia’s invasion.”

Azerbaijani state media also used Kremlin narratives domestically to undermine civil society groups within the country. In conjunction with government-aligned media outlets, it exploited Georgia’s accusations that USAID is trying to overthrow the government in Georgia. The DFRLab found that at least fourteen reports were published about USAID with additional narratives accusing the US agency of financing anti-government activities in Azerbaijan. A comparison of the narratives revealed that multiple Azerbaijani outlets used similar or identical text regarding Georgia’s accusation against USAID.

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The post In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In Ukraine, Russia tries to discredit leaders and amplify internal divisions

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

At the beginning of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia expected a swift military operation that would end before Kyiv and its allies could react. But relatively quickly it became clear that its initial plan would not work, forcing Russia to switch to a long-term operational posture that continued a strong emphasis on information operations.

Russia kept its focus on eroding Ukrainian morale and the country’s willingness to fight throughout 2023. The most prevalent themes included narratives discrediting Ukraine’s civilian and military leadership, portrayals of Ukraine as an unreliable partner, messages amplifying internal domestic struggles, and scams targeting Ukrainian civil society and the public at large.

Discrediting Ukrainian leadership

To destroy Ukrainian unity and support for its wartime government, Russians used multiple narratives and tactics, mixing old narratives with new approaches. Russian narratives targeting Ukrainian politicians had previously focused mostly on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but in 2023, they extended to other government officials, military figures, and local authorities.

Russia and pro-Russian actors placed particular emphasis on reports of Ukrainian government corruption. While journalists have documented specific instances of corruption, Russia presented the problem as endemic to the entire Ukrainian leadership. The tactic was simple: convince the domestic Ukrainian audience of its government’s inability to rule the country honestly while simultaneously demonstrating to Ukraine’s allies that investing their own governmental resources in Ukraine would be wasteful.

While investigating these corruption narratives, the DFRLab and BBC Verify jointly uncovered a massive TikTok network disseminating corruption allegations targeting Oleksii Reznikov, the former Ukrainian minister of defense, alongside accusations against mayors, heads of draft commissions, and the Office of the President of Ukraine. While Russian narratives framing Ukraine as corrupt or a failed state are nothing new, the use of TikTok as a propaganda vector took place at an exceptional scale, involving more than 12,800 separate user accounts. As noted in our December 2023 investigation, TikTok attributed it to a Russia-based covert operation and described it as the largest information operation ever uncovered on the platform.

Videos produced for the operation followed a basic pattern, employing AI voice narration in conjunction with images of luxury items such as villas and cars, presented alongside photos of officials and those of suffering Ukrainian citizens. In numerous cases, photos of luxury villas supposedly purchased with absconded funds were sourced from online real estate listings. These videos were then published in at least seven languages by thousands of TikTok accounts, each of which uploaded a single video to the platform.

While the campaign was not extremely sophisticated from a fact-checking perspective, its employment of nearly 13,000 TikTok accounts allowed it to garner hundreds of millions of views on the platform. This exposure ultimately led to dissemination across other platforms; in once instance, a single video received more than five million views across YouTube, Twitter, and BitChute. Other videos propagated across X, including some translated by users of the platform.

While the TikTok campaign targeting Reznikov was the most notable operation involving corruption allegations, others gained traction as well. A narrative claiming that Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska had purchased luxury jewelry during a visit to the United States went viral on X, receiving millions of views even though the story had been widely debunked.

Weapons-trading narrative goes international

In 2022, Russians invested heavily in the narrative alleging that Western weapons donated to Ukraine were being traded on the black market or shared with Russians. It reached a new level of operational sophistication in 2023, however, when Russia hacked Ukrainian media outlets to plant forged documents on their websites, then subsequently delete them; this effort allowed the perpetrators to present archived copies of the planted materials as evidence that Ukrainian media had reported the story then covered it up. This narrative twist subsequently received coverage in both Russian and pro-Russian foreign media.

Elsewhere, pro-Russian social media sources amplified false allegations that Ukraine re-sold Western military aid to drug cartels and terrorist groups. In one instance, they shared a video and claimed it was proof that a cartel had purchased a Western-donated Javelin missile launcher from Ukraine; in a subsequent fact-check, AFP reported that the account that shared the clip had mistranslated a video from a Mexican news outlet so it could accuse Ukraine of selling the system.

A snapshot of the viral video of a Mexican cartel member carrying weapons falsely attributed to Ukrainian origin. Source: @citizenfreepres/archive

The latest push of Russian propaganda in this vein is to promote a story that Ukraine supplied weapons to Hamas, which allegedly used them in its attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. In one instance, Russian sources used screenshots of ammunition to claim without evidence that Ukraine sponsors Hamas; they also circulated a forged BBC video discussing a nonexistent report they attributed to the open-source research organization Bellingcat in a continuation of the 2022 trend of impersonating reputable outlets to convey legitimacy.

Screenshot from an October 2023 Bellingcat tweet denying the veracity of the BBC video. Source: @Bellingcat/archive

Internal conflicts and fear fuel Russian activities

Russia is adroit at exploiting the internal problems of adversaries to their advantage. This holds true in Ukraine as well. While the whole of Ukraine suffers from missile strikes, blackouts, and air raid alerts, the damage caused by the Russian invasion varies greatly by region, with the southern and eastern parts of the country experiencing the heaviest toll. Additionally, those regions historically had a larger percentage of Russian speaking Ukrainians, the legacy of Soviet industrialization and settlement of the region. Russian actors tried to exploit these two factors to foment hostility between regions. Russia used similar tactics in 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and started the war in the Donbas region, and it can be traced back as far as Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election.

In 2023, Russians played up narratives regarding the relative safety of western Ukraine as a point of internal division. For example, the meme song “Fortress Lviv” sarcastically demonstrated the supposed “suffering” of western Ukraine by contrasting images of people living a relatively normal day with claims of being targets of Russian violence. Originating on TikTok, the song was subsequently amplified and republished to other platforms. “Fortress Lviv” is a satiric parody of the song “Fortress Bakhmut,” which celebrates Ukraine’s efforts to defend that city. The Ukrainian government’s Center for Countering Disinformation later claimed that “Fortress Lviv” was a psychological operation of pro-Russian operators.

Russians and pro-Russian actors also amplify harmful and pessimistic content on Telegram and other social platforms, pushing doom-laden predictions for Ukraine’s future, its struggling military counteroffensive, and the abandonment of Ukraine by its allies. While the topics vary, their general purpose is to break Ukraine’s will to resist, reduce humanitarian and military aid from Western partners, and drive tensions within the country. For instance, during blackouts in Fall 2022 and Winter 2023, Russians amplified news of the small gathering of Odesa citizens who had protested the prolonged electricity shortage, attempting to use the instance to foment wider protests. In September 2o23, pro-Russian accounts spread footage from another protest in the city, claiming that people were protesting against President Zelenskyy, even though the protests were actually an attempt to nudge local authorities not to spend budget funds on infrastructure repair but on military supplies.

Attacks on civil society organizations and media

Ukrainian civil society organizations active in countering Russian disinformation also faced numerous attacks. Multiple organizations received suspicious phishing notifications on Facebook from an account called “Meta Service,” which prompted them to perform actions that would lead to them losing access to the account.

Campaigns targeting these organizations evolved over time, returning in waves in a variety of forms. An October 2023 campaign used WhatsApp and Telegram to contact Ukrainians and promised them easy money in exchange for liking specific YouTube and TikTok videos. Effectively a marketing scam, such campaigns can be used to push specific content in order to make it trend, thus giving audiences the perception that it is widely popular or accepted as fact. Additional phishing campaigns also appeared, aiming to take control over more pages. By some estimates, these phishing attempts occur thousands of times per month. And in another instance, hackers took direct control of the Facebook page of the nongovernmental organization Ukrainer without having to resort to phishing.

Meanwhile, inauthentic websites impersonated legitimate Ukrainian media websites and their journalists to promote pro-Russia narratives with a veneer of authenticity; some of these took place under the auspices of a longstanding inauthentic campaign commonly known as Operation Doppelganger. The DFRLab identified multiple instances in which Russians or pro-Russian actors copied the look and internal structure of a legitimate website, hosting them with a similar but altered domain name. Articles on these nearly identical pages usually portrayed Ukraine’s situation as doomed and predicted to fail quickly. The pages attempted to build their audience by sponsoring provocative ads on Facebook and Instagram presenting Ukraine in a negative light, accompanied by a link to a website that then redirected users to one of the fake Ukrainian media pages.

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

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The post In Ukraine, Russia tries to discredit leaders and amplify internal divisions appeared first on Atlantic Council.

After Prigozhin, Russia clamps down online

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

Throughout 2023, Russia continued its various crackdowns to prevent its citizens from being exposed to content the Kremlin perceived as undermining its war efforts. The most significant development occurred during the June 2023 Wagner mutiny, which appeared to come as a complete surprise to the Kremlin. On June 23, Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin declared war on the Russian Ministry of Defense in a post to Telegram, where he and the Wagner Group maintained a robust online presence. Prigozhin publicly touted his actions and aims via the messaging app over the course of several days, including a highly critical June 22 post claiming that Russia had failed to articulate its reasons for the war.

The Russian government struggled to limit the spread of Prigozhin’s messages. It tried to restrict information about Prigozhin on Russian social media and search engines during the crisis, eventually shutting access to websites linked to the Wagner Group. Despite Russian internet regulator Roskomnadzor blocking access to the affected internet resources, the websites continued to publish articles critical of the Ministry of Defense following the revolt, targeting Russian officials such as Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Soon after the failed revolt, Prigozhin dissolved his Patriot Media Group, with independent Russian media reporting that the Kremlin was looking for a new owner for the media assets.

On Telegram, Russian pro-war channels were somewhat divided in their support to the Russian government and Wagner. A DFRLab analysis of pro-war channels found that a majority of them were consistent in their sentiment, regardless of whether they supported or opposed the revolt or tried to foster unity between both sides. In other instances, Telegram channels wavered over who to back or how to react, leaving them more or less adrift until it was clear that Prigozhin’s mutiny had failed.

Russian state-controlled media reacted to the mutiny in two phases, first attempting to discredit Prigozhin, and then shifting to not mentioning him in their news coverage. Kremlin channels showed footage reportedly displaying Russian special forces raiding Prigozhin’s villa and office, discovering piles of cash, weapons, a helicopter, and falsified passports. State media coverage also brought up his criminal history and implied that he was motivated by greed, a distinct change from generally fawning coverage prior to the mutiny; for example, Kremlin propagandists including Vladimir Solovyov previously praised Prigozhin and participated in Wagner recruitment videos.

Erasing Prigozhin

After a period of media coverage discrediting Prigozhin, the Kremlin attempted to erase him from collective memory. According to an examination of Russian TV transcripts by the nonprofit GDELT Project and the New York Times, “Prigozhin virtually disappeared from the airwaves. On most days between July 13 and Aug. 22, his name was not mentioned at all on any of the four leading state-controlled channels.” The same news report noted that following Prigozhin’s death in a plane crash, Russia’s power elite competed over his assets. The assets included the paramilitary group as well as his media empire, including the election-meddling “troll factory” in Saint Petersburg that played a significant role in Russia’s efforts to undermine democratic institutions globally.

Russia also continued to increase its efforts to censor and surveil domestically. For example, Roskomnadzor launched an internet surveillance system called Oculus that reportedly identifies content online that the Kremlin considers undesirable or unfavorable. According to the Russian outlet RIA Novosti, the system “recognizes images and symbols, given scenes and actions, and analyzes text in photos and videos” and detects “extremist themes, calls for massive illegal events, suicide, pro-drug content, LGBT propaganda,” among other topics. A massive Roskomnadzor data leak by the Belarusian activist group Cyberpartisans in November 2022 suggested that the agency was running a project named “Vepr,” which was tasked with determining the true identity of any internet user who is deemed to be spreading false information or engaging in illegal activity. The leak indicated that the agency was censoring anti-war social media posts and using a bot farm to spread official Russian narratives.

Another set of leaks investigated by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty showed that Russia and China had cooperated on censorship and internet control methods.
Roskomnadzor continued to block VPN services in 2023. In May of that year, VPN users received notification of a blockade of the OpenVPN protocol, which some VPN providers use. In July, Putin signed a law mandating that websites offering guidance on how to evade internet blocks in Russia be added to Roskomnadzor’s Unified Register of Prohibited Information, which allows authorities to block websites domestically.

Meanwhile, Russian independent outlet Holod reported that the Kremlin had instructed traditional and online Russian media to stop referring to Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s president. According to Holod, Kremlin officials asked outlets not to mention his official title and to use the phrase “Zelenskyy’s regime” when covering him. In 2022, similar instructions encouraged Russian media to minimize the damage done to the Kerch Bridge and portray the Russian army’s pullback from Kherson in a less negative light.

In the face of mounting casualties and a reluctant populace, the Kremlin also attempted to boost its fighting forces in Ukraine by digitizing conscription and creating an online system to punish individuals who ignore conscription notices sent to their Gosuslugi account, which Russians use to access public services. Authorities now have the right to suspend a person’s driving license and prohibit them from selling private property if they do not show up for service.

Exploiting online influencers

The Russian war in Ukraine has become a significant factor in cultural and political discourse around the world. Russian messaging has successfully leveraged divisions within Western society driven by skepticism, populist movements, isolationist politics, and demands for greater economic sovereignty. In numerous instances, political parties from the far right and far left that typically are on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum have found common cause with Putin’s demands for a peace agreement on terms favorable to Russia.

Along with populist leaders sympathetic to Russia, like Viktor Orban in Hungary, Marine Le Pen in France, and Sahra Wagenknecht in Germany, Russia successfully exploits so-called “useful idiots” in the West—intellectuals and influencers who downplay Russia’s regional ambitions while blaming the West and NATO expansion for causing the war.

Among the various trends throughout 2023 has been the surge in narratives favorable to Russia on X, formerly known as Twitter, which became a notable vector for Russian propaganda in the West following the purchase of the company by Elon Musk and a group of fellow investors. Numerous factors led to this shift, including massive staff reductions in Twitter’s trust and safety team, removal of state media labels for RT and other Kremlin-controlled channels, and an inversion of its “blue checkmark” verification system that now allows anyone to “verify” themselves and receive a checkmark for a monthly fee.

Blue checkmark policy change boosts Russian propaganda on X

X introduced the new system in April 2023. Dubbed X Premium, the program grants paying customers additional privileges such as higher algorithmic visibility and fewer restrictions on the number of tweets posted per day. X stated that the changes were designed to reduce fake news and untrustworthy accounts; in practice, however, researchers have documented numerous instances of X accounts with blue checkmarks amplifying pro-Kremlin narratives about Ukraine, reaching millions of users on the platform.

In one example uncovered by the DFRLab and BBC Verify, X Premium accounts amplified the Russian TikTok campaign accusing former Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov of purchasing luxury goods. On July 18, 2023, a blue checkmark X account named @Resist_05 published a video of a French villa alongside claims that Reznikov had purchased it as a wedding present for his daughter for €7 million. The video garnered over 2.3 million views, 31,000 likes, and 18,000 retweets, despite featuring a fact-checking community note challenging the allegation. The villa narrative spread across X in multiple languages, posted on several occasions by other blue-checkmark accounts.

Screenshots of a blue checkmark account republishing false allegations that a former Ukrainian defense minister had allegedly purchased a villa in Cannes, France, for his daughter. The false allegation first surfaced on Russian TikTok accounts. (Source: @BPartisans/archive)

The DFRLab also identified at least two blue checkmark accounts that disseminated unsupported claims alleging that Latvia and Estonia had launched a large-scale drone attack against Russia, when the attack had originated in Ukraine. On the night of August 29, 2023, several Russian regions including Bryansk, Moscow, Ryazan, Kaluga, and Orlov were struck by drones, with Russian media reporting that Russian defense systems had intercepted most of the drones. The attack destroyed four Russian Il-76 transport aircraft at Pskov International Airport and struck a nearby oil depot.

Narratives subsequently emerged in Russian news outlets and on Telegram pointing fingers at Latvia and Estonia. Pro-Russia Telegram channels disseminated screenshots from Yandex Maps, displaying distances from the alleged launch locations in Estonia and Latvia. X Premium accounts @ElephantCivics and @MyLordBebo shared similar messages with another map graphic, claiming that the drones originated from beyond Lake Peipsi, which straddles the border between Estonia and Russia.

Screenshot of X Premium account @MyLordBebo disseminating unsupported claims that Estonia was to blame for August 2023 drone attacks on Russia. The drone attacks originated from Ukraine. (Source: @MyLordBebo/archive)

The BBC collected additional cases of X accounts with blue badges disseminating false and misleading information about Russia’s war in Ukraine. On June 26, 2023, some X Premium accounts claimed that Russian soldiers had discovered so-called “baby factories” in Ukraine where “young children are grown for child sex brothels and organ harvesting.”

In another example, “US Civil Defense News,” an X account with a blue badge, claimed that Ukrainian fighter jets had accidentally launched a missile attack on Kramatorsk, Ukraine, and hit military barracks housing foreign soldiers and mercenaries. The account claimed that the “casualties are still being counted and will be very hard due to NATO attempts to cover their troops in Ukraine!” In a subsequent thread, the same account shared an image purportedly from leaked Pentagon documents that supposedly confirmed the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine. In reality, a Russian rocket struck a pizza restaurant in Kramatorsk, resulting in the deaths of eleven people, including four children. There is no evidence to support the claim that Ukraine launched the missile, nor is there any indication that it struck military barracks housing NATO troops.

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Ukraine, Russia tries to discredit leaders and amplify internal divisions

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Moscow tried to sow fear among Moldovans, Georgians, and Armenians that what happened to Ukrainians could happen to them.

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Disinformation Internet

The post After Prigozhin, Russia clamps down online appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

More than a decade after the revolutions collectively known as the Arab Spring, several countries in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing democratic backsliding and a return to authoritarian rule, including Egypt under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Libya under General Khalifa Haftar, and Tunisia under President Kais Saied. This trend and some shifts in sentiments about the West in these and other MENA countries have given Russia openings to undercut Western influence in the region and frame Ukraine as a Western puppet, using its state media and public diplomacy to influence opinion.

This is playing out in the context of growing internal polarization in many countries in the region and, among the citizenry, rising disenchantment with the West and democracy as a workable governing system for them. These developments enable Russia to offer an alternative alliance to authoritarian leaders who aim to diversify their country’s resources and reduce reliance on the West and the United States in particular.

Russian state media has had a presence in the Arab World since the 2007 launch of Russia Today Arabic (now just RT Arabic), and its influence expanded with the 2014 start of Sputnik Arabic, which maintains a regional office in Cairo. Today, RT Arabic is one of the region’s top three most-watched news broadcasters after Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera. As reported in the DFRLab’s previous Undermining Ukraine report, Russia signed cooperation agreements with local media in Egypt, Algeria, and Morocco to formalize official cooperation on joint projects and information exchanges.

Some Arabic-speaking media outlets post the exact text of articles published on RT Arabic’s website, allowing for the spread of narratives promoted by state-run Russian media to Arabic speakers. A short RT article from January 13, 2023, pushing claims that Ukrainian soldiers were carrying chemical weapons, was posted verbatim on the news websites of Egypt’s Al-Ahram, Yemen’s Al-Ayyam, and Dubai-based news aggregator Nabd. An August 2023 RT Arabic article repeating Putin’s claim that the ban on Russian media was due to the West’s fear of the truth was also reposted by Yemen’s Al-Ayyam and Emirati newspaper Al Khaleej. An article published in state-aligned Syria’s Al-Watan and Egypt’s Al-Ahram in September quoting State Duma Member Anna Kuznetsova saying that the “Kyiv regime uses the same methods used by the terrorist organization ISIS [Islamic State group] to recruit children” was originally published in RT Arabic.

Screenshots of an article posted on RT Arabic’s website and reposted by three Arabic news websites about a video allegedly showing Ukrainian soldiers carrying chemical weapons. The text of the articles was identical. (Source, left to right: RT Arabic/archive; Al-Ahram/archive; Nabd/archive; Al-Ayyam/archive)

By cooperating with local media, Russia is able to spread its propaganda to a broader audience in the Arab world. The narratives amplified by Russian state media and local media partners are framed in a way that appeals to audiences in the region and their complicated history with the West. In line with authoritarian Arab leaders’ statements about the West’s interest in their countries, local media amplify narratives suggesting that the West attempts to demonize Russia in order to maintain Arab nations’ reliance on the West. Additionally, narratives about Zelenskyy being a puppet of the West and Putin standing up to them appeal to many in the Arab populations who viewed their former authoritarian leaders as puppets supported by the West at their own expense. Moreover, regional audiences point to Western hypocrisy in considering Russia’s war in Ukraine with a different lens than the US invasion of Iraq or Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

As Western states imposed a ban on RT and Sputnik and blocked their YouTube channels to minimize the impact of their propaganda, Russian media was further emboldened in the region as it became increasingly considered an alternative source of information after decades of Western influence in their countries . While there is some sympathy expressed online among Arabic speakers for the Ukrainian people, there is also support for Russia and Putin expressed by media and individuals, resulting from internal polarization and disenchantment with democracy and the West.

Russian media and its social media accounts capitalize on such resentment toward Western countries to gain support for Russia in the region. The X accounts of Sputnik and RT Arabic produce more content than BBC Arabic and Al Jazeera, regularly posting content that appeals to Arab audiences. For instance, on June 29, 2023, one day after an incident of Quran burning in Sweden, the three X accounts posted similar videos showing Putin holding the Quran during a visit to a mosque in the city of Derbent, Russia, while criticizing Western countries like Sweden for allowing the burning of the holy book.

Screenshots of similar posts from Russian state media accounts on X showing a video of Putin holding a copy of the Quran and criticizing Western countries for allowing incidents such as the burning. (Source: @RTonline_ar/archive, left; @RTarabic/archive, center; @sputnik_ar/archive, right)

Arabic-speaking journalists and influencers promoting pro-Russia narratives

X also serves as a major social media platform for several Arabic-speaking Russian state media personalities as well as unaffiliated online influencers. Many of these accounts with large followings consistently post news content aligned with the Kremlin’s preferred narratives. There are differences between the two groups, however, as affiliated journalists openly state their ties to Russian media and use their real identities, while influencer accounts appear to more frequently use stolen images and show signs of coordinated posting and engagement.

The DFRLab identified and analyzed thirty accounts of influencers and self-proclaimed journalists boasting large follower counts and posting Arabic content, mostly in the form of news updates. These accounts often promoted similar pro-Russia, anti-Western messaging and celebrated partnerships between Russia and Arab nations. Specifically, the accounts created content that would resonate more with an Arab audience and sometimes expand on regional resentment toward Western countries, accusing them of double standards following their pro-Ukraine narratives.

An analysis of the accounts revealed several suspicious indicators, including similarities in how they present themselves and the content they post. The bios of twenty-three of thirty accounts highlighted interest in Russian news, Russia-Ukraine news, or general political and war news. Many of the accounts often published similar posts on the same day or within a short window. One example showed accounts attempting to attract interest from Arab and Muslim users after Russian general Sergei Surovikin visited Algeria, with six accounts using very similar text and the same photo of Surovikin reading the Quran in an Algerian mosque, all published within a two-hour period on September 15, 2023.

Screenshots of similar X posts from six accounts showing Russian General Sergei Surovikin reading from the Quran during a visit to Algeria. The posts use the same (or highly similar) text and an identical (or nearly identical) photo. (Source, left to right, top to bottom: @id7p_/archive; @Su_35m/archive; @russiatt/archive; @Russianowarabic/archive; @russiaArb4/archive; @hadath1990/archive)

These X accounts routinely promoted disinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine war as well. In one example, on October 4, 2023, three accounts used identical or nearly identical text falsely claiming that Zelenskyy was attempting to recruit Islamic State fighters held in Iraqi and Syrian prisons to join the Ukrainian army in its fight against Russia.

Screenshots showing identical or almost identical textual content posted by three X accounts falsely claiming that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was trying to recruit Islamic State group prisoners to fight against Russia. The image in the tweet at left reuses a popular meme, inserting Zelenskyy’s face over the original. (Source: @Su_3m/archive, left; @mog_Russ/archive, top right; @alhaarb99/archive, bottom right)

The DFRLab also noticed some degree of coordination between some of the accounts, such as liking, retweeting, and replying to each other’s tweets. For instance, reviewing @russiaArb4’s post engagement revealed many retweets from the same three accounts. Moreover, some of the accounts created posts to promote other accounts and asked users to follow them.

Several of the identified accounts appeared focus on retweeting other accounts, alongside retweeting specific and possibly new Arabic media accounts. This apparent coordination around retweeting could be seen in the almost identical timelines with the same set of retweets between accounts.

Screenshots showing three different X accounts with similar timelines after retweeting the same posts by @AlarabBlog. (Source: @ISTRATIJI/archive, left; @russiatt/archive, center; @Russian__media/archive, right)

Furthermore, five accounts that claimed to be either media figures or Russian citizens living in Russia or somewhere else had additional suspicious indicators. According to monitoring tool Twitter ID Finder, four of these accounts were created in October 2022: three on October 20—two of them just twenty minutes apart—and one on October 28. A reverse image search also confirmed that four of these accounts reappropriated publicly available images of attractive women as their avatars. This tactic appears to be similar to one previously used by a set of pro-Russia accounts, as documented by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, in an attempt to target Arab male users to follow and engage with them.

Russian public diplomacy in the region

As in Latin America, Russia uses the social media presence of its diplomatic missions in the Middle East and North Africa to promote its preferred narratives about the war in Ukraine. Most of the diplomatic missions post updates to their official Facebook and X accounts at varying frequencies, focusing on diplomatic affairs with the host country. Most repost content from other diplomatic missions and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s English, Russian, and Arabic X accounts about international affairs and the war in Ukraine, routinely posting falsehoods and exaggerations about the war. These include describing the war as a “special military operation” or fighting Nazis in Ukraine.

Screenshot from a tweet by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as reposted by its diplomatic mission in Tunisia, claiming that Russia is in Ukraine to fight against Nazis. (Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, X tweet, @mfa_russia/archive, October 20, 2023)

The X and Facebook accounts of Russia’s diplomatic mission in Egypt post regular international affairs updates. The accounts posted regularly about Ukraine throughout 2023 with the hashtag #الحق_مع_روسيا (“Russia is right”). Among its posts, Russia’s embassy in Egypt posted statements to Facebook about “Ukrainian Nazis” allegedly firing missiles at a hospital in Pervomaisk, Ukraine, using US-provided High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) missiles. Economic and military ties between Russia and Egypt have strengthened in recent years, especially as the latter’s government seeks to reduce its dependence on the United States, which provides Egypt with $1.3 million in annual military assistance. Egypt currently imports the majority of its wheat from Russia and has been working with Russia to construct a Russian-built nuclear plant since 2022.

The increased cooperation and aligning of economic and military priorities between the governments of Egypt and Russia allows the latter to be more aggressive in promoting its narratives to Egyptian audiences through its official channels and getting positive engagement with social media users. The embassy’s messaging about the war in Ukraine sometimes plays on anti-Western sentiment among some audiences.

On February 24, 2023—the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine—the Russian embassy in Egypt tweeted a statement from the ambassador expressing gratitude to Egypt for “fully understanding the reasons for the confrontation over Ukraine and for supporting Russia despite the torrents of lies about our actions launched by the West.”

In September of that year, the embassy posted about a US announcement that Russia characterized as providing tanks to “Ukrainian Nazis” and depleted uranium shells to “expose our land to radioactive pollution. Exactly what they did in Iraq.” Russian diplomatic missions reference the Iraq War as part of its strategy to capitalize on anti-Western sentiment fueled by lingering distrust of the United States.

Diplomatic missions also capitalize on holidays and other public events by posting statements promoting Russian narratives. For example, the Russian embassy in Egypt evoked its fight against “Nazis” in Ukraine in a tweet on Defenders of the Homeland Day, then repeated the same rhetoric in another tweet on Russia’s Victory Day.

The Russian embassy in Algeria posted a statement from its ambassador on the occasion of Russia Diplomats’ Day, suggesting that the West was engaging in an “open anti-Russia campaign,” adding, “In a time like now when we witness tremendous pressure on Russia by the so-called ‘collective West,’ it becomes clear who our real friends are.” The ambassador also posted on Russia’s Victory Day, saying that “our great Homeland will win this time, will once again rid the world of fascism and Nazism.”

In other posts, Russian diplomatic missions in the region promoted narratives related to specific incidents of concern to Muslim audiences, such as a post from the Russian Embassy in Egypt showing a picture of a praying hand and a copy of the Quran with a tweet condemning the alleged burning of the Quran by Ukrainian soldiers. The post stated that the soldiers did so, knowing there are Muslims fighting in the Russian army, referring to a video that appears to show Ukrainian soldiers burning copies of the Quran.

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Moscow tried to sow fear among Moldovans, Georgians, and Armenians that what happened to Ukrainians could happen to them.

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

Two-pronged approach to Africa pays dividends for Russia

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

In the African countries with which Russia has longstanding ties, diplomats lead the way. Elsewhere on the continent, Wagner Group fighters are Moscow’s more active representatives. Both official and covert approaches exploit local grievances to push Russia’s narrative.

Africa Disinformation

The post Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

All chapters

As the full-scale war in Ukraine enters its third year, Russia has doubled down on its worldwide efforts to undermine Kyiv’s international standing in an attempt to erode Western support and domestic Ukrainian morale. Years of close monitoring of not only state-sponsored media such as Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, but also Russian activity on Telegram, TikTok, X, and other social platforms, points to one conclusion: In the propaganda war, Russia remains fully committed to conducting information operations around the globe, playing the long game to outlast any unity among Ukraine’s allies and persist until Ukraine loses its will to fight.

Western sanctions applied in the wake of the initial invasion disrupted Russia’s ability to reach some European audiences with its state-sponsored media outlets. But Russia has since adjusted its information operations to focus more on social media; in addition to attacking Western public support to fund Ukraine’s defense, it has expanded targeted propaganda efforts in different parts of the world, including Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East.

And Western support for Ukraine is indeed wobbling, most notably in Washington, where additional aid to Ukraine has been held up for months in Congress. Many factors influence voters’ and lawmakers’ support for sending weapons and money to Ukraine. Whether or not Russian propaganda has played a decisive role, the outcome of decreasing Western material support for Ukraine’s defense is the clear goal of President Vladimir Putin’s information war. And with recent battlefield wins such as the capture of the city of Avdiivka alongside propaganda wins such as the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s position at home and abroad is stronger than ever.

Russia has actively employed information operations to undermine Ukraine since at least 2014, as Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) researchers around the world have documented in detail through their ongoing monitoring efforts. In the lead-up to the February 2022 invasion, Russia employed disinformation in the form of narrative warfare to justify military action, mask its planning, and deny any responsibility for the war. And as the DFRLab detailed in its landmark February 2023 report, Undermining Ukraine: How the Kremlin employs information operations to erode global confidence in Ukraine, Russia’s information strategy began to shift following the 2022 invasion, focusing on eroding Ukraine’s ability to resist. In this follow-up to the first edition of Undermining Ukraine, we explore how Russia further entrenched these efforts throughout 2023, developing new messages and techniques while recommitting to ones that continue to prove effective.

Russian tactics in 2023

In the second year of its war, faced with international sanctions, a damaged reputation, and the ban of state-sponsored RT and Sputnik in many Western countries, Russia shifted toward more targeted and tailored influence operations, using TikTok, Telegram, and other social platforms to expand its international audience—especially in the Global South, where Russian state media are still big players. Russia also deepened its cooperation in the media and information spheres with sympathetic countries.

Throughout 2023, Russia relied on its rich toolbox for conducting information operations, including employing coordinated inauthentic networks on social media platforms, exploiting regional grievances with the West, hacking, and forging documents, among other tactics. Russia propagated a combination of old and new narratives to undermine Ukraine domestically and internationally, aiming to discredit its reputation with Western partners and neighboring countries. Additionally, Russia has continued to tighten its control over its domestic information space, spread false and misleading narratives to weaken Ukrainian resolve, and present its ongoing case for war via RT and Sputnik, adjusting its messaging to cater to regional audiences, particularly in Latin America and Africa. Russia has also doubled down on eroding cohesion within Ukrainian society.

What do those information operations look like in practice—and how have they affected the targeted countries? Drawing on the long experience and global reach of the DFRLab research team, this report breaks down Russia’s propaganda operations since the start of the full-scale war two years ago, region by region. The case studies that follow shine a light on pro-Kremlin propaganda activities in their various forms, shapes, and approaches.

In Ukraine, Russia over the past year sought to erode the country’s will to resist and sow internal discord by discrediting both the civilian and military leadership. This involved portraying Ukraine as an unreliable ally, amplifying internal conflicts, and launching scam attacks on civil society and ordinary users. For example, the Kremlin’s propaganda apparatus established the largest known influence operation on TikTok to disseminate rumors about Ukrainian political corruption.

Internally, Russia also directed its efforts toward controlling domestic audiences, primarily focusing on restricting access to information. Incidents such as the June 2023 Wagner mutiny created a quandary for the Kremlin regarding its tolerance of Telegram, which effectively served as a digital home base for Yevgeny Prigozhin and his fellow mutineers. Ongoing domestic censorship and surveillance measures also persisted, including legislation to curtail virtual private networks (VPNs) used to circumvent online restrictions. Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, the state telecommunications regulator commonly known as Roskomnadzor, also rolled out an internet surveillance system known as Oculus designed to detect content that the Kremlin considers undesirable.

In Europe, Russia disseminated recurring claims asserting that Ukraine sold Western weapons for profit on the international black market, in an attempt to undermine European support for Ukraine. Russia also persisted in promoting the narrative that European Union member states would face hardship during the winter without access to Russian gas, unleashing an extensive online information influence campaign comprised of more than fifty fake websites impersonating reputable European media outlets.

Russian operations were not limited to European countries assisting Ukraine with arms and financial support. DFRLab researchers observed targeted messaging tactics in the South Caucasus and Moldova seemingly with the dual aim of undermining support for Ukraine while dividing societies from within and gaining local influence. For instance, pro-Russian actors capitalized on existing criticisms of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after neighboring Azerbaijan conquered the Armenian ethnic enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh; Kremlin officials, propagandists, and influencers on Telegram fueled anti-government sentiment and called for the overthrow of Pashinyan and his government. In Azerbaijan, the Kremlin capitalized on Russian-language influence through academia, exchange courses, and universities while exploiting the country’s lack of independent media outlets. In Georgia, the Georgian Dream-led government expanded its relationship with Russia both politically and economically following the February 2022 invasion, exploiting popular fears of the war escalating into Georgia to further cement the government’s pro-Russia stance. And in Moldova, Russia engaged in energy blackmail and warmongering by amplifying the false narrative that Moldova, Ukraine, or NATO was planning a military intervention in the Russian-backed breakaway region of Transnistria.

In the Middle East and North Africa, Russian influence operations rely on its RT and Sputnik media empire and local amplifiers of pro-Kremlin messages and broad anti-West, anti-colonialist sentiments. Russia employs a dual strategy in Africa: an official dimension involving trade, investment, diplomacy, public outreach, defense agreements, and engagements with international organizations, alongside an unofficial and covert aspect using hybrid tools, tactics, and clandestine arms-for-resources trade.

In Latin America, RT and Sputnik serve as conduits for Russian communications, complemented by Russian ambassadors and unaffiliated journalists disseminating pro-Russia propaganda.

While some proclaimed Ukraine the winner of the information war in 2022, it was never that simple, especially in a global context; it is also far from over. If these global case studies make anything clear, it’s that the Kremlin and its supporters are still attempting to shatter Ukraine’s global standing, playing the long game by targeting countries around the world with disinformation and influence campaigns designed to decrease public support and allies’ willingness to send aid.

Russia has a long history of information and influence operations worldwide, making it a formidable opponent constantly seeking to exploit weaknesses or problems within enemy societies. Similarly, Russia abuses the idea of “neutral” media to serve its disinformation alongside reporting of real events, all with an intention to leave viewers with the impression that both versions of events have merit.

By February 2022—if not earlier—the Western world recognized that RT and Sputnik are instruments of Russian propaganda rather than legitimate media sources. However, those media are still popular and influential in parts of Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Moreover, even in the European Union, where those channels are technically blocked, RT circumvents limitations and continues poisoning the media space via smaller mirror sites, effectively “spitting” on Western sanctions. Some channels feature Russian propagandistic content translated into local languages. At the same time, Russia continues using its embassies and diplomats as an extension of its propaganda apparatus, promoting false information, false fact-checking, and conspiracies worldwide. Russia also uses diplomatic events, such as the Russia-Africa Summit, to spread its messages at a more region-specific level.

Russian information and influence operations inside Ukraine and abroad will likely continue to evolve, finding new rifts within societies to deepen and novel approaches to employ. On top of this, 2024 is an election year in dozens of countries where Russia may try to meddle in an effort to push support toward its allies or, at minimum, away from pro-Ukrainian parties. In the least friendly countries, Russia will likely continue to push the idea—through more covert means—that aid to Ukraine is a net loss to those residing in those countries.

Indeed, Russian efforts to date have achieved partial results, like delays in the delivery of military equipment, but they have not stopped Ukraine’s ability to fight back. Ukraine is active in its efforts to counter Russian influence, allotting significant resources to monitoring and pushing back against Russian information operations, and its successes to date might provide the world with some insight into how to counter malign influence.

Given the extent of Russia’s operations and its apparent desire to move global opinion against Ukraine, as detailed in this report, governments around the world—especially those espousing democratic values—need to consider the potential impact of their decisions around Ukraine as also ultimately being global. More assistance and aid to Ukraine will bolster global democracy, while a reduction in the same will undermine not just Ukraine but democracy as a whole.

Russia’s global information war on Ukraine is evolving, and it’s here for the long haul. Check out all six chapters of DFRLab’s report on how Moscow sought to undermine Ukraine in the second year of its full-scale war.

Issue Brief

In Ukraine, Russia tries to discredit leaders and amplify internal divisions

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief

After Prigozhin, Russia clamps down online

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Russia rolled out a new internet surveillance system in 2023 to crack down domestically on anti-war content, while pushing false narratives to undermine Ukraine at home and abroad.

Civil Society Disinformation

Issue Brief

In Europe and the South Caucasus, the Kremlin leans on energy blackmail and scare tactics

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Moscow tried to sow fear among Moldovans, Georgians, and Armenians that what happened to Ukrainians could happen to them.

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief

In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Disinformation Internet

Issue Brief

Two-pronged approach to Africa pays dividends for Russia

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Africa Disinformation

Issue Brief

Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Across the Arabic-speaking world, the narratives amplified by Russian state media and local media partners are framed in a way that appeals to audiences in the region and their complicated history with the West.

Democratic Transitions Disinformation

Research coordinated by Sopo Gelava and Roman Osadchuk

Written by Eto Buziashvili, Mattia Caniglia, Valentin Châtelet, Beatriz Farrugia, Sopo Gelava, Givi Gigitashvili, Tessa Knight, Ani Mejlumyan, Victoria Olari, Roman Osadchuk, Jean le Roux, Esteban Ponce de León, Iria Puyosa, Dina Sadek, and Daniel Suárez Pérez

Additional research by Nika Aleksejeva

Edited by Andy Carvin and Iain Robertson

Report Feb 22, 2023

Undermining Ukraine

By Roman Osadchuk, Andy Carvin

From the very start of the war, the Kremlin emphasized demoralizing Ukrainian audiences and destroying their will to fight. Building on daily monitoring of the Kremlin media ecosystem, this report analyzes Russia’s attempts to undermine Ukraine by targeting local, regional, and global audiences since February 2022.

Disinformation Russia

Report Feb 22, 2023

Narrative warfare

By Nika Aleksejeva, Andy Carvin

In the weeks and months leading up to Russia invading Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin media employed false and misleading narratives to justify military action against Ukraine, mask the Kremlin’s operational planning, and deny any responsibility for the coming war. Dive into a full accounting of the road to war.

Disinformation Russia

The post Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023 appeared first on Atlantic Council.

In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

Russia deploys various strategies to communicate its narratives and advance its interests in Latin America. State media outlets RT and Sputnik continue to be the centerpieces of Russian communications in the region. Further, Russia is using more targeted communications tailored to topics that raise more interest in each country. In this strategy, ambassadors play a role by becoming legitimized spokespersons in national media and placing their op-eds in these spaces, which enables them to articulate the Kremlin’s narratives to Latin American audiences. Likewise, the Kremlin benefits from journalists and influencers who, although not officially affiliated with Russian media, serve as disseminators of pro-Russia propaganda. The DFRLab team analyzed how these strategies played in the Latin American information space during 2022 and 2023, supporting Russian narratives concerning its war against Ukraine, as well as other topics critical for Russia’s geopolitical goals.

Russian public diplomacy efforts

In 2023, the DFRLab examined public communications of Russian embassies in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba, and Nicaragua from January 1 to October 31 of that year. Russian ambassadors frequently gave media interviews to national media outlets, which sometimes published op-eds by the ambassadors. The topics addressed by the Russian ambassadors would often vary, focusing on what is most relevant to each country and combining variations of its narratives.

The war in Ukraine was the dominant topic in Brazil, where the Russian ambassador referred to the denazification of Ukraine in 176 statements, while referring to other issues in fewer than seventy statements. During the period of our analysis, Russian diplomats in the nine Spanish-speaking countries often referred to the Ukraine war, but it was the most commonly addressed topic only in Chile and Argentina. Nineteen out of thirty-eight statements by Russian diplomats in Chile referred to the war, often portraying Ukraine as the aggressor and responsible for war crimes. And in Argentina, seventeen out of sixty-six statements referred to Ukraine as a Nazi state and to the war as a denazification operation. In the rest of the region, Russian diplomats focused more frequently on other topics that resonate with local issues, such as US imperialism, sanctions, the rise of the multipolar world, and economic matters.

Summary of the most common narratives and topics present in the communications from Russian ambassadors in nine selected Spanish-speaking Latin America countries. The numbers in parentheses represent the number of mentions during the period of analysis, January 1 to October 31, 2023. (Source: Iria Puyosa/DFRLab)

In Argentina, the dominant Russian narrative was that the “special military operation” aimed to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine, which was framed as a Russophobic and corrupt country. Ambassador to Argentina Dmitry Feoktistov has been interviewed by Argentinian newswire Telam, a government-owned entity under the control of the Ministry of Public Communication, whose content is reproduced by numerous Argentine public and private media outlets. Feoktistov highlighted the importance of the multipolar world, Russia’s support for Argentina’s accession to BRICS (the intergovernmental bloc involving Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), and the common fight against colonialism, pointing specifically to “the Malvinas War,” commonly known as the Falklands War in English-speaking countries, itself a heritage of colonialism and thus an Argentine cultural touch point. The embassy constantly emphasized Russia’s solidarity with Argentina, referring in particular to its efforts supplying the country with the Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19.

Brazilian news websites and blogs published 176 articles quoting the Russian ambassador, Alexey Labetskiy, between January 1, 2023, and October 23, 2023, according to a query conducted using Meltwater Explore, a news and social media monitoring tool. During his media engagements, Labetskiy maintained the Kremlin narrative that the invasion of Ukraine was a special operation to denazify the country. In a September 2023 interview published by the online version of the newspaper O Globo, Labetskiy accused Ukraine of neo-Nazism; five other digital outlets in Brazil also republished the interview. In the interview, the ambassador also emphasized Russia’s role as a strategic partner for Brazil to achieve its goal of obtaining a leadership role on the international stage and becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

List of Brazilian online news outlets that quoted the Russian ambassador between January 1 and October 23, 2023. (Source: Beatriz Farrugia/DFRLab via Meltwater Explore)

In Chile, the predominant Russian narratives were that Ukraine was the original aggressor and that Russia was defending itself and fighting the resurgence of Nazism. Op-eds by Russian Ambassador to Chile Sergei Koshkin are regularly published by the left-wing digital outlet Crónica Digital. In his op-eds and interviews, Koshkin maintains that international media is plagued with “fake news” about the war, alleging that Russia is blamed for crimes perpetrated by Ukraine in Mariupol and Bucha. Other topics frequently addressed by the Russian ambassador are economic opportunities in Russia-Chile relations, the rise of the multipolar world, and the struggle against colonialism.

Meanwhile, the Russian Ambassador to Mexico Nikolay Sofinskiy maintained that the conflict in Ukraine originated from NATO aggression and that the Kremlin’s “special military operation” is intended to protect the Russian-speaking population from extermination while demilitarizing and denazifying Ukraine. According to his version, Russia reacted to the imposition of a colony controlled by Washington. In an op-ed published by influential left-wing daily La Jornada, Ambassador Sofinskiy alleged that the United States and its allies use Ukraine for the profiteering of the US military-industrial complex.

In his statements to Colombian media, Russian Ambassador to Colombia Nikolay Tavdumadze has expressed satisfaction with the “balanced” position of Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his decision to not send military equipment to Ukraine. In contrast, Tavdumadze has repeatedly complained that Colombian media coverage reflects the biased version of Western newswires and ignores reports from RT, Sputnik, and his embassy. Despite the complaints, Tavdumadze has been interviewed several times by prominent Colombian media outlets and had an op-ed appear in El Tiempo, the most influential newspaper in the country. In that op-ed, he contended that sanctions against Russia restrict food production in his country and affect global food security, while the maritime corridor initiative for exporting Ukrainian grain only benefited Western Europe without considering the needs of the poorest countries in Africa.

Finally, Russian Ambassador to Ecuador Vladimir Sprinchan frequently referred to the war in Ukraine indirectly, focusing instead on Ecuador’s economic interests. Sprinchan, however, highlighted how sanctions on Russia affect international trade and food security, and how former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso’s position condemning the invasion negatively affected Ecuador’s agribusiness interests. Sprinchan’s communications during 2023 also included an op-ed in which he denied accusations of Ukrainian children being abducted to Russia, a war crime, and instead presented the version that the children had been evacuated from the war zone for their own protection.

The role of RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo

As the Kremlin deploys its global media apparatus to shape regional narratives around the war, understanding how its Spanish-language outlets target Latin American audiences becomes crucial. With millions of readers and followers on social media across the region, RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo have played an important role in disseminating pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Spanish-speaking countries.

This analysis examines how the two state media outlets have covered the conflict, focusing on content published by the two outlets from January 2022 through August 2023. To conduct this analysis, the DFRLab gathered and analyzed news articles from RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo containing the keyword “Ucrania” (“Ukraine” in Spanish) to examine recurrent topics and narratives. According to data collection using the news monitoring platform Event Registry, these outlets published more than 6,100 articles on Ukraine during the first eight months of 2022, with the largest spikes occurring in tandem with the overall news cycle. During this period, RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo’s news articles on Ukraine centered on the ongoing conflict, frequently referring to the invasion as a “special military operation.” An analysis of the articles that received the most Facebook interactions revealed dominant narratives justifying Russia’s military actions, including alleged Ukrainian aggression, NATO expansionism, and the goal of “denazifying” Ukraine. Additionally, many articles emphasized other topics such as sanctions, energy infrastructure, weapons flows, and political issues, including actions taken by social media platforms to ban Russian state-backed media.

Line graph showing the number of news articles on Ukraine published by RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo between January 1 and August 31, 2022. Highlighted topics near peaks indicate the subjects of articles from these outlets that garnered the most Facebook interactions. (Source: @estebanpdl)

Between January 1, 2023 and August 31, 2023, RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo published over 6,300 articles related to the war in Ukraine, a 200-article increase over the previous time period in 2022. The two outlets maintained their overwhelmingly pro-Russian coverage of the war, with the most frequent narratives emphasizing alleged Ukrainian aggression, criticism of military aid to Ukraine, and the impacts of Western sanctions on Russia. Unlike 2022, when significant spikes in coverage emerged around key news events, the 2023 distribution revealed a more consistent stream of articles, typically with a daily range of between twenty to fifty published articles.

Line graph showing the number of news articles on Ukraine published by RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo between January 1 and August 31, 2023. The graph features less dramatic spikes in coverage, indicating a more consistent approach to reporting on the conflict (and thus a more consistent approach in trying to shape the narratives in Latin America about the war). (Source: @estebanpdl)

Using named entity recognition, a natural-language processing methodology used to identify and classify names of people, organizations, and locations, the DFRLab identified the most frequently mentioned names in relation to the articles that received the most engagement.

According to this analysis, the outlets placed greater emphasis on narratives criticizing Western military assistance to Ukraine in 2023, while also highlighting geopolitical themes around the “new world order,” NATO strategy, and alleged biological weapons. These narratives persisted throughout the eight-month period.

Screenshot of a network graph, created using Gephi software, showing the relationships between entities and topics discussed in news articles published by RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo between January 1 and August 31, 2023. Each circle (“node”) represents a topic discussed in the articles, while the lines (“edges”) represent connections between topics, such as both connected topics being mentioned in the same article. Spanish language versions of proper nouns are shown. (Source: @estebanpdl via Gephi)

Building on these network patterns, a detailed review of 2023 articles showed the proliferation of disinformation narratives, like reinforcing the “proxy war” portrayal of the conflict as NATO waging war against Russia through Ukraine. The topic of supplying arms to Ukraine remained a steady media focus. Allegations also abounded regarding supposed US-backed biolabs in Ukraine and around the alleged presence of uranium and biological weapons. Additionally, the outlets persistently promoted anti-NATO rhetoric, criticizing the treaty organization’s military support for Ukraine.

Graph showing the main topics related to Ukraine as covered by RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo between January 1 and August 31, 2023. Each topic is represented by horizontal lines with data points indicating the dates of publication. The graph highlights various discussed topics. In orange are narratives about support for Ukraine; in red, narratives concerning weapons, including biolabs; and, in blue, narratives related to NATO. (Source: @estebanpdl)

An examination of Facebook engagement data on RT en Español and Sputnik Mundo’s Ukraine articles showed a significant decrease in 2023. On high-volume publication days in 2022, stories on Ukraine garnered nearly 560,000 likes, reactions, and shares. In contrast, Facebook engagement dropped substantially in 2023, with articles receiving only around 18,136 interactions on peak publication days. While more research is needed, this substantial decline may reflect shifting audience interests and interaction patterns on Facebook rather than a loss of readership.

Sputnik Brazil and its impact on Brazilian websites and social media accounts

Sputnik Brazil was the main Russian media outlet operative in Brazil in 2023, as RT did not have a Portuguese version available at the time of the report. However, Sputnik Brazil’s operations changed over the year.

On March 18, 2023, Brazilian journalist Juliana Dal Piva reported on news website UOL that Sputnik Brazil had closed its office in the country, dismissing around twenty media professionals. The reason for the closure, according to Dal Piva, was the challenge Sputnik faced in processing bank transactions and paying local employees following Russia’s postinvasion ban from the SWIFT banking system. That same month, Brazilian journalist Carlos Madeiro reported that the Sputnik Brazil website had been the target of cyberattacks.

Four months later, the Sputnik Brazil website, which used to be hosted as a subdomain at https://br.sputniknews.com, changed to a new address, https://sputniknewsbr.com.br. Using a WHOIS search to review domain name registration information, the DFRLab found that the new address was created on July 8, 2023.

Screenshot of a WHOIS query showing details of the newer Sputniknewsbr.com.br domain. (Source: Beatriz Farrugia/DFRLab via WHOIS)

The DFRLab conducted a content analysis on articles mentioning the keyword “Ucrânia” (“Ukraine” in Portuguese) published by the website sputniknewsbr.com.br between August 1, 2023, and October 24, 2023, to identify the most frequent narratives spread by the outlet. The research resulted in 484 articles, according to data from Meltwater Explore.

Narratives promoting Russian military capacity were the most frequent topic covered by Sputnik Brazil within the entire period analyzed. In total, 127 pieces boasted about the skill and acumen of Russian forces and their military equipment, while an additional thirty-one articles labeled the Ukrainian forces as inefficient and unprepared for combat. Examples of this narrative also included criticism of the quality of military equipment provided by Western countries, the Ukrainian forces’ lack of skills in operating it, and Russia’s superiority in terms of strategy and military arsenal.

Another narrative frequently spread by Sputnik Brazil during the period analyzed was the possibility of Ukraine losing financial and military support, especially from the United States and EU. In total, there were seventy-eight pieces mentioning this topic. One of these articles received more engagement than any other articles about Ukraine, potentially reaching 691,000 people.

The piece, published on September 26, 2023, stated that the West was unsure about its support for Ukraine. It also highlighted how alleged Ukrainian government corruption had affected the chances of the country being successful in its counteroffensive against Russia, and how military equipment received from third parties had not improved the Ukrainian response to the invasion.

Screenshot of the Sputnik Brazil article that generated the most engagement between August 1, 2023 and October 24, 2023, with approximately 700,000 views, according to a Meltwater Explore query. (Source: Sputnik Brasil/archive)

Sputnik’s reach, however, went beyond its own website, as local media outlets in Brazil amplified the Russian outlets’ narratives throughout 2023. The DFRLab found 5,610 reposted articles both on Brazilian news websites and social media platforms between January 1, 2023, and October 30, 2023.

The website Brasil247 reposted the most content from Sputnik and quoted the Kremlin most frequently, with 645 mentions over the period. Created in 2011 by Brazilian journalist Leonardo Attuch, Brasil247 is aligned with left-wing parties, especially the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores), of which President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is a member. A search using website analysis tool SimilarWeb estimated the average monthly audience of Brasil247 to be around 9.7 million, though that number does not account for multiple visits by the same person.

Screenshot of a Meltwater Explore query showing the number of mentions of “Ukraine” and “Sputnik” together by Brazilian media outlets in 2023, with Brasil247 being the most prolific at just under 650 mentions. Investing.com Brazil was second highest, but its total was under one hundred. (Source: Beatriz Farrugia/DFRLab via Meltwater Explore)

Former RT journalists and other actors amplifying disinformation narratives

Politicians, media outlets, journalists, and organizations based in Spain and Latin America have hosted former journalists from Sputnik or RT in Spanish, allowing them to amplify narratives about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that align with the interests of the Russian regime. While not all of these individuals and entities may be directly linked to the Kremlin, they, as information vectors, serve to amplify narratives in line with the Kremlin.

Prior to the invasion of Ukraine, Inna Afinogenova, former deputy director of RT en Español’s website and a former host of RT’s program ¡Ahí les Va!, was one of RT’s most recognizable faces for Spanish-speaking audiences. Afinogenova remained inactive during the early stages of the invasion; on May 3, 2022, she announced the termination of her ties with RT allegedly due to her opposition to the war. Afinogenova has nevertheless continued to use her personal social media accounts to disseminate content similar to the narratives propagated by Kremlin-affiliated media, often placing blame on Ukraine, the United States, and the EU for the war, as well as for economic and social challenges impacting Spanish-speaking countries. Afinogenova’s posts closely monitor the political situation of governments aligned with Putin while criticizing media outlets or journalists that report on Afinogenova or left-leaning governments.

Afinogenova has expanded her presence to other accounts associated with media outlets that either originated on YouTube or have a significant portion of their audience on that platform, and are affiliated with politicians or media groups aligned with the left-wing or progressive movements in Spain and Latin America. Since June 30, 2022, Afinogenova has been one of three presenters for the program Macondo. According to another of its presenters, Uruguayan journalist Leandro Grille, the program takes an “alternative, more progressive, left-leaning perspective” in reporting Latin American news. The third presenter is Marco Teruggi, a former Latin American correspondent for Sputnik News, who also has affiliations with left-wing Latin American politicians and organizations. This includes his work on the electoral campaign of Colombia’s vice president, Francia Márquez. Teruggi is among the former collaborators of pro-Kremlin media who, during the initial stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, expressed their discontent with platforms still labeling them as linked to their former Kremlin employers.

In Spain, where she is based, Afinogenova also is a presenter on programs on the streaming channel Canal Red and the website Diario Red. These media outlets are part of a media conglomerate started in 2022 by Pablo Iglesias, the former vice president of the Spanish central government and former leader of the left-wing party Podemos. Iglesias has promoted these media outlets through crowdfunding campaigns as alternatives to what he refers to as the power of the right-wing Spanish media. These media outlets remain connected to companies associated with Jaume Roures, a television mogul who has publicly supported the left wing in Spain as well as Cuba’s Communist regime.

An analysis of Canal Red’s YouTube channel, which boasts the outlet’s largest social media audience, showed that among the most-viewed videos were those hosted by Afinogenova, including some reaching almost two million views. In these videos, she argues that the United States is responsible for the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, attributing its continuation to a lack of interest in negotiating the end of the conflict and an apparent reluctance to engage in direct conflict with Russia, “the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.”

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

After Prigozhin, Russia clamps down online

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Russia rolled out a new internet surveillance system in 2023 to crack down domestically on anti-war content, while pushing false narratives to undermine Ukraine at home and abroad.

Civil Society Disinformation

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

Two-pronged approach to Africa pays dividends for Russia

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Africa Disinformation

Issue Brief Feb 29, 2024

Complicated history helps Russian narratives about Ukraine find a foothold in the Middle East

By the Digital Forensic Research Lab

Democratic Transitions Disinformation

The post In Latin America, Russia’s ambassadors and state media tailor anti-Ukraine content to the local context appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Two-pronged approach to Africa pays dividends for Russia

the Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

This is one chapter of the DFRLab’s report, Undermining Ukraine: How Russia widened its global information war in 2023. Read the rest here.

On August 16, 2023, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba promised to “free Africa from Russia’s grip,” claiming that Russia’s primary “tools for its work in Africa” were propaganda and the Wagner Group.

In our previous Undermining Ukraine report, the DFRLab analyzed Russia’s use of Kremlin media and diplomatic channels in Africa to spread Russian narratives, as well as the manipulation of social media to spread content supportive of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s efforts to court African leaders did not decrease in 2023. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited multiple countries on the continent throughout the year, Putin welcomed African leaders to the Russia-Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg, and the Wagner Group maintained its regional ties, despite the death of Wagner co-founder Yevgeny Prigozhin in August 2023.

Russian disinformation in Africa

Russia’s endeavors to deploy false narratives and disinformation campaigns in Africa cannot be understood in isolation: They are integral to a broader dual strategy toward Africa that has yielded substantial results over the past year. These results have facilitated the Kremlin’s efforts to bolster its influence on the continent while simultaneously undermining Ukraine on the global stage.

Russia’s approach to Africa still consists of two facets. On one hand, there are the official relationships with individual countries, characterized by trade and investment, diplomatic initiatives, public diplomacy, defense and security agreements, and engagements within the United Nations, among other official channels. On the other hand, there is an unofficial and covert aspect of the relationship involving hybrid tactics and the illicit trade of arms for resources, most notably by the Wagner Group. Alongside Wagner’s presence, there is an emphasis on disinformation campaigns and the propagation of false narratives.

Russian influence campaigns in Africa are as varied and unique as the countries they target. The two-pronged Russian strategy also has a significant impact on the Kremlin’s disinformation approach on the continent. In some countries, Moscow predominantly relies on formal engagements, including media and journalist training agreements and official diplomatic channels, particularly in contexts where Moscow has long-standing historical ties, like it has with South Africa, where relations with the African National Congress (ANC) are deeply rooted. These formal engagements serve as a means to exert influence through traditional diplomatic and media avenues.

Conversely, in countries like those in the Sahel and West Africa, Russia adopts a more covert approach. Here, the focus shifts toward nontraditional methods, including payments to local influencers, disinformation campaigns, or financial support for local political associations. In these regions, Moscow aims to exploit existing vulnerabilities and capitalize on local dynamics. This dual approach allows Russia to tailor its disinformation efforts to the specific circumstances and receptivity of individual African nations, adapting its tactics to maximize its influence and achieve its geopolitical objectives. Tied to this are successful false narratives that portray Russia as the “benevolent benefactor,” a “state unsullied by the taint of colonialism,” and a perception of Russian media as ‘independent’ sources of information.

This two-pronged approach was evident at the July 2023 Russia-Africa Summit held in Saint Petersburg. While the summit purportedly aimed to showcase the public face of Russia-Africa relations, it also harbored elements of Russia’s covert foreign policy strategy. Beyond its official foreign policy objectives, the summit served as a platform for reinforcing narratives disseminated by Russia in Africa, designed to undermine Ukraine and weaken its Western allies. These narratives have been amplified by local influencers and communication channels cultivated by Russia, capitalizing on long-standing African grievances, such as anti-French sentiments and broader anti-colonialist feelings in Sahelian countries.

Russian officials, including Putin, portray a changing and tumultuous global order where both Africa and Russia are under siege from the West on multiple fronts. In this context, Russia and Africa are portrayed as cooperative partners, reminiscent of their Cold War-era collaboration, working together to counter Western aggression and establish a multipolar world where Africa can claim its rightful place, free from the lingering legacies of colonialism and neocolonialism.

Conversely, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine received minimal public discussion at the 2023 summit, with narratives instead repeatedly blaming Ukraine and the West for Africa’s shortages of food, grains, and fertilizers. Despite encountering challenges related to its actual capacity to strengthen economic and trade ties, the messaging from the summit, as analyzed by the DFRLab at the time, confirmed Russia’s unwavering commitment to enhancing its influence on the African continent.

This aligns with additional observations concerning the Wagner Group throughout 2023. Following Prigozhin’s attempted mutiny, questions arose regarding the future of Wagner’s operations on the continent. Although the principle of plausible deniability, which had made Wagner highly effective and valuable to Moscow as an extension of its foreign policy and influence operations in Africa, appeared to have been compromised, the Wagner Group has persisted in promoting its services in Africa. The group’s representatives on the continent have reiterated their intention “not to curtail, but to expand” their presence in Africa, and evidence suggests the group is in fact expanding its presence and disinformation focus in West African coastal states.

While disavowing direct connections to Wagner’s actions in Africa may have become more challenging for the Kremlin, Russia is unlikely to forsake the network of influence and disinformation capabilities painstakingly constructed by the group in recent years. Instead, Moscow will likely continue to employ hybrid tools, albeit in different configurations, to displace Western influence, exploit natural resources, and circumvent sanctions through numerous front companies operating under the group’s umbrella.

Pro-Kremlin narratives in African media

Numerous African media outlets promoted a variety of pro-Kremlin messaging, including narratives glorifying the role of the Wagner Group in Africa and the Russian armed forces in the war, criticism of the West’s handling of the grain crisis, and presenting Russia as a humanitarian stakeholder and security provider. In each case, these narratives appeared in Russian media prior to their amplification by African outlets.

Russian and African media signed several cooperation agreements in 2023, including a reported collaboration between RT and Afrique Media TV, which influenced the latter’s coverage of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s role in global diplomacy. Afrique Media TV is a francophone Pan-Africanist television channel founded in 2011 that also operates an English news website. In a September 2023 investigation, African Digital Democracy Observatory found that Afrique Media TV is linked to Russian assets, including a Wagner front company. Reportedly, Afrique Media TV is partnering with the Association for Free Research and International Cooperation(AFRIC) and the Officers’ Union for International Security (COSI), both of which operate on behalf of the Wagner Group.

The DFRLab found that Afrique Media TV reposted content from Russian propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik that portrayed Russia’s security interests in pulling out of the grain deal, as well as its reported military successes against the Ukrainian armed forces. It also often hosts shows with RT France TV presenter Xavier Moreau, who was an observer during the illegal 2022 referendum on the annexation of the territories of Donetsk to Russia, according to the European Platform for Democratic Elections.

Screenshots from an Afrique Media TV briefing on the war in Ukraine (left) and from RT France TV Show L’échiquier Mondial (right), both featuring Xavier Moreau. (Sources: Afrique Media TV/archive, left; RT France/archive, right)

African media also echoed Kremlin narratives around Ukrainian grain supplies. The Kremlin used the continent’s reliance on Ukrainian grain as a means by which to cast blame on Ukraine and the West when supplies started to become more constricted, despite the Black Sea Grain Initiative, an agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey between Russia and Ukraine that helped maintain grain exports from Ukraine. Russian retaliation against Ukraine’s southern port infrastructure, however, was a leading cause of supply shortages. Narratives regarding this new “grain crisis,” first pushed by the Kremlin and its allies and then echoed in African media, arose after Russia formally announced its withdrawal from the grain deal. Russia also engaged in raiding dry grain cargo ships, which effectively resulted in another blockade of Ukrainian grain transiting the Black Sea.

Narratives originally published by the African branch of the pro-Kremlin Russian news outlet Sputnik were disseminated by African French-language media outlets. For example, Sputnik Afrique spread unfounded narratives that claimed that the West had lied about delivering grain to African countries from Ukraine; the narratives subsequently reappeared on both a Cameroonian online news outlet and a Hezbollah-affiliated outlet. Notably, these narratives spread ten days before the second gathering of the Russia-Africa Summit in Saint Petersburg, when Russia pulled out from the grain deal by letting it lapse.

Russia also expanded its media operations in 2023 by engaging in new partnerships with BRICS-based outlets. As noted by French nonprofit OpenFacto, Russia has consistently created websites that operate as showcases for the cooperation among the BRICS countries, an operation suspected to be affiliated with InfoRos, an online outlet with ties to Russia’s main intelligence directorate, the GRU. For example, Daily News Egypt signed a new cooperation agreement with Russia-owned television channel TV BRICS in October 2023. TV BRICS also signed partnerships with the African News Agency (ANA) and Chinese press agency Xinhua.

In addition to Russian content being spread to African media, there was also evidence of local citizens repackaging and distributing Russian propaganda of their own volition. In the spring of 2022, the DFRLab investigated a small inauthentic network from Côte d’Ivoire, which used the name MARIGONEWS, that a Meta spokesperson confirmed to the DFRLab was run by a single individual “with pro-Russian sentiment.”

Following the invasion of Ukraine, Facebook assets using the MARIGONEWS name and logo, with one group maintaining over 62,000 members, promoted a Telegram channel called Opération de Dénazification et de Démilitarisation de l’Ukraine (Operation to Denazify and Demilitarize Ukraine), which was subsequently renamed Marigo News—Opération ZOV.

Screenshot of a Facebook page (left) that was part of the MARIGONEWS inauthentic network and that promoted a corresponding Telegram channel (right), saying Marigo News supported the Russian Federation. (Source: Facebook, left; Telegram/archive, right)

While the channel claimed to have Russian correspondents, almost all of the content posted to the channel was copied from pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and websites and translated from Russian into French.

Following the DFRLab’s report and Meta’s removal of the group’s Facebook assets in the spring of 2022, it continued to post content copied from Kremlin channels to its Telegram group. Although it did lose followers and was periodically inactive for several months, the Telegram channel started posting regularly in October 2023, after changing its logo and name to MARIGONEWS. Some of the Facebook assets were also recreated, but at the time of publishing had received very little engagement.

Screenshots of the MARIGO NEWS Telegram channel rebranded with a new logo, which matches that on a Facebook page created in October 2023. (Source: Telegram/archive, left; Facebook/archive, right)

Calls for Putin’s arrest amid BRICS summit preparations

In late August 2023, South Africa hosted the fifteenth annual BRICS summit in Johannesburg. Immediately following the announcement of the summit, Putin’s planned attendance was mired in controversy because of an ICC warrant for his arrest due to alleged wartime deportation and transfer of children. Following pressure from opposition parties and nongovernmental organizations, Putin opted instead to attend the summit via video link and delivered a prerecorded seventeen-minute address.

Prior to the summit, there had been speculation regarding Putin’s attendance given the arrest warrant and South Africa’s international obligations. South Africa had previously chosen not to enforce an ICC warrant—in 2015, the South African government failed to arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir after he attended an African Union conference in Johannesburg, despite an ICC warrant—so it was an open question in 2023. Preemptive and successful legal action instituted by opposition parties, however, obligated the South African government to arrest Putin should he attend.

Although Putin claimed that he decided to stay away from the summit to “avoid creating problems for friends,” this decision was only reached a few weeks before the summit after months of speculation—and diplomatic contortions—around his attendance.

The event underscored the complex local and geopolitical landscape in which the event took place, especially considering South Africa’s policy of nonalignment.

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No opposition candidates allowed in Belarus dictator’s “sham” elections

Hanna Liubakova — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 15:57:53 +0000

Sunday’s parliamentary and local elections in Belarus were among the most flawed in the thirty-year reign of the country’s authoritarian ruler, Alyaksandr Lukashenka. The ballot was completely cleansed of all opposition, with only loyalist candidates permitted to participate. The election was the first to take place in Belarus since the controversial presidential ballot of August 2020, when widespread accusations of vote-rigging sparked weeks of nationwide protests that briefly threatened to topple Lukashenka until Russian intervention rescued his regime.

With the events of 2020 still very much in mind, Lukashenka was clearly anxious to prevent any kind of renewed public mobilization. The February 25 vote took place amid a series of increased security measures including reports of Interior Ministry forces deployed near polling stations. Belarusian state media concealed the identities of election commission members and obscured the faces of some candidates during election coverage. Many polling stations reportedly lacked curtains on individual booths, while newly introduced restrictions on photography made it difficult to record evidence of protest votes “against all.”

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The election was widely dismissed as illegitimate by members of Belarus’s democratic opposition and Western officials. On the eve of the vote, activists hacked more than 2000 display screens in public spaces across Belarus and were able to broadcast an address by the country’s exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who branded the election a “senseless farce” and urged members of the public to stay home. Meanwhile, the election was widely condemned internationally, with the United States calling the vote a “sham” held in a “climate of fear.”

The Belarusian authorities initiated a crackdown on activists and their families during the election campaign, conducting home searches and detaining hundreds of people, according to human rights groups. In the month prior to the vote, legal proceedings were initiated against 20 Belarusian researchers and journalists (including this author) on charges of “conspiracy to seize power.” With Belarus’s last remaining pro-democracy political parties dissolved last year, only four parties were allowed to take part in Sunday’s vote. The pro-Lukashenka Belaya Rus party, which was registered in 2023, reportedly garnered a considerable amount of seats in the lower chamber, alongside a number of prominent pro-Russian activists and regime loyalists.

The draconian measures adopted ahead of Sunday’s vote may at first glance seem somewhat excessive, especially when considered in light of the ruthless crackdown on all opposition that had already taken place in Belarus over the past three-and-a-half years in the aftermath of the country’s 2020 pro-democracy protests. However, Lukashenka is clearly aware that many Belarusians remain discontented and fears a possible repeat uprising. By staging a loyalist election with no room for even symbolic opposition, he sought to demonstrate stability and reaffirm his grip on the country. This message was meant for domestic audiences and also for his patrons in the Kremlin.

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Last weekend’s highly orchestrated vote was in stark contrast to events in 2020, when a disputed election led to prolonged protests that erupted across Belarus before being forcefully suppressed in a brutal crackdown that saw tens of thousands of people detained amid widespread claims of human rights abuses including torture. In the aftermath of the protests, civil society organizations and independent media outlets were shuttered, while thousands of activists fled the country. Many who remained ended up in prison. In mid-February 2024, opposition activist Ihar Lednik became the fifth Belarusian political prisoner to die in jail since 2020, according to human rights watchdogs.

Belarus’s recent parliamentary elections took place in a climate of heightened political tension due to the ongoing Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Lukashenka is widely seen as Putin’s junior partner in the invasion, having allowed Russian troops to use Belarus as a launch pad for the initial offensive into northern Ukraine in February 2022. The Belarusian dictator sought to justify the stifling atmosphere surrounding Sunday’s vote by claiming the country was under threat from “hybrid Western aggression.”

Sunday’s carefully choreographed vote was a dress rehearsal for next year’s far more significant Belarusian presidential election. As anticipated, Lukashenka confirmed on February 25 that he intends to run in 2025 for what would be his eighth consecutive presidential term. However, questions remain over whether he may yet seek to switch to a different role. In 2022, Lukashenka staged a referendum to rubber-stamp constitutional changes establishing the unelected All-Belarusian People’s Assembly as the country’s supreme authority. This potentially creates an opportunity for him to vacate the presidency while maintaining control over Belarus. Whatever he decides to do next year, meaningful change in Belarus looks to be out of the question as long as Lukashenka remains in charge of the country.

Hanna Liubakova is a journalist from Belarus and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

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By adopting an overly cautious approach to the Russian invasion of Crimea, the West was guilty of seriously underestimating, or willfully ignoring, the true extent of Putin’s imperial ambitions. This refusal to accept the uncomfortable new geopolitical reality of an expansionist Russia only served to encourage the Kremlin.

In the weeks following the occupation of Crimea, Putin attempted to spark pro-Russian uprisings throughout southern and eastern Ukraine. When these efforts were largely thwarted by local Ukrainian opposition, he focused on instigating an armed conflict in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. Following the Crimean model, he once again used Russian troops and Kremlin agents posing as local militias. The war Putin unleashed in eastern Ukraine would remain unresolved for eight years before ultimately serving as his immediate excuse for the full-scale invasion of February 2022. However, the fuse was first lit in Crimea.

Since 2014, Russia has tightened its grip on Crimea. It has transformed the occupied Ukrainian peninsula into a military base, utilizing it as a jumping off point for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Crimea currently serves as an important logistical hub for the Russian military, acting as an airbase and naval base while playing a key role in the resupply of the Russian army in southern Ukraine.

Over the last decade, residents of occupied Crimea have been exposed to the repressive realities of Russian occupation. The US Department of State has determined that Crimean Tatars in particular have been subjected to “serious governmental and societal violence and discrimination.”

The many Ukrainian prisoners detained in Crimea reportedly face “mock executions, beatings, electric shocks, and sexual violence” from Russian occupation authorities that “commonly engage in torture of detainees and other abuses.” An estimated 208 Crimean political prisoners are currently behind bars in Russian-occupied Crimea, of which 125 are Crimean Tatars. Many of the repressive practices pioneered in occupied Crimea have since been used in other parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Understandably, thousands have fled Crimea since 2014 and moved to mainland Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Kremlin has sought to transform the demographic makeup of the peninsula by importing hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens. These new arrivals include large numbers of military personnel, who have been deployed as part of an expanding Russian military presence on the peninsula.

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Today’s full-scale war underlines the folly of failing to immediately deter the Kremlin at the very beginning of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. When Putin first ordered the seizure of Crimea, he initially attempted to distance himself from the unfolding military operation and officially denied any direct involvement. However, once it became clear that the West would not impose serious costs, he was all too willing to claim personal responsibility for what was viewed in Russia as a major triumph.

This careful monitoring of Western reaction has been a constant feature of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, with Putin always ready to go further if he senses weakness. The fear of escalation that Western leaders first demonstrated during the capture of Crimea has continued to cloud their judgment throughout the past decade and has been skillfully exploited by Putin, who uses thinly veiled threats and nuclear blackmail to discourage international support for Ukraine as he expands the war and occupies more Ukrainian land.

There are now indications that Western leaders finally recognize the cost of appeasing Putin. “They stole Crimea. They stole Donbas. And now they want to steal the entire country. We must not let that happen,” commented Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky recently. Such clarity is welcome. However, it is crucial that strong statements are matched by the kind of decisive action that can defeat the Russian invasion of Ukraine and deter the Kremlin from embarking on further wars of aggression.

In hindsight, it is clear that the Russian occupation of Crimea was one of the great watershed moments of the twenty-first century. By militarily occupying and attempting to annex the territory of a neighboring European state, Putin was signaling the end of the post-1991 settlement and the dawning of a dangerous new era. Unless Putin is finally confronted and defeated in Ukraine, his sense of impunity will only increase and other countries will become victims of resurgent Russian imperialism.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Putin’s history lecture reveals his dreams of a new Russian Empire

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 13 Feb 2024 02:46:45 +0000

US media personality Tucker Carlson’s hotly anticipated interview with Vladimir Putin was billed as a unique opportunity to challenge Western perceptions of the war in Ukraine and hear Russia’s side of the story. Instead, Putin hijacked the spectacle to underline his status as the world’s most dangerous amateur historian.

The interview began in predictable fashion with Carlson inviting Putin to blame NATO and the US for the ongoing invasion. However, it was soon apparent that the Russian leader had something very different in mind.

Sidestepping Carlson’s opening question, Putin launched into a rambling half-hour lecture covering more than a thousand years of Russian and Ukrainian history that placed the roots of today’s war firmly in the distant past. His core message was chillingly simple: Ukraine has no right to exist and he is fully justified in waging a war of aggression to reclaim historically Russian lands.

Carlson admitted to being initially shocked and annoyed by this monologue, but eventually concluded that Putin’s insistence on articulating his historic claims to Ukraine was actually “a sincere expression of what he thinks.” This seems a fair assessment. Putin’s obsession with history is well known, as is his conviction that Ukrainians are in fact Russians. Indeed, anyone who has listened to Putin’s many public statements on the topic of Ukraine or read his 2021 essay on the “historical unity” of Russians and Ukrainians will have been more than familiar with the content of his latest lecture.

While Putin has often been accused of weaponizing history, it was nonetheless revealing that he should choose to prioritize his historical grievances in such a setting. After all, this was the Russian president’s first major interaction with the Western press since the start of the Ukraine invasion almost two years ago. Tucker Carlson had been handpicked for the occasion, having won the trust of Moscow officials via years of pro-Kremlin messaging in the US media.

The interview was viewed by many within the Putin regime as a rare chance for Russia to make its case on its own terms to a truly global audience. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, things did not go according to plan. Rather than coming away convinced by the rationality of Putin’s arguments, many viewers were left bewildered by his arcane references to medieval princes and seventeenth century diplomatic correspondence.

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Needless to say, much of Putin’s lecture was complete nonsense that echoed longstanding Russian imperial myths while conveniently overlooking Ukraine’s centuries of documented history. In his traditional manner, Putin ridiculed Ukraine as an illegitimate and artificial state. He dismissed the entire notion of a separate Ukrainian nation, calling it an anti-Russian conspiracy involving everyone from the Poles and the Pope to the Austrian General Staff.

These claims owe more to Kremlin propaganda than any actual academic rigor. In reality, the term “Ukraine” first appeared in the twelfth century, while Ukraine’s statehood struggle can be traced back more than three hundred years. As long ago as 1731, French thinker Voltaire was moved to write, “Ukraine has always aspired to be free.”

Putin’s insistence that southern and eastern Ukraine are historically Russian is similarly unsupported by the available evidence. The 1897 census conducted by the Czarist authorities, which provides the most reliable guide to the demographic makeup of the Russian Empire, identified Ukrainian-speaking majorities throughout much of today’s southern and eastern Ukraine, as well as in a number of regions that are now part of Russia.

Likewise, Putin’s assertion that Lenin and Stalin created modern Ukraine ignores the inconvenient fact that the short-lived Ukrainian People’s Republic had already existed for a number of years before the early Bolsheviks were finally able to extinguish this fledgling Ukrainian state and impose Soviet rule.

Many more of Putin’s statements have since been comprehensively debunked by everyone from the BBC and TIME magazine to the diplomats of the Polish Foreign Ministry, who were understandably outraged by the Russian leader’s attempt to justify Adolf Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. As Carlson himself showed little interest in challenging Putin, these fact-checking efforts are particularly important.

At the same time, the real takeaway from the interview was Putin’s apparently genuine belief that his antiquated historical arguments could serve as plausible justification for a major war in twenty-first century Europe. This is perhaps the clearest indication yet of the dangerous delusions and imperial ambitions that led Putin to invade Ukraine.

Putin is no stranger to openly imperialistic rhetoric, of course. For years, he has subjected domestic audiences to long sermons detailing Russia’s historic grievances and the injustices of the post-Soviet settlement. Ukraine has always been the main focus of this revanchist zeal.

As his grip on power has tightened, Putin has grown increasingly fixated with the idea of reasserting Russian authority over Ukraine, and has come to view this as his historic mission. On the eve of the full-scale invasion two years ago, he described Ukraine as “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.” In summer 2022, Putin directly compared the current war to the imperial conquests of eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great and claimed to be “returning” historically Russian lands.

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Unless Putin is defeated in Ukraine, it is fanciful to imagine that he will voluntarily abandon his increasingly aggressive brand of historical revisionism. On the contrary, it is far more likely that other countries will also fall victim to the Russian ruler’s expanding imperial ambitions. Naturally, Putin assured Tucker Carlson that he has no such intentions, but he has issued similar denials prior to each new stage of his escalating Ukraine invasion. At this point, the most logical conclusion is that he will not stop until he is stopped.

How far could Putin go? Throughout his reign, he has consistently lamented the fall of the USSR, which he has referred to as the demise of “historical Russia.” After the events of the past two years, it should be painfully apparent that anywhere Putin regards as “historical Russia” is potentially at risk.

In theory, at least, the same bogus historical arguments that have been used to justify the invasion of Ukraine could easily be applied to other parts of the former Soviet Union, or to the Russian Empire of the Czarist era. This would create an array of possible targets for Russian aggression including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Alaska, and the whole of Central Asia. A maximalist interpretation could even see all of Central Europe’s former Soviet satellite states besides Poland added to the list.

In today’s increasingly unstable geopolitical climate, talk of further Russian invasions can no longer be dismissed as alarmist. Mounting signs of Western weakness in Ukraine have visibly emboldened Putin, and may yet tempt him to test NATO’s resolve in a more direct manner. He has already succeeded in shifting the Russian economy onto a war footing, and is cranking up arms manufacturing at a rate that far outpaces the West. Even now, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine still very much undecided, it is all-too-easy to imagine waking up to social media posts labeling Kazakhstan an “artificial country” or proclaiming Estonia “historically Russian” as Putin’s tanks roll across the border.

As the tenth anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine draws close, Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson should serve as a wake-up call for the collective West. A decade ago, Putin began his attack on Ukraine by occupying Crimea. At first, he acted with a degree of caution, officially denying any role in the military takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula and orchestrating a fig leaf referendum to disguise the crime. Ten years on, Putin now feels confident enough to sit down with one of the world’s most famous journalists and defend the invasion of a major European country by claiming it is rightfully his. Anyone who still believes he would not dare attack NATO is only fooling themselves.

Putin’s history obsession would be comical if the consequences were not so tragic. Using ancient dynasties and long forgotten treaties to justify the biggest European conflict since World War II is indeed farcical, and has duly inspired a flood of memes mocking the Kremlin dictator as a man completed detached from reality. But as we chuckle at Putin the ultimate history bore, he will continue distorting the past to shape the future. At present, there is a very real danger he will have the last laugh.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russia’s Bashkortostan protests: Separatism isn’t the real threat facing Putin

Dylan Myles-Primakoff, Lillian Posner — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 20:49:06 +0000

Neither tear gas, police batons, nor the twelve degree January windchill were able to deter thousands of protesters from taking to the streets in Baymak, Bashkortostan, at the start of 2024. On January 12, over 1,500 people turned out in this small town, 250 miles from the regional capital of Ufa, marking one of the largest protests in Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. For the next week, the protests continued to grow, spreading as far as the regional capital before finally being stamped out in a crackdown that saw hundreds of protesters arrested, dozens facing criminal charges, and at least one dead in police custody.

Why were so many people in this province in the Ural Mountains ready to stand up to the Russian government, and why did the government adopt such strong measures to suppress these remote protests over a local issue? This relatively brief incident was a reminder that almost two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, many Russians are deeply dissatisfied with their country’s direction, a situation carrying real political risk for the Putin regime.

The spark that lit these frozen demonstrations in Russia’s most populous ethnic republic was the sentencing of local environmental activist Fayil Alsynov to four years in a penal colony. Alsynov, who has been accused by the Russian authorities of “inciting ethnic hatred,” in fact fell victim to a now common wartime practice: Denunciation.

The case against Alsynov stems from the testimony of a single person, Kremlin-appointed governor Radiy Khabirov, who is accused of attempting to paint Alsynov as a separatist traitor masquerading as an innocent eco-activist. Supporters say Alsynov has been a thorn in governor’s side because he’s successfully advocated against big business projects that would endanger the well-being of local people and enrich the elite.

Alsynov has more than fifteen years of experience advocating for Bashkortostan’s regional sovereignty and against several invasive mining projects that threatened to destroy environmental landmarks, pollute local water systems, disrupt agriculture, and whisk away profits. He made his mark in 2020, leading the Kushtau protests against an attempt to mine Bashkortostan’s sacred limestone hills. Alsynov made local headlines again in 2023, when he and his fellow activists campaigned against gold mining in the Indyk mountains. For this, he has earned the trust of many local people who complain of feeling like second-class citizens in their own ethnic republics.

During Alysnov’s trial in December 2023, around 200 people gathered at the courthouse in Baymak to demand his release and the governor’s resignation. They made a video appeal to Vladimir Putin, complaining that due to Khabirov’s mismanagement, Bashkortostan had seen demographic decline, worsening corruption, insufficient development in infrastructure, and a fall in living standards. “Instead of solving problems, Radiy Khabirov refuses to listen to the opinions of citizens and is persecuting public figures and activists, considering them enemies of the state,” said the authors of the video.

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The political response from the Russian government has been to paint this appeal for better local governance as a radical separatist movement. Without providing any evidence, member of the Russian Parliament Dinar Gilmutdinov attempted to blame the demonstrations on “elements related to the special services of foreign governments, operating from the territory of Ukraine and the Baltic states.”

Meanwhile, regional governor Khabirov defended his decision to denounce Alsynov, writing, “You can put on the mask of a good eco-activist, a patriot, but in fact the situation is not like that. A group of people, some of whom are abroad, essentially traitors, are calling for the separation of Bashkortostan from Russia. They’re calling for guerrilla warfare here.”

False accusations of extremism are a frequently used Kremlin tool for discrediting opposition movements. The most prominent example was the long-running propaganda campaign to portray Alexey Navalny as a far-right or Nazi figure, which culminated in the 2021 designation of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation as an “extremist organization” and criminal charges of extremism against many in the movement.

This approach yields multiple political dividends and provides justification for harsh crackdown measures. That is certainly what followed the recent accusations of separatism against the protest movement in Bashkortostan. In addition to a police crackdown and legal measures deployed against protesters, authorities imposed an information blackout that included the jamming of mobile phone signals and the blocking of popular messaging and social media apps including WhatsApp and Telegram.

Beyond justifying repressive measures, false accusations of extremism also play another important political role in today’s Russia. When effective, they can alienate an opposition movement from potential allies within the broader political opposition and the public at large. Indeed, this seems to have happened with the Bashkortostan protests, with some opposition figures quick to echo Kremlin charges of separatism. This is particularly important to the regime in terms of containing the risk posed by local protests.

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In recent years, protest movements organized around local issues and in support of local civic and political leaders have proven some of the most broad-based and durable in Russia. When regional official Sergey Furgal was arrested on murder charges in 2020, citizens in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk took to the streets in protests that raged for months. A similar nationwide wave of protests broke out the year before when prominent journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested on falsified drug charges, apparently in retaliation for his investigations into corruption. These movements attest to a pattern in which Russian citizens repeatedly take to the streets in defense of those who many feel truly represent their interests.

Local protests also occur in Russia’s ethnic minority regions. Here, there are often longstanding grievances like those around resource extraction and ecological damage, the ultimate source of the recent protests in Bashkortostan. There are also newer grievances like the disproportionate enlistment of young men from these regions in the high casualty full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which motivated mass protests in Dagestan in response to the general mobilization order in September 2022.

The root causes of all these protests, however, are the same: A total lack of voice for Russia’s citizens in their government’s decisions, even as those decisions cause increasing amounts of harm to the public at large. The periphery has myriad reasons to resent the center. For the most part, major protest movements like the ones in Khabarovsk, Dagestan, or now Bashkortostan have been contained locally. But the naked imperialism driving Russia’s war in Ukraine has raised consciousness across the former Soviet space among formerly colonized groups.

While these groups have their own grievances specific to their colonial experience, they share with the Russian public as a whole a history of violence, repression, neglect, and exploitation at the hands of the Russian state. The real risk to the Putin regime is unity and solidarity across regions among Russians protesting these shared forms of mistreatment at the hands of the state. It is precisely this sort of unity and solidarity that false accusations of separatism are intended to undermine.

Dylan Myles-Primakoff is Senior Program Manager for Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Lillian Posner is Assistant Program Officer for Eurasia at the National Endowment for Democracy.

Such arguments have long circulated in Russian nationalist circles. Indeed, one prominent advocate was celebrated Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who opposed Ukrainian independence and openly questioned the country’s claims to its southern and eastern regions. Solzhenitsyn’s troubling legacy of support for Russian imperialism illustrates why many Ukrainians continue to believe Russian liberalism ends at the border with Ukraine.

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Putin laid out his historical claims to Ukraine in a 5000-word essay published in July 2021 that read like a declaration of war against Ukrainian statehood. Many now see this chilling document as an ideological blueprint for the full-scale invasion that was to follow just seven months later.

When speaking to domestic Russian audiences, Putin has not shied away from describing the invasion in overtly imperialistic terms as a war of conquest. In summer 2022, he directly compared his invasion to the imperial conquests of eighteenth century Russian Czar Peter the Great. More recently, he has referred to the areas of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation as “conquests.”

Putin’s stubborn refusal to recognize Ukraine’s right to exist has sometimes led to instances of selective blindness. In May 2023, he was filmed examining a seventeenth century map of Eastern Europe before declaring “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind,” despite the fact that the word “Ukraine” was clearly marked on the map in front of him.

The term “Ukraine” can actually be traced back much further than the seventeenth century. Indeed, as Harvard University Professor Serhii Plokhy and others have noted, “Ukraine” has medieval origins and was first used by twelfth century chroniclers, around six hundred years before Peter the Great rebranded Muscovy as the Russian Empire.

Putin’s claims regarding Russia’s ancestral ties to southern and eastern Ukraine are equally historically illiterate. Throughout the Middle Ages, these regions formed the sparsely populated “Wild Fields” that served as an informal boundary separating the Mongol and Turkish empires from Ukraine and the rest of Europe. Early records show a Ukrainian presence including Cossacks and agricultural communities.

Even as Russian imperial influence spread southward toward the Black Sea, most of the territory Putin now refers to as Novorossiya continued to have a majority Ukrainian population. The only official demographic data from this era, the Czarist census of 1897, creates a picture of highly cosmopolitan urban populations, including significant French and Italian contingents in Odesa and a prominent Greek community in Mariupol. Meanwhile, the rural population throughout today’s southern and eastern Ukraine remained predominantly Ukrainian. In other words, Putin’s assertion that modern Russia has some kind of ancient claim to these regions is complete nonsense.

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Zelenskyy is now signalling to Putin that Ukraine has historical claims of its own. The Ukrainian leader’s recent decree does not indicate Kyiv’s intention to annex Russian territory, but it does send a clear message to Moscow that Ukrainians have a proud national history and will defend themselves against Russian attempts to deny their existence or extinguish Ukrainian identity.

Zelenskyy’s decree also serves as a not-so-subtle reminder that Russia’s own borders are extremely vulnerable to the kind of reckless historical revisionism being pushed by Putin. As the leader of the world’s largest country, which has expanded for centuries to encompass more than ten percent of the planet’s entire landmass, Putin is particularly unwise to argue in favor of reinstating old borders. If taken to its logical conclusion, Putin’s revisionist stance would see Russia cede land to everyone from Finland and Germany to China and Japan. It would also destabilize the wider world, leading to endless border disputes throughout Europe, Africa, and beyond.

Putin’s weaponization of bad history has helped fuel the bloodiest European conflict since World War II. His claims to Ukrainian land are based on an outdated imperialistic mythology that has no place in the twenty-first century and poses a grave threat to global security. The Russian dictator believes he can distort the past to justify the crimes of the present. Unless he is stopped, other countries will suffer Ukraine’s fate.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He is the author of “Fascism and Genocide. Russia’s War Against Ukrainians.”

Big Tech must listen to the concerns of Russia’s pro-democracy voices

Joanna Nowakowska, Anna Kuznetsova, Marta Bilska — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:26:39 +0000

Vladimir Putin has committed serious resources to ensure that the Russian people only see what he wants them to see. Yet despite the best efforts of the Russian dictator, the ever-evolving world of Big Tech offers a variety of avenues for free expression, even in closed societies. But without the right policy structures, Big Tech can be exploited to aid the designs of authoritarian rulers like Putin, making it crucial to spur discussions between Russian civil society and tech companies to avoid this outcome.

Tech companies are crucial to disseminating information, organizing platforms, creating fundraising tools, and recording war crimes and human rights abuses. As a result, their actions profoundly impact social and political issues in many countries.

Ongoing efforts to deliver accurate information to the Russian people illustrate these new realities. The Kremlin tightened censorship after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 to make sure the only information Russian citizens receive is state-controlled propaganda. Independent Russian media and civil society groups opposing the war face persecution and censorship on a scale not seen since the days of the Soviet Union.

As a result of this crackdown, international social media platforms and communication technologies became just about the only way to deliver factual information to Russians inside the country, and to inform the international public on the situation in Russia.

Western tech companies initially took steps to comply with international sanctions against Russia and to mitigate the spread of Kremlin-backed disinformation. However, new research suggests this effort has had the unintended consequence of significantly hindering independent media and civil society efforts inside Russia.

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Out of a group of 16 independent Russian media and civil society organizations (CSO) featured in recent research, all experienced negative impacts to their online presence after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with 14 reporting periodical sharp decreases in traffic and social media engagement.

These organizations saw an abrupt fall or lack of change in viewership, followers, subscribers, and engagements on some platforms, all while growing on others. Suddenly, content that generated substantial interest in the past was not getting any attention, while posts, videos, or even entire channels that were attracting significant engagement suddenly vanished from recommendation features.

Researchers believe that independent Russian media websites may have been deprioritized or omitted in Google search results and the Google Discover service, which inadvertently led to the amplification of Kremlin propaganda by directing millions of Russians to anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western messaging every day. This aligns with data recently published by Lev Gershenzon, one of the former heads of Yandex News, Russia’s largest search engine, now fully controlled by the state.

According to Gershenzon, Google Discover’s content recommendation system features Kremlin-affiliated sources high up in its recommendations. Close to 90 percent of Russian smartphones operate with Android, with Google products pre-installed by default,so Google has unprecedented influence over the content Russians view every day.

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Eleven of the 16 groups cited claim to have lost access to essential Western software, tools, and equipment, and experienced restricted access to certain online advertising services. After their outlets were outlawed and Russian providers canceled their services, four of these groups said they could not find a Western hosting service, and several noted that one mass email service abruptly closed all of its Russian accounts. As a result, many Russian independent media and CSOs lost entire databases of readers, supporters, and donors.

Meanwhile, the online collaboration platform Slack shut down while Adobe, Windows, and Microsoft Office also left Russia. The resulting lack of access to basic online tools has proven challenging for Russia’s already-embattled independent voices.

While most of these groups attempted to contact companies to find solutions to their lack of access, few cases were resolved. No matter the outcome, the circuitous and demoralizing process of even getting an answer from decision makers at Western tech companies has proven to be a significant obstacle to addressing these issues.

The resulting status quo has, albeit unintentionally, reinforced the power imbalance between Russia’s pro-democracy actors and the country’s authoritarian government by depriving an increasingly isolated society of its few remaining independent sources of information. To overcome this impasse, there is an urgent need for dialogue between Western tech companies, Russian media, and civil society.

Joanna Nowakowska, Anna Kuznetsova, and Marta Bilska from the International Republican Institute are co-authors of the recent report “Can Big Tech Contribute to Breaking Putin’s Censorship?”

Putin accused of fast-tracking Russian citizenship for abducted Ukrainian kids

Vladyslav Havrylov — Thu, 25 Jan 2024 21:11:36 +0000

Ukrainian officials have condemned a new decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2024 simplifying the process of conferring Russian citizenship on Ukrainian children abducted from wartime Ukraine.

Issued on January 4, 2024, the citizenship decree is officially designed to ease the process of granting Russian citizenship to foreign nationals and stateless persons. Officials in Kyiv highlighted one particularly contentious section indicating that orphaned Ukrainian children or those deprived of parental guardianship can be fast-tracked to Russian citizenship via presidential decision or following a request from a hosting institution.

Ukraine’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, has accused Moscow of implementing the new citizenship regulations so children abducted from Ukraine to Russia would no longer be regarded as Ukrainians. In an official appeal to the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry claimed the decree served as further proof of Russia’s crimes against Ukraine, including “the forcible assimilation of Ukrainian children.”

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The International Criminal Court has already issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges in connection with the mass deportation of Ukrainian children since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Putin has yet to be detained in line with the warrant, but the Russian dictator is now obliged to tailor his travel plans to avoid possible arrest. In August 2023, he cancelled plans to attend a BRICS summit in South Africa after the host country was unable to guarantee he would not face legal challenges.

Russia’s January 2024 citizenship decree is the latest evidence of a systematic Kremlin campaign to rob children abducted in Ukraine of their Ukrainian identity and forcibly turn them into Russians. The Ukrainian authorities have so far managed to identify almost 20,000 Ukrainian children who have been subjected to Russian abduction. Many fear the true number of victims may be far higher.

International investigations into the mass abduction of Ukrainian children have found that once taken to Russia, victims are subjected to indoctrination that aims to erase their Ukrainian identity and impose a Russian national identity. This process is undertaken at a network of camps across Russia. Research published by The Yale School of Public Health’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) in February 2023 identified 43 Russian facilities for the indoctrination of abducted Ukrainian children, with all levels of the Russian government involved in a large-scale, state-sanctioned initiative.

The mass abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children by Russia has been branded as an act of genocide. In an April 2023 resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said the abductions matched the international definition of genocide and stated that the forced transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia had the aim of “annihilating every link to and feature of their Ukrainian identity.” The UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention identifies “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as one of five acts that qualify as genocide.

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Evidence continues to emerge that in addition to exposing Ukrainian children to a wide range of patriotic propaganda, Russia is also militarizing them by involving them in various paramilitary structures aimed at teenagers. This includes the Yunarmiya (“Young Army”) youth organization, which was established in 2015 and is funded by the Kremlin. Deported Ukrainian children have reportedly been obliged to undergo military training and coerced into writing supportive letters to Russian military personnel engaged in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

In the first weeks of 2024, details emerged of abducted Ukrainian children being forced to undergo training with the Belarusian military. Belarusian state TV reported on January 10 that 35 children from Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine had been sent to Mogilev in eastern Belarus to take part in exercises with the Belarusian military. Belarus is accused of participating in Russia’s abduction operations.

Efforts are ongoing to rescue abducted Ukrainian children and bring those responsible for the abductions to justice. The Ukrainian state and civil society are currently focused on bringing every single victim home. These efforts are benefiting from significant international support. For example, in December 2023, six abducted Ukrainian children were released by Russia thanks to mediation from Qatar.

Further international support is needed if the thousands of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia are to be saved. The clock is ticking and every moment counts. Indoctrination efforts continue in camps across Russia, while the Kremlin is clearly seeking to speed up the process of granting Russian citizenship.

The international community appears to recognize the importance of holding Russia accountable for the mass abduction of Ukrainian children. “We cannot allow children to be treated as if they are the spoils of war,” ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan commented in 2023.

This year, it is vital to maintain the pressure on Russia and demonstrate that such behavior has no place in the modern world. The deliberate targeting of vulnerable Ukrainian children has been one of the most shocking features of an invasion that has stunned the world. The abductions are also arguably the most striking evidence that the Kremlin’s ultimate goal is to erase Ukrainian national identity entirely in areas under its control.

Vladyslav Havrylov is a research fellow with the Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues at Georgetown University and lead researcher at the “Where Are Our People?” initiative.

Confident Putin boasts of Russian “conquests” in Ukraine

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 22:19:11 +0000

When Vladimir Putin first embarked on the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he sought to disguise the attack as an act of self-defense while claiming Russia had no interest in occupying Ukrainian territory. “We do not plan to impose ourselves on anyone,” he declared.

With the invasion now fast approaching the two-year mark, the Russian dictator apparently no longer feels the need to dress up his true intentions. Buoyed by a very visible recent weakening in Western resolve, Putin is now openly embracing the language of imperialism and referring to Russian “conquests” in Ukraine.

Speaking at a January 16 meeting of municipal authorities in the Moscow region, Putin dismissed Ukraine’s Peace Formula and expressed his unwillingness to discuss the status of the Ukrainian regions currently under Russian occupation. “As for the negotiation process, this is an attempt to encourage us to abandon the conquests we have made over the past one-and-a-half years. Everyone understands that this is impossible,” he commented.

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Putin’s revealing reference to conquered Ukrainian lands underlines the imperialistic ambitions at the heart of Russia’s Ukraine invasion. It also further discredits Russian efforts to blame the invasion on imaginary Nazis and a non-existent NATO threat.

On the eve of the invasion, Putin made much of NATO’s post-1991 enlargement and was highly critical of the alliance’s decision to accept former Warsaw Pact countries as members. While Ukraine itself had no realistic prospects of joining the alliance in 2022, Putin claimed the prospect of deepening cooperation between NATO and Kyiv posed an intolerable security threat to Russia.

Putin’s protestations were undermined by his own subsequent lack of concern over Finnish NATO membership. When the Finns responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by abandoning decades of neutrality and joining the alliance, Putin reacted by demilitarizing Russia’s entire 1300 kilometer border with Finland. “If we were a threat, they would certainly not have moved their troops away, even in a situation where they are engaged somewhere else,” commented Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen in August 2023.

While Russia’s NATO claims do not stand up to scrutiny, Moscow’s entire anti-Nazi narrative is even less convincing. During Putin’s reign, the Kremlin has revived and dramatically amplified lingering Soviet propaganda labeling Ukrainians as Nazis. This has helped to dehumanize Ukrainians in the eyes of the Russian population and generate grassroots support for the current war.

Putin himself has been at the heart of this process, regularly equating expressions of Ukrainian identity with Nazism while insisting Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”). Unsurprisingly, when Putin announced his invasion in February 2022, he declared the “de-Nazification” of Ukraine as his main war aim. This was widely understood to mean the eradication of a separate Ukrainian national identity and the imposition of a Russian imperial identity.

The Kremlin’s attempts to portray Ukraine as some kind of fascist threat have played well within the Russian information bubble but have failed to convince international audiences, due largely to the absence of any actual Ukrainian Nazis. Indeed, Ukraine’s far right parties are so unpopular that they actually formed a coalition ahead of the country’s last parliamentary elections in 2019 in a bid to end decades of ballot box failure, but still only managed to secure 2.16 percent of the vote.

Russian propagandists have also been unable to explain how “Nazi” Ukraine could be led by Jewish President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. When quizzed about this obvious inconsistency on Italian TV in May 2022, a clearly flustered Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Zelenskyy’s Jewishness was irrelevant as “Hitler also had Jewish blood.” This shameful episode highlighted the absurdity of Russia’s attempts to portray democratic Ukraine as a hotbed of Nazism.

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It should now be clear to any objective observer that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has always been an exercise in old-fashioned imperialism. Putin’s most recent statement about Russian “conquests” in Ukraine is not the first time he has adopted the swagger of the conqueror. In summer 2022, he compared his invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great. He has repeatedly claimed to be fighting for “historic Russian lands,” while denying Ukraine’s right to exist.

Putin’s increasingly open imperialism raises serious doubts over the possibility of reaching any kind of compromise agreement to end the war. Recent reports in the international media have suggested that he is “quietly signaling” his readiness for a ceasefire, but it is difficult to see how this could work without legitimizing a land grab that would have profound negative connotations for European stability and international security.

The most obvious question is how far Putin’s imperial ambitions extend. The man himself has proclaimed much of unoccupied Ukraine to be historically Russian, including the country’s main Black Sea port city, Odesa, and the entire southern coastline. This alone is reason enough to believe that any ceasefire along the current front lines of the conflict would merely provide Russia with a pause to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities.

There are also mounting concerns that if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, he will go further. He has repeatedly stated that the entire Soviet Union was “historical Russia,” while the borders of the old Russian Empire stretched even further. If Putin chooses to apply his weaponized version of Russian imperial history in its broadest sense, the list of potential targets would include Finland, Poland, Belarus, the Baltic states, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Alaska, and the whole of Central Asia.

Putin’s use of unambiguously imperialistic language is an indication of his growing confidence amid mounting signs of Western weakness. With vital Ukrainian aid packages currently held up in both the US and EU, Putin clearly believes he can outlast the democratic world and achieve his goals in Ukraine. If he is proved right, Ukrainians are highly unlikely to be the last victims of Russian imperial aggression.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Svitlana Dolbysheva, a Ukrainian translator working for German TV channel ZDF, was among those wounded on December 30 in a Russian air strike that partially destroyed Kharkiv’s Palace Hotel. “This is another Russian attack on the free press,” commented ZDF chief editor Bettina Schausten in the aftermath of the bombing. “ZDF will continue to report on the war against the Ukrainian civilian population.”

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Anton Skyba, who works as a freelance journalist and risk assessment trainer with Ukraine’s 2402 Fund NGO, argues that Russia’s attacks are meant “to disrupt and seed panic among journalists, media workers, aid workers, and different international counterparts.” He believes the Russian objective is to sew chaos and disorder, which will in the long run shield the Russian military from media scrutiny by making the work of journalists as difficult and dangerous as possible. In this context, he says, the terror tactics being employed are “quite pragmatic.”

The recent flurry of attacks on hotels has refocused attention on the safety of international media representatives in Ukraine. In summer 2023, a series of Russian air strikes behind the front lines in eastern Ukraine including an attack on a hotel in Pokrovsk sparked similar accusations that the Kremlin was attempting to distrupt international media coverage. At the time, the International Federation of Journalists responded by condemning “the targeting of facilities frequented by journalists,” while Peter Beaumont of the UK’s Guardian newspaper noted that the targeted locations were all used by journalists and said the bombings were “very much not a coincidence.” The Pokrovsk attack also prompted a coalition of 24 international civil society organizations to express alarm “at the continued targeting of media workers in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

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Despite multiple examples of Russian air strikes against hotels and other venues known for hosting international correspondents, Moscow has consistently rejected allegations of any deliberate policy to target journalists in Ukraine. On numerous occasions, Kremlin officials have sought to justify specific attacks by claiming venues were being used by members of the Ukrainian military and were therefore legitimate targets.

Demonstrating the intent behind individual bombings amid Europe’s largest invasion since World War II would be extremely challenging. Any such efforts would also likely take a considerable amount of time and investigative resources. Nevertheless, many within the international media and civil society communities currently appear determined to hold Russia accountable.

As the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches the two-year mark, the Russian army stands accused of committing a vast array of crimes. The list includes everything from summary executions and the widespread use of torture, to the bombardment of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and the destruction of entire towns and cities. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin himself has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for his role in the mass abduction of Ukrainian children.

The allegedly deliberate targeting of journalists in Ukraine by the Russian military is particularly alarming, as it suggests an attempt by the Kremlin to restrict media coverage of the invasion and prevent international audiences from learning about possible war crimes. It is important to thoroughly investigate these claims, both in order to make sure the crimes of the current war do not go unpunished, and to prevent such practices from becoming routine features of twenty-first century warfare.

Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Braw featured in CEPA’s Europe Edge on criminalizing Russia’s propaganda machine

Elisabeth Braw — Mon, 15 Jan 2024 16:16:00 +0000

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On January 14, Transatlantic Security Initiative senior fellow Elisabeth Braw was featured in the Center for European Policy Analysis’ Europe Edge, where she discussed Russia’s malign influence campaigns and how European nations are crafting their responses to combat their influence.

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How strong is Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine?

Vladimir Milov — Tue, 09 Jan 2024 18:46:32 +0000

Many in the West continue to argue that the majority of Russians support the invasion of Ukraine. However, nuanced analysis of Russian polling data indicates this is not the case, and suggests the Russian public is actually more concerned with how soon the war will end. This may already be forcing Vladimir Putin to adjust his public position on the invasion.

During Putin’s flagship December 2023 televised press conference, the event hosts told Putin they had received a “flurry” of questions asking when the war will end. This tallies with the findings of the Levada Center, which asked Russians prior to the press conference what they would like to ask Putin. According to another Russian pollster, Russian Field, respondents also recently prioritized the end of the war when asked to state their wishes for 2024.

Based on Russian Field polling, a solid majority of Russians oppose a potential second wave of mobilization. Meanwhile, data from both Russian Field and Levada shows a clear preference for peace talks over a continuation of the war. A Levada poll conducted in November 2023 indicated that while nominal support for the invasion of Ukraine remained high at 73 percent, the number of respondents who offered firm, unquestioned backing rather than those who “more support than oppose” the war had actually fallen from a peak of 53 percent in March 2022 to just 39 percent. This looks a lot more like conformism rather than active support for the war.

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While polling data in an authoritarian society such as Putin’s Russia must be treated with caution, recent trends identified by Levada and Russian Field are confirmed by a source close to the Kremlin. Valery Fedorov is director of Kremlin-loyal pollster WCIOM and an official advisor to the first deputy chairman of Russia’s presidential administration. In a September 2023 interview with Russia’s RBC, Fedorov reluctantly acknowledged that the number of Russians who actively and enthusiastically support Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is not more than 10-15 percent of the population. “The majority of Russians do not want to seize Kyiv or Odesa,” he commented. ‘If it was up to them whether to the start the “special military operation,” they probably would not have done it.”

Recent WCIOM research also acknowledges a sharp decline in both viewership and audience trust toward Russia’s state propaganda television channels. In 2023, just 40 percent of Russians cited state TV as their main source of information, down from 53 percent five years earlier. Since 2016, trust in Russian state channels as “objective” sources of information has almost halved, plunging from 46 percent to 26 percent.

Interestingly, only five percent of Russians under the age of 25 regard state TV as an objective source of information, compared to 51 percent of those aged 60 and over. This age breakdown is important if one wants to predict future trends. The patterns evident in media consumption match broader attitudes toward the war, with Levada finding that 56 percent of those aged 65 and above unconditionally back the invasion, with this figure shrinking to just 30 percent for those aged below 25.

Clearly, demography is against Putin, with younger Russians far more skeptical about the war. Indeed, a selective analysis of polling data excluding Russians over the age of 50, who were most traumatized by the Soviet and early post-Soviet experience and are therefore most easily susceptible to propaganda, would present a strikingly different picture of current attitudes toward the invasion of Ukraine.

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Based on the findings of different pollsters and non-polling criteria, a picture emerges of conscious support for the invasion of Ukraine among a significant number of Russians representing 30 percent to 40 percent of the population. This is not an unusual figure for totalitarian societies that run on fear and propaganda. Nevertheless, it is not a majority position. The available evidence indicates that the majority of Russians want the war to end, with support for the invasion fading over time and increasingly concentrated among older generations.

Similar trends can be seen in relation to military service. A range of polls show that between 50 and 60 percent of Russians reject a second wave of mobilization. This is a key reason why Putin has been reluctant to announce further mobilization over the past year or so, despite the obvious need to do so. As a result, soldiers mobilized in the final months of 2022 are stuck on the front lines of the war with little chance of any break in their service, prompting protests from family members. Polling indicates that a majority of Russians support calls from the wives of mobilized soldiers for their demobilization.

This is particularly bad news for Putin. It reveals that during almost two years of full-scale war, he has been unable to induce Russians to volunteer for combat in sufficient numbers. There are no lines at army recruitment points in the central squares of Russian cities. Instead, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team and other independent analysis, official numbers of “volunteer recruits” are wildly exaggerated. Russians may be prepared to “support” the war verbally, but they are clearly not rushing to fight themselves.

The most recent indication that Putin may be worried about waning public enthusiasm for the war against Ukraine came in his 2024 New Year address. One year earlier, Putin filmed his annual address alongside soldiers in uniform, with his speech focusing largely on the invasion of Ukraine. This year, however, he opted for a more familiar Kremlin backdrop and only mentioned the war in passing before switching to more mundane topics.

Putin understands the mood in Russia better than many Western commentators, and he appears to sense a declining public appetite for the invasion he unleashed almost two years ago. If this trend continues, it could further constrain Putin and his actions.

Vladimir Milov is Vice President for International Advocacy at the Free Russia Foundation.

Russia’s invasion aims to erase Ukrainian cultural identity

Martha Holder — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 21:11:22 +0000

As Ukrainians fight for their country’s survival amid Russia’s ongoing invasion, defending Ukraine’s culture has never been more important. With Russia openly seeking to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and erase Ukrainian identity, safeguarding Ukrainian culture should be recognized as a national priority. This could be highlighted in Ukraine’s National Recovery Plan at both the national and local levels, reflecting the key role cultural identity has played in sustaining the country during the barely conceivable horrors of the invasion unleashed almost two years ago by Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine has already achieved what many regard as a decisive moral victory in the war against Russia. While Kremlin propagandists deny Ukraine’s right to exist and Putin insists Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), the outpouring of Ukrainian national pride since February 2022 has been instrumental in fueling the country’s remarkable resilience and spirit of resistance.

As the invasion approaches the two-year mark, it is now obvious that Putin and other Russian leaders seriously underestimated the strength of Ukrainian national identity. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence that eradicating all traces of Ukrainian identity remains a core Russian war aim. Speaking to the New York Times in December 2022, UN rapporteur for cultural rights Alexandra Xanthaki explained that Russia sought not merely to capture Ukrainian territory, but to achieve the gradual destruction of Ukraine’s cultural life. “One of the justifications of the war is that Ukrainians don’t have a distinct cultural identity,” she noted.

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Russia’s assault on Ukrainian cultural identity can be seen in everything from the widespread looting of national treasures to the targeted destruction of historic sites including museums, theaters, libraries, and monuments. These attacks are evidence of an intentional Kremlin campaign to eradicate Ukraine’s distinct culture and heritage.

Prominent targets have included a museum dedicated to Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko in Kyiv region, the Sviatohirsk Monastery in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the Transfiguration Cathedral within the UNESCO-listed historic city center of Odesa in southern Ukraine, and a Kharkiv museum dedicated to eighteenth century Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda. In recognition of the growing threat posed to Ukraine’s cultural heritage, UNESCO has placed a number of historic Ukrainian landmarks on its list of endangered sites.

Russia’s invasion is not only destroying the physical manifestations of Ukraine’s cultural heritage. It is also claiming the lives of Ukrainians at the forefront of shaping the country’s contemporary cultural landscape. One prominent victim was Victoria Amelina, an award-winning 37-year-old novelist and poet who was killed by a Russian missile in July 2023 while dining in a restaurant in eastern Ukraine.

At the time of her death, Amelina was attempting to preserve the works of other Ukrainian artists and poets killed or exiled during Russia’s invasion. “My worst fear is coming true: I’m inside a new Executed Renaissance. As in the 1930s, Ukrainian artists are killed, their manuscripts disappear, and their memory is erased,” she wrote in the foreword to the published diary of another author, Volodymyr Vakulenko, who was murdered during the 2022 Russian occupation of Izium.

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The Putin regime’s attempts to suppress Ukrainian national culture and identity are part of a Russian imperial tradition stretching back hundreds of years. This is most immediately apparent in the long history of restrictions imposed on the use of the Ukrainian language. Russian attempts to ban the Ukrainian language began in the early seventeenth century and include over 100 separate measures adopted by successive imperial administrations throughout the Tsarist and Soviet eras. The chilling end goal of this linguistic imperialism can be seen in a mid-nineteenth century Tsarist decree stating that the Ukrainian language “never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

So far, the Putin regime’s efforts to erase Ukraine’s cultural identity appear to be backfiring. Indeed, amid the death and destruction of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are embracing their culture, history, and identity in unprecedented ways.

Since February 2022, millions of Ukrainians have adopted the Ukrainian language in their everyday lives. Ukrainian historical narratives that were suppressed for generations by the forces of Russian imperialism are now being rediscovered and are transforming perceptions of what it means to be Ukrainian. From poetry to pop music, contemporary Ukrainian culture is experiencing a golden age.

It is imperative that this consolidation of Ukrainian identity is embedded in the country’s recovery agenda, both at the ministerial level and via the National Council for the Recovery of Ukraine. While numerous similar heritage preservation initiatives are currently underway, it makes sense to prioritize the protection of cultural identity within broader national recovery efforts. Supporting individuals and institutions as they continue to engage with the essence of “being Ukrainian” is vital for the country’s future. It is also the perfect response to Russia’s dreams of wiping Ukraine off the map altogether.

Martha Holder is a board member at the Foundation to Preserve Ukraine’s Sacral Arts and a member of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America. She previously worked in international development at the World Bank (1994-2016).

Then came many more graphic posts, propelled to virality by both Hamas Telegram channels and a constellation of other Hamas-adjacent paramilitary groups. Within a few hours, the al-Qassam Brigades channel’s distribution grew by more than 50 percent, rising to 337,000 subscribers. Within a matter of days it would surpass 600,000 subscribers. Three other Palestinian militant groups rushed to release self-congratulatory statements about their own roles in the attack, not wanting Hamas to get all the credit. All told, Hamas and Hamas-adjacent groups would produce nearly 6,000 Telegram posts in the first seventy-two hours of the war.

This was an early glimpse of a conflict that would be largely mediated by the internet. In the aftermath of October 7, an audience of tens of millions would turn to social media to understand a terror attack that killed 1,139 people and resulted in the abduction of roughly 240 hostages by Hamas militants. Social media would remain the primary conduit through which audiences tracked and debated Israel’s ensuing siege of Gaza and military operation—one that would kill at least twenty thousand people in the first seventy days of fighting. Many users experienced the crisis not as a series of static news headlines but as a stream of viral events, often accompanied by unverified claims, decontextualized footage, and salacious imagery.

Almost as soon as the war began, it collided with the engineering and policy decisions of social media companies. Differences in their user interfaces, algorithms, monetization systems, and content restrictions meant that the reality of the war could appear wildly distorted within and across platforms. While a full reckoning of social media’s role in the conflict is not yet possible, we wanted to capture early apparent trends: the rapid and mostly uncontested spread of terrorist content on Telegram; the proliferation of false or unverifiable claims on X, formerly Twitter; the often one-sided content moderation decisions of Meta, which worked to the detriment of Palestinian political expression; and deep confusion around TikTok, due to both the insular nature of TikTok communities and a broad lack of understanding about how the TikTok algorithm works.

The post Distortion by design: How social media platforms shaped our initial understanding of the Israel-Hamas conflict appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Support Ukraine today or fight Russia tomorrow

Oleksandr Zavitnevych — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 23:52:07 +0000

The Russia-Ukraine War is not only a struggle for Ukrainian independence against resurgent Russian imperialism. As Vladimir Putin himself frequently states, it is also a war to destroy the existing world order.

By now, it should be apparent to any objective observer that unless Putin’s invasion ends in defeat, Russian international aggression will not be limited to Ukraine. Since February 2022, the Kremlin dictator has placed the entire Russian economy on a war footing and begun actively preparing Russian society for a long war. He has created an anti-Western alliance of fellow autocrats, and routinely portrays his invasion as a fight against the collective West.

These actions underline Putin’s commitment to an ideological showdown with the Western world and make a mockery of suggestions that he can be bought off by territorial concessions at Ukraine’s expense. In reality, Putin firmly believes he is on an historic mission and will not stop until he is stopped.

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Many in the West have yet to recognize the scale of the threat posed by Russia. Amid growing complaints of “Ukraine fatigue” in Western capitals and talk of a stalemate on the Ukrainian battlefield, it is vital to understand that military aid to Ukraine is not charity. Instead, every single delivery of weapons and ammunition to Ukraine is an investment in the future safety of the democratic world and a safeguard against the collapse of the international security system.

Putin makes no secret of the fact that he wants to bring the curtain down on the post-1991 world order and usher in a new era marked by insecurity and aggression. There are already growing indications that he is succeeding. The weak Western response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion no doubt encouraged Hamas to launch its unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel; the same can be said for Venezuela’s recent threats against neighboring Guyana. This trend toward greater international instability will continue to intensify until Russian impunity is challenged.

Countering the Russian threat is not easy and has already resulted in significant political and economic costs for populations throughout the democratic world. Nobody is more acutely aware of these costs than the Ukrainians, who have suffered unimaginable trauma and destruction since the start of the invasion in February 2022. If other European nations wish to avoid a similar fate in the coming years, they must back Ukraine now before it is too late.

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Russian military police detain “deserter” in Armenia, igniting sovereignty concerns

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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At present, the Western response to Russia’s invasion lacks any sense of urgency. Strikingly, the debate over Ukraine’s NATO integration has not significantly evolved in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion, despite the complete transformation of the European security situation. Likewise, discussions over the delivery of weapons to Ukraine remain subject to endless hesitation and extended delays, even as the bloodiest battles witnessed in Europe since the days of Hitler and Stalin rage in eastern and southern Ukraine.

This underwhelming response could have disastrous consequences that will be felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine. If a lack of Western resolve allows Putin to occupy and subjugate Ukraine, he will be greatly encouraged to go further. Crucially, he will also have both the additional resources and the momentum to do so.

Moldova and Kazakhstan would be likely initial targets and would be particularly vulnerable to Russian invasion. With NATO demoralized and discredited by the fall of Ukraine, an emboldened Russia may also decide to press home its advantage by threatening Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, or Poland. At that point, NATO leaders would be faced with the grave choice of either sending troops to fight Russia or accepting the demise of the Alliance.

All this can still be avoided by arming Ukraine adequately and advancing the country’s NATO integration. In the short term, Ukraine must be given the tools to defeat Russia’s invading army. Looking further ahead, the only way to achieve a lasting peace is by acknowledging Ukraine’s status as one of the cornerstones of European security.

The world is currently at an historic crossroads. Putin is leading a revisionist Russia in an escalating confrontation with the West that will define the future of international relations. This Russian threat can no longer be downplayed or denied. Instead, the choice facing Western leaders is simple: Support Ukraine today or fight Russia tomorrow.

Oleksandr Zavitnevych is a member of the Ukrainian Parliament with the Servant of the People party and Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s National Security, Defense, and Intelligence Committee.

Russian conscription roundups target students and migrants to replenish armed forces

On December 6, the Russian project to help evacuate men fleeing conscription, “Идите лесом!” (Get lost!), published figures indicating that more than seventy-three conscription roundups in Russia targeted students. According to an article by Russian opposition media outlet Doxa, quoting an interview with “Get Lost” initiative founder Ivan Chuvilyaev, “summons [to military commissariats] were distributed in universities, residence halls, public transportation, work locations, and public places.”

In addition, several news reports have suggested that roundups organized by Russian law enforcement have targeted migrant populations throughout the Moscow region and in other cities. According to reports by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Doxa, Russian police issued conscriptions on November 17 in Balashikha, on November 23 in Elektrostal, on December 6 near Saint Petersburg, and on December 11 in Yekaterinburg and in Saratov. In most cases, a handful of men were given conscription notices to visit military commissariats. In a December 11 article on the Saratov roundup, Doxa noted that “in September 2022, Russia simplified the process of obtaining citizenship for migrants who fought in Ukraine.” The media outlet also reported that new military commissariats have been opened next to migration centers.

Additionally, BBC reported that Russian authorities issued conscription notices to refugees who were detained after trying to cross Russia’s border with Finland. Following tensions at the border, Helsinki closed all of its border crossings with Russia in late November. After briefly reopening part of the border with Russia on December 12, Finland again closed all Finnish-Russian border crossings on December 14, citing a renewed influx of migrants. DFRLab previously reported on concerns raised by Finnish and Estonian authorities over what they believe is a manufactured migration crisis orchestrated by Russia; Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsakhna referred to the tactic as “hybrid war.”

Further, BBC reported that migrants arrested near the Finnish border with expired Russian visas alleged that Russian authorities in the republic of Karelia proposed that they enroll in the Russian army or join as mercenaries in exchange for their liberty.

Moreover, the Russian opposition Telegram channel SOTA found evidence of war supporters inciting Russians to report migrants who recently acquired Russian citizenship. In a December 11 Telegram post, the channel shared a poster that reads “If your neighbor is a migrant, call the military commissariat.”

—Valentin Châtelet, research associate, Brussels, Belgium

Russian military police detain “deserter” in Armenia, igniting sovereignty concerns

In an extraterritorial operation, Russian military police in Armenia arrested Russian citizen Dmitry Setrakov on desertion charges and transported him to a Russian military base in Gyumri, Armenia. Previously a contract soldier in Russia, Setrakov reportedly moved to Armenia following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In a December 8 post, the Armenia branch of the human rights organization Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly revealed that a criminal case concerning desertion had been initiated against Setrakov in Russia. The organization’s director, Artur Sakunts, denounced the arrest as an infringement of Armenia’s legal system, asserting that only Armenian law enforcement agencies have the right to arrest people within the country. According to Sakunts, Russian military police claimed that the arrest was pursuant to an order from Russian President Vladimir Putin to apprehend all defectors.

In an interview with Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Sakunts urged the country’s authorities to block Setrakov’s extradition to Russia, to “bring him back under Armenia’s legal protection” and to launch a criminal investigation “into the unlawful actions carried out by members of the Russian military police on Armenian soil.”

This appears to be the first incident involving Russian security forces detaining an escaped serviceman in another country. Previous cases in Armenia involving Russians accused of desertion or evasion of military service were handled by Armenian police, Ekho Kavkaza reported, citing Bот Так.

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Putin announces presidential bid and election plans in annexed Ukrainian regions

Putin officially declared his candidacy for the Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 15-17, 2024. The announcement took place on December 8 during the Day of Heroes of the Fatherland ceremony at the Kremlin, where Artem Zhoga, parliament chairman of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, urged Putin to run.

“I won’t conceal that I entertained different thoughts at various times. However, as you rightly pointed out, now is when a decision must be made. I have decided to run for president of the Russian Federation,” Putin pronounced.

The Central Election Commission, following consultations with the Ministry of Defense and the Federal Security Service, confirmed the possibility of holding Russian presidential elections in the “new territories” with martial law in effect. This includes Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, which were annexed by Russia in 2022 through illegal referenda.

“As the history of conducting elections and referendums has demonstrated, all procedures can be successfully implemented in these territories. The requisite security measures can be guaranteed through legislation and local resources by organizing effective election campaigns,” claimed Dmitry Vyatkin, the first deputy head of the United Russia faction in the State Duma.

Ukraine condemned the Kremlin’s plans, deeming them “null and void.” According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, observers of “these pseudo-elections” will face criminal responsibility in line with Ukrainian legislation.

“Holding Russian elections on Ukrainian territories grossly violates the Constitution and legislation of Ukraine, the norms and principles of international law, in particular the UN Charter. Such an electoral process, like other similar propaganda activities in the past, will be null and void,” the statement said.

Two days after announcing the date for the presidential elections, Duma member Vasily Piskaryov accused NATO of interference, claiming that the Alliance is activating provocateurs and agents of influence in Georgia and the Baltic states in response to the launch of Putin’s presidential campaign.

“There are attempts to carry out illegal activities in our country during the election campaign, including the training of provocateurs. Corresponding trainings are being organized, notably in the Baltic countries and Georgia for ‘pseudo-observers’ as well as for the so-called ‘journalists in exile.’ These activities are funded through organizational and grant support, financed, among others, by the German Foreign Ministry,” Piskaryov claimed.

—Sopo Gelava, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Pro-Russia disinformation campaign exploits Cameo and US celebrities to push anti-Zelenskyy narrative

Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center discovered a Russian influence operation exploiting video messaging platforms such as Cameo, where celebrities are paid to create personalized video messages for fans. It appears the videos in this case are being used to try to discredit Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

According to Microsoft, the campaign from “Russia-aligned influence actors” involves soliciting video messages from celebrities addressed to “Vladimir” and urging him to seek treatment for a substance abuse problem. The messages aim to further a long-running fabricated narrative that Zelenskyy has a substance abuse issue.

The videos were shared within pro-Russia social media circles before being magnified by Russian state-affiliated and state-run media outlets, who framed the videos as messages directed at Zelenskyy. In some instances, the campaign operator added media outlet logos or celebrity social media handles, likely to gain unearned credibility by impersonating the media outlet.

Between July and October 2023, pro-Kremlin social media channels circulated at least seven videos featuring US celebrities, though the DFRLab could not determine why such an operation would employ so many of them given they are likely not very well known outside of the United States. The videos are still available on various online platforms.

Despite the long-standing dissemination of false claims by Kremlin officials and Russian state-sponsored disinformation regarding Zelenskyy’s alleged “substance abuse struggles,” this campaign signifies a novel tactic by Russia-aligned actors seeking to discredit the Ukrainian president and undermine international support for the country.

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Moscow bans QR codes on billboards following anti-Putin campaign

The Moscow Department of Media and Advertising has prohibited billboard owners from adding QR codes to advertisements, according to the Russian independent outlet SOTA. This move comes in the wake of a political campaign by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), an organization spearheaded by Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

FBK placed billboards in Moscow and other cities; the billboards incorporated QR codes that directed individuals to the website of an anti-Putin campaign, bearing the message “RUSSIA, HAPPY NEW YEAR. HAPPYNEWRUSSIA.INFO.” They were promptly removed by authorities shortly after their installation.

These billboards featured a QR code accompanied by a “16+” sign, indicating that the destination website was for people sixteen or older. Reportedly, the QR code initially led users to a politically neutral resource before redirecting them to another website showcasing FBK’s campaign, titled “Russia without Putin.” The website for the “Russia without Putin” campaign states, “For Putin, the 2024 elections serve as a referendum on the approval of his actions and the approval of the war.” The campaign proposes that supporters join Navalny’s underground headquarters, participate in street agitations, and use an automated calling machine to cold-call and raise awareness. They also encourage people to send donations for the purchase of advertising on Telegram and for making calls to Russians. (Meanwhile, Navalny’s whereabouts are currently unknown, as Russian authorities claim that he is being transferred between prisons.)

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Blockade of Poland-Ukraine border crossings slows transportation of military and humanitarian aid

On December 11, Ukraine’s customs service claimed on Telegram that Polish truck drivers had ended their strike and declared the Yahodyn-Dorohusk crossing on the Ukraine-Poland border unblocked. However, on the same day, the Polish truckers claimed that they had not finished their protest and, as Voice of America reported, they were planning to take legal action “against a reported local order disbanding one stoppage.”

Polish truckers have blocked the four main land crossings between Poland and Ukraine since November 6. The truckers are demanding the reintroduction of a permit system for Ukrainian drivers to operate within the European Union (EU). Polish truck drivers argue that their business has been negatively impacted by Ukrainian drivers offering lower prices to EU clients for transporting cargo. During a meeting of EU transport ministers on December 4, Poland asked the EU to reinstate permits for Ukrainian drivers, but the European Commission said such an action would not be possible, as it would breach an existing agreement concerning the carriage of freight by road between the EU and Ukraine. Truckers in Slovakia have also joined Poland’s truckers and enacted a similar blockade of crossings on the Slovakia-Ukraine border on December 1.

Although Polish truckers claimed that they were not preventing military transports or humanitarian aid from reaching Ukraine, the border blockade has reportedly caused delays, according to representatives of Ukrainian charity organizations. On December 6, Taras Chmut, head of Ukrainian military aid foundation “Come Back Alive,” told Reuters that hundreds of drones and dozens of night-vision systems procured for the frontline were stuck at the Poland-Ukraine border for weeks. Ivan Poberzhniak, head of procurement and logistics at “Come Back Alive,” told Voice of America that around two hundred pickup trucks, which were needed to transport ammunition and evacuate the wounded from the frontline, were blocked at the Poland-Ukraine border.

Viktor Dolhopiatov, who, according to Reuters, runs an enterprise making equipment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, argued that the blockade on the Poland-Ukraine border had delayed supplies of parts for machines to his factory, including components used in drone engines and radio stations. Oleksandr Zadorozhnyi, operational director of KOLO Charity Foundation told PBS News that due to the border blockade, drones were delayed by two to three weeks. Anatoly Akulov, manager of charity foundation “Ukraine in Armor,” told Ukrainian National News that fishing nets, which are used as anti-radar nets on the frontline, have also been delayed for three weeks due to the blockade. Earlier in December, Polish truckers also halted the delivery of military patrol boats, provided to Ukraine as part of a US government aid program.

—Givi Gigitashvili, research associate, Warsaw, Poland

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Russia and China are part of the same problem for the United States

Glenn Chafetz — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 17:11:38 +0000

Members of the US Congress who oppose further military aid for Ukraine often seek to justify their position by claiming that China rather than Russia presents a greater danger to the United States. They argue that the rise of China means it is in American interests to accommodate Russia, while it should be up to Europe to shoulder the burden of Ukrainian security.

This argument is misconceived, as even the government of Taiwan recognizes. China and Russia act together to endanger the US and its democratic allies, including Taiwan. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin both view the consolidation of democracy anywhere as an existential danger to their own power. They cooperate to wage hybrid warfare against the US and other Western nations. Both countries have the same long-term foreign policy goals: To promote autocracy, undermine democracies, and build a new international order where a handful of great powers are able to dominate weaker neighbors.

Given the current “no limits” partnership between Moscow and Beijing, China hawks cannot logically argue that China constitutes a threat and then vote against material support for Ukraine as it fights against Russia’s ongoing invasion. As Taiwan understands, Ukraine’s subjugation would benefit Xi, just as the strangulation of Taiwan’s democracy would benefit Putin. This explains why the two autocracies cooperate on everything from energy, arms, and autocracy promotion to information operations and diplomacy.

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In recent years, China and Russia have grown increasingly co-dependent in the energy sector. China cannot meet its energy needs without imports and cannot easily replace energy supplies from Russia, especially because the most obvious alternatives are all located in the politically volatile Middle East.

As of February 2023, Russia accounted for 17 percent of China’s oil imports, 23 percent of coal imports, 25 percent of pipeline gas, and 10 percent of LNG. In a very literal sense, Russia fuels China’s political and economic ambitions. China buys much of the energy that European countries are no longer willing to purchase, thus keeping Russia’s economy afloat. Beijing clearly has the upper hand in terms of bargaining power, but this energy trade is nevertheless vital for Putin.

Russia also contributes significantly to China’s military development and capabilities. China has acquired the SU-35 advanced fighter, MI-17 helicopters, and S-400 air defense systems from Russia. Moreover, military cooperation between the two countries includes joint multi-domain exercises, most notably naval maneuvers in the Sea of Japan and the Western Pacific.

Both governments support authoritarianism beyond their borders. This was most immediately evident in Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Russia and China belong to an informal grouping of autocracies that cooperates at the UN and other international bodies. It should be obvious that the majority of dictatorships receiving support from China and Russia are not friendly to US and European interests.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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In the information sphere, China and Russia continue to learn from each other. Both countries employ state-sponsored mouthpieces, foreign allies, and proxies to promote their narratives, spread conspiracy theories, and denigrate the West. Both use social media to target audiences around the world with a wide range of tailored disinformation.

The two countries cooperate closely in the diplomatic arena. Russia supports China’s territorial sovereignty claims and maritime rights and interests claims, including those in the South China Sea and against Japan’s Senkaku Islands. Moscow similarly supports Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative. Russia also backs China’s effort to create alternative international economic institutions to de-dollarize the global economy, and has joined China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, a potential substitute for the IMF and World Bank.

Meanwhile, China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and is accused of helping to arm Russia in addition to providing diplomatic backing. Beijing has also offered diplomatic support for the Kremlin’s military intervention in Syria. The two countries work together to block international sanctions measures against Iran and North Korea.

Calls for the US to seek some kind of deal with Russia in order to concentrate on the Chinese threat are typically accompanied by claims that China represents a far more dangerous long-term challenge. It is true that China’s size, economic power, and global ambitions make it a significantly more formidable opponent than Russia, but this ignores the fact that Beijing uses Moscow as a tool to advance its ambitions. In reality, any attempt to appease or otherwise accommodate Russia would inevitably strengthen China and weaken the US.

Glenn Chafetz is a retired CIA officer. He currently directs 2430 Group, a nonprofit institution that researches and advises on state-sponsored intellectual property theft and disinformation.

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The many different puzzle pieces that make up Putin’s official version of the deeply troubled historical relationship between Russia and Ukraine simply don’t add up. His claims of a common past and shared identity conveniently ignore centuries of oppressive policies and forced russification imposed on Ukrainians by the Russian imperial authorities throughout the Tsarist and Soviet eras.

Nevertheless, Putin has deployed his distorted vision to argue that the two countries are one nation and that, in essence, there is a civil conflict currently underway among the people of Ukraine. This is a people that voted 92 percent in favor of independence in 1991, with majorities in every single region of the country. It is also a people that staged two revolutions since becoming independent in order to remain both free and democratic.

Recent polls consistently indicate that Ukrainians do not want to surrender a single inch of occupied land to Russia in exchange for an end to what Putin euphemistically calls his “special military operation.” Ukrainians and global audiences overwhelmingly recognize this “operation” as a war of aggression that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives over the past twenty-one months, in addition to the thousands killed during the previous eight years of hostilities following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Despite Putin’s insistence that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), the differences between the two countries are now more immediately apparent than ever. Today’s Ukraine is a democracy, though at times a messy one. In stark contrast, Putin’s Russia is a dictatorship, a top-to-bottom power vertical led by one man.

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The invading Russian army is not the only enemy Ukraine faces; the Russian propaganda that drives and justifies the invasion is arguably just as deadly. Moscow does everything it can to silence Ukrainian voices and make sure that the history of Ukraine is viewed through Russia’s very selective and murky prism. These indoctrination efforts target Russians, Ukrainians, and also international audiences in different ways but with equal gusto.

For many years, it has been apparent that Western politicians, policymakers, and commentators are particularly susceptible to Russian’s anti-Ukrainian propaganda due to their often limited knowledge of the relevant regional history. Today, it has become more important than ever to counter Russia’s false historical narratives, as international support for Ukraine could very well determine the outcome of the war.

If Russian propaganda is not blunted, the average voter in Western countries will be left face-to-face with the fake Ukrainian history disseminated internationally by the Kremlin and its networks of allies and agents. These falsehoods include the central message that there is no separate Ukrainian people or Ukrainian state. Instead, there is only Russia.

This twisted logic allows Putin to claim, with a poker face, that Russia is not waging war against the Ukrainian people, despite the unprecedented bloodshed since February 2022. It forms the basis of his claim that Russia’s full-scale invasion is really an attempt to liberate Ukraine from “Nazis.” According to Putin, Ukraine is part of Russia, so the Western world has no right to interfere in what is essentially an internal affair.

The Kremlin’s weaponized version of history has helped garner high levels of domestic support for Putin and his invasion of Ukraine within Russia itself, if one is to take as gospel the integrity of opinion polls conducted in a dictatorship. Whether these surveys are genuinely representative or not, it is clear that there is no meaningful anti-war movement in today’s Russia.

Little can realistically be done at present about the state of public opinion inside Russia. The real danger is that Russian disinformation regarding Ukrainian history will be allowed to further influence opinion throughout the West and raise doubts over the legitimacy of Ukraine’s fight for survival. This could diminish the supply of military and other support at a time of Ukraine’s greatest need. That would be a tragedy for Ukraine and a disaster for the wider Western world, with grave consequences for the future of international security.

Ihor Smeshko is a Ukrainian politician and former head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence and Security Service.

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Debate has raged for the past twenty-one months over the true extent of Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Many continue to question the validity of polls conducted in wartime Russia, with skeptics arguing that very few members of the public would be comfortable expressing anti-regime opinions to strangers. Indeed, given the draconian legislation adopted in Russia since February 2022 criminalizing criticism of the invasion, there is good reason to treat all research data coming out of the country with caution.

While there are legitimate doubts over the credibility of polling data, the findings detailed in this new report and the Levada Center’s more regular monitoring both closely mirror the available anecdotal evidence, which indicates high levels of public acceptance for the ongoing invasion. Perhaps the most compelling evidence has come from personal interactions between Ukrainians and their Russian relatives. With family ties connecting millions on both sides of the border, there has been ample opportunity for Ukrainians to get a sense of how ordinary Russians feel about the war. This has led to countless painful conversations, with Ukrainians frequently finding that people they have known all their lives now parrot Kremlin propaganda, blame Ukraine for the war, or deny core aspects of the invasion altogether.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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The almost complete absence of any meaningful anti-war activity in Russia is a further indication of public support, or at least acceptance, of the invasion. During the first weeks of hostilities, there were some attempts to hold anti-war rallies in a number of Russian cities, but these modest efforts soon ran out of steam. Some commentators have since argued that it is simply too dangerous to protest. However, wartime restrictions have not prevented Russians from freely voicing their opposition to various specific aspects of the invasion.

Since Putin first announced mobilization in September 2022, Russian soldiers and their family members have recorded and published hundreds of individual protest videos complaining about everything from poor conditions and lack of equipment to heavy losses and suicidal tactics. These publicly available addresses have often been highly critical of the Russian authorities, raising obvious questions about the validity of claims that Russians are afraid to oppose the state. Tellingly, there have been almost no videos of soldiers condemning the war itself or refusing to follow criminal orders, despite an apparent readiness to go public with their often explosive grievances.

The more than one million Russians who are believed to have fled the country following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have also proven largely unwilling to voice their opposition to the war, despite not facing any of the restrictions in place inside Russia itself. While there are large Russian diasporas in multiple cities across Europe, there have been very few anti-war rallies since February 2022 or any other attempts by Russian citizens to protest against the invasion being carried out in their name. When Russians in Finland did recently mobilize to protest, it was to complain against the temporary closure of some border crossings with Russia.

All this is very good news for Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator had initially hoped to secure a rapid military victory in Ukraine, but he is now actively preparing his country for a long war. He has already moved much of the Russian economy onto a war footing, and seems to have succeeded in convincing the vast majority of his compatriots that they are engaged in a struggle with the West that is both existential and unavoidable. With his home front looking remarkably stable and no sign of any domestic challenges on the horizon, Putin can look ahead to 2024 with a degree of confidence.

These latest indications of continued Russian public support for the war will further dampen any lingering hopes in Western capitals that internal opposition could yet derail the Russian invasion. The timing is particularly unfortunate, with talk of a battlefield stalemate in Ukraine already fueling doubts over the future of Western military aid. For now, Western leaders remain adamant that they will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. However, they are extremely unlikely to be aided by any kind of anti-war uprising inside Russia itself.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Western leaders must choose: Arm Ukraine or enable Putin’s genocide

Taras Kuzio — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 21:27:34 +0000

As the year draws to a close, there is a growing sense of Ukraine fatigue in Western capitals amid pessimistic forecasts, talk of a battlefield stalemate, and recriminations over the perceived failure of Ukraine’s counteroffensive. This grim mood is raising serious questions about the future of military aid to Ukraine and the prospects for continued Western support into 2024 and beyond.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is looking more confident than ever. This week, he was in particularly messianic mood as he addressed the World Russian People’s Council. Ukrainians and Belarusians are not independent but are in fact part of the “great Russian nation,” he declared. According to Putin, these two nations have been artificially divided from Russia by the “separatist illusions” of the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Putin’s casual denial of Ukraine’s right to exist is a timely reminder of exactly what is at stake in the current war. The Kremlin dictator is clearly not a rational statesman pursuing limited political goals or seeking a negotiated settlement; he is an all-powerful autocrat who genuinely believes he is on a sacred historic mission. That mission includes the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.

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We already have a good idea of what Putin has in store for Ukraine. In the approximately seventeen percent of the country that is currently under Kremlin control, millions of Ukrainians are subjected to a daily reality that includes the possibility of abduction, torture, death, or deportation. Those who manage to avoid these direct physical threats face the prospect of forced russification as the Russian occupation authorities systematically erase all traces of Ukrainian statehood and identity while pressuring the captive population to accept Russian nationality.

The Kremlin began preparing these genocidal policies well in advance of the full-scale invasion. Russian security officers reportedly compiled detailed lists of Ukrainian community leaders who would be targeted by advancing Russian forces in a bid to prevent any coordinated Ukrainian opposition to the takeover of the country. These registers included elected local officials, priests, journalists, teachers, activists, and military veterans. A clear pattern of abductions and disappearances has subsequently been witnessed in every region of Ukraine under Russian occupation. Meanwhile, in liberated villages, towns, and cities, the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly encountered mass graves, torture chambers, and widespread reports of missing persons.

Throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine, Ukrainian monuments have been pulled down and replaced with commemorations of Russian imperial and Soviet history, while symbols of Ukrainian statehood have been systematically removed from public spaces. Moscow has imported Russian teachers to indoctrinate Ukrainian schoolchildren, pushing them to reject their nationality and embrace an alternative imperial identity. Entire parks and museums have been created to aid in this process, with children also forced to express thanks and gratitude to the Russian soldiers engaged in destroying their homeland. Predictably, the Ukrainian language is no longer taught in schools and has been banished from public life throughout Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Perhaps the single most chilling aspect of the Kremlin campaign to eradicate Ukrainian national identity has been the mass abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children at an extensive network of re-education camps inside Russia itself. This has already led to war crimes charges again Putin from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. It also appears to be a textbook case of genocide according to the UN’s Genocide Convention, which identifies “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” as one of five recognized acts of genocide.

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This is not the first time the Kremlin has been accused of committing genocide in Ukraine. In many ways, Putin’s genocidal policies toward Ukrainians are a continuation of the campaign unleashed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, who sought to eradicate Ukrainian identity in the early decades of the USSR. The Stalin regime was responsible for the Holodomor, an artificial famine in 1930s Ukraine that killed millions of Ukrainians. Hundreds of thousands more were murdered during the Great Terror. Much like today’s Russian invasion, the Soviet authorities specifically targeted spiritual, academic, and community leaders who represented Ukraine’s statehood aspirations. The man who coined the term “genocide,” Raphael Lemkin, would later call Stalin’s efforts to destroy the Ukrainian nation “the classic example of Soviet genocide.”

Far from condemning the crimes of the Stalin era, Putin has sought to emulate them. Indeed, he has overseen the rehabilitation of Stalin, with memorials to victims disappearing and new monuments honoring the Soviet dictator sprouting up across Russia. It is likely no coincidence that on November 25, the day Ukrainians honor the millions killed in the Holodomor, Putin ordered the largest drone attack on Ukraine of the entire war.

If Western military support for Ukraine does not continue at current or increased levels, the present stalemate will deepen and much of the country will remain under Russian occupation. There is also a significant chance that the whole of Ukraine could fall under Kremlin control, exposing tens of millions of Ukrainians to the genocidal policies already being implemented throughout the occupied regions. This would obviously be a catastrophe for the Ukrainian nation, but the tragedy would not end there. On the contrary, the repercussions would also be felt far beyond the borders of Ukraine.

A genocide in the heart of twenty-first century Europe would shake the foundations of the entire rules-based international security system and transform the geopolitical landscape. It would plunge NATO into crisis while emboldening Russia and other authoritarian regimes around the world, ushering in a new era of militarism, instability, and international aggression. Even if a major war could be avoided, Western defense budgets would balloon to levels far beyond the current cost of arming Ukraine, while an increasingly hostile international environment would severely hamper economic growth. If Western leaders wish to avoid this nightmare scenario, they must adequately arm Ukraine now.

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Multiple reports of Ukrainian drone attacks as Russia continues its assault

On November 27, sources on Telegram reported a massive explosion with subsequent detonations in eastern Ukraine’s occupied Donetsk region. It seems likely that drones of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) attacked a Russian munitions storage facility, but the AFU has not claimed responsibility for the attack. That same day, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that air defenses detected Ukrainian drones deep inside Russia, notably in the Ryazan region. Ukrainian drones also reportedly targeted an aircraft plant in Smolensk the previous day.

Also on November 27, AFU reported twelve Russian attacks in the direction of Lyman, along with Russian assaults in the directions of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, with twenty-six and twenty-one attacks, respectively. The next day, Ukraine reported fifty-six attacks by Russian forces, with the fiercest combat occurring near Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Marinka.

According to Reuters, tension between Russian and Indian enterprises is intensifying over the sale of oil for rupees. Russia reportedly refuses to accept a “non-convertible currency” and insists all transactions are made with China’s yuan. As a result, certain transactions are being paid in installments in various currencies, including the yuan, Hong Kong dollar, and UAE dirham. At the same time, the Financial Times reported that Turkey is increasing its exports to Russia, notably in microchips, communications equipment, and telescopic sights. US Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson is expected to visit Turkey imminently to hold discussions with Turkish officials on limiting this trade.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has alleged that Russian leadership spent 1.5 billion dollars on a large-scale information campaign known as “Maidan 3,” according to the Ukrainian outlet Babel. The campaign, which has not been independently verified, was allegedly designed to incite dissent, exacerbate contradictory reporting, and instill dread and terror in Ukraine. The report also alleged that Russia spent 250 million of the 1.5 billion dollars on Telegram operations.

In additional security-related news, the United States is negotiating with Greece to purchase 75,000 shells for Ukraine. It was reported that this will include 50,000 105-millimeter shells, 20,000 155-millimeter shells, and 5,000 203-millimeter shells, according to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. The Greek army possesses 203-millimeter shells for use with the US-made M110 self-propelled artillery units. These shells are also suitable for firing from the Soviet 2S7 Pion self-propelled guns, which are utilized by the AFU’s 43rd brigade.

Meanwhile, a new photo appearing to originate from Ukrainian soldiers shows NT120 artillery mines designed for 120mm mortars, which are believed to have been sent to Ukraine by Spain. Spain rarely announces new aid packages for Ukraine, but it has previously supported Ukraine with artillery shell production.

Naval News reported on possible GPS jamming on Russian auxiliary ships in occupied Sevastopol that are systematically broadcasting signals as if they were located at Belbek airfield, many kilometers north. Radar interference patterns are visible on satellite imagery from Sevastopol.

Lastly, the Slovakian truckers union announced plans to blockade its border with Ukraine beginning on December 1. Truckers in Slovakia have threatened to close the country’s major border crossing unless measures are implemented to curb competition from Ukrainian truckers. Truckers from Poland are also seeking restrictions on Ukrainian truckers, who they allege provide lower costs for their services and carry products throughout the European Union (EU) rather than just between the EU and Ukraine. The announcement further reinforces signals coming from Bratislava that the country could curtail sending aid to Ukraine.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Finland enforces border closure with Russia in response to escalating migrant concerns

On November 28, Finland announced the complete closure of its border crossings with Russia to curb an unusually high influx of asylum seekers. The decision remains effective for a two-week period concluding on December 13. Finnish authorities accused Russia of acting as a conduit for the influx of migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, by intentionally guiding them toward Finland. Russia denied these allegations, insisting that the individuals attempting to cross the border have a legitimate right to do so. Earlier this month, Finland began closing most of its border crossings with Russia, leaving only the northernmost point open for processing asylum seekers.

According to Finnish officials, Russia is exploiting migrants as part of a hybrid warfare strategy to destabilize the country following its accession to NATO. Authorities reported approximately nine hundred asylum seekers crossing from Russia, an unusually high number for the country.

“Finland has a profound reason to suspect that the entry [of migrants] is organized by a foreign state,” asserted Prime Minister Petteri Orpo. “This deals with Russia’s influencing operations and we won’t accept it. We don’t accept any attempt to undermine our national security. Russia has caused this situation, and it can also stop it.”

Deutsche Welle reported that facilitators assisted in the border crossings, providing services for a fee, such as visas, language courses, transportation, and accommodations. Some facilitators asserted they had agreements with Russian border officials, claiming that these officials would stamp migrants’ passports and guide them to the Finnish border, where they could apply for asylum. Deutsche Welle identified several Arabic-language Telegram channels where administrators and other group members offer assistance in crossing the Russian-Finnish border in exchange for a fee. The DFRLab previously reported on similar tactics on Facebook in relation to migrant transit to the EU via Belarus in 2021.

—Victoria Olari, research assistant, Moldova

Pro-Kremlin sources spread conspiracy theory alleging US ‘climate weapons’ caused storm in Crimea

A severe storm system moved through the Black Sea this week, impacting occupied Crimea and parts of Ukraine and Russia, leaving millions without heat and power. Amid the storm, pro-Kremlin sources re-circulated an old conspiracy theory suggesting US-based entities were complicit in the storm’s creation.

The conspiracy theory accuses the United States of having a technological program that can control the weather. The DFRLab observed five Russian news websites amplifying this old conspiracy theory in the context of the recent storm in Crimea, including Ukraina.ru, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Don24, Crimea News, and Privet Rostov.

The news reports referenced weather manipulation against Russia and suggested a link between geopolitical events and incidences of weather disasters. Text analysis of the five reports revealed that they often used the Russian phrase for “climate weapons” (климатическое оружие). They also referenced the High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the February 2023 earthquake in Turkey. The articles cited two sources to support the theory, including an interview in Ukraina.ru, a Kremlin-affiliated outlet, with Dmitry Efimov, former chief analyst of the Federal Security Service of Russia, and an interview in the pro-Kremlin media outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda with scientist Vladimir Polyakov. The reports also implied a connection between the February 2023 earthquake and the presence of the US destroyer ship USS Nitze in Turkey, but acknowledged a lack of concrete evidence.

The conspiracy theory also received traction on Telegram. Using the Telegram analytics tool TGStat, the DFRLab identified that the Russian phrase for “climate weapons” garnered 1,911,451 views on November 27, and found that Ukraina.ru’s report had been republished by at least six Telegram channels. The conspiracy theory pushed by these news outlets not only seeks to amplify distrust toward the United States but also has the potential to fuel climate denialism. The trend of attributing natural disasters to foreign actors can divert attention from the scientific community’s consensus on the climate crisis and allows states to evade accountability.

—Sayyara Mammadova, research assistant, Warsaw, Poland

Putin unveils Russia’s AI strategy to counter Western ‘monopoly’

On November 23, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced plans for the country to develop its own artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, warning against allowing the West to monopolize AI development. Speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Journey 2023 Conference in Moscow, Putin emphasized that Russian AI should counter Western systems and be grounded in the Russian language, traditional culture, and spiritual heritage. This echoes a narrative used in Russian propaganda that highlights the preservation of Russian culture and positions Russia as a defender of religious traditions.

Putin expressed concern that Western search engines ignore Russian culture, accusing them of promoting xenophobia. “The algorithm may tell the machine that Russia, our culture, science, music, and literature simply do not exist,” he said. “They are canceled in the digital space. Later, they can do the same with other cultures and civilizations, inserting themselves and emphasizing their exceptionalism in this space.”

Putin announced his intention to approve a national strategy for the development of artificial intelligence to counter the West’s “monopoly domination.” Three key proposals in the strategy have been revealed. First, Russian scientists should have access to next-generation “supercomputers” being developed in Russia. Second, Putin called for expanding AI technology development programs at the master’s and doctoral level in relevant universities. Third, the strategy will consider restructuring research funding and allocating resources to research in generative AI and large language models, as well as develop new academic programs. Addressing safety and ethics in technological progress, Putin referred to Russian classical writers as moral guides for researchers and proposed that Russia’s experience would contribute to shaping international ethical standards in AI. He suggested discussing these issues at the 2024 BRICS summit, which Russia will chair in Kazakhstan.

—Sopo Gelava, Research Associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

The post Russian War Report: Pro-Kremlin surrogates accuse the US of using ‘climate weapons’ in Crimea appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Putin debunks his own propaganda by disarming Russia’s NATO borders

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 20:34:23 +0000

For the past twenty-one months, Vladimir Putin has consistently blamed NATO for provoking the invasion of Ukraine. According to the Kremlin dictator, years of NATO expansion posed an escalating security threat to Russia that eventually left the country with no choice but to defend itself. This NATO narrative has proven far more persuasive among international audiences than Russia’s more outlandish propaganda about “Ukrainian Nazis” and “Western Satanists.” However, it is now being debunked by Russia’s own actions. From Norway in the Arctic north to Kaliningrad in the west, Russia is making a mockery of Putin’s claims by dramatically reducing its military presence along the country’s borders with the NATO Alliance. If Putin genuinely believed NATO posed a threat to Russia, would he voluntarily disarm his entire front line?

This rather obvious flaw in the Kremlin’s logic was thrust into the spotlight on November 26 when Britain’s Ministry of Defense reported that Russia had likely withdrawn vital air defense systems from its Baltic Sea enclave of Kaliningrad to cover mounting losses in Ukraine. Many saw this as a particularly significant development as Kaliningrad is Russia’s most westerly outpost and is bordered on three sides by NATO member states. If Russian leaders were remotely serious about the possibility of a military confrontation with NATO, Kaliningrad is the last place they would want to leave undefended.

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The weakening of Kaliningrad’s air defenses is the latest in a series of steps that have revealed the reality behind Moscow’s frequent anti-NATO rhetoric. The first major indication that Russia was being less than honest about its NATO fears came in May 2022, when Sweden and Finland announced plans to abandon decades of neutrality and join the Alliance. Just a few months earlier, the Kremlin had paraded its NATO grievances in a bid to justify the bloodiest European invasion since World War II. In stark contrast, Russia now responded to the news from Stockholm and Helsinki with a shrug.

The complete lack of concern on display in Moscow was all the more remarkable given the fact that Finnish NATO accession would more than double Russia’s existing border with the Alliance, while Swedish membership would transform the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. Nevertheless, Putin insisted Russia had “no problem” with this dramatic transformation of the geopolitical landscape in Northern Europe. He actively sought to downplay the issue, declining even to deploy the dark arts of Russian hybrid warfare or otherwise attempt to interfere in the accession process.

The Kremlin response to NATO’s recent Nordic expansion has extended beyond mere indifference. In the eighteen months since Finland’s announcement of impending NATO membership, Moscow has actively demilitarized the Finnish frontier and withdrawn the bulk of its troops away from the border zone for redeployment to the killing fields of Ukraine. Speaking in August 2023, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen confirmed that the border area was now “pretty empty” of Russian troops. “If we were a threat, they would certainly not have moved their troops away, even in a situation where they are engaged somewhere else,” she noted.

A similar process has been underway since February 2022 on Russia’s nearby border with NATO member Norway. Norwegian army chief General Eirik Kristoffersen revealed in September 2023 that Russia had withdrawn approximately 80% of its troops from the border zone. “Vladimir Putin knows very well that NATO is not a threat against Russia,” commented Kristoffersen. “If he believed we were threatening Russia, he couldn’t have moved all his troops to Ukraine.”

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Putin’s readiness to demilitarize his country’s borders with neighboring NATO members is damning evidence that the decision to invade Ukraine had nothing to do with an alleged NATO threat to Russia itself. This does not mean his attacks on the Alliance are entirely insincere, of course. The vitriol Putin frequently displays toward NATO is real enough, but it does not reflect any legitimate security concerns. Instead, Putin resents NATO because it thwarts his revanchist agenda and prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors in the traditional manner. In other words, NATO presents no danger whatsoever to Russian national security, but it does pose a very serious threat to Russian imperialism.

This has long been apparent to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who clamored to join NATO following the fall of the USSR precisely because they sought protection against what was widely seen as the inevitable revival of Russian aggression. Indeed, while Putin equates NATO enlargement with Western expansionism, the post-1991 growth of the Alliance was in fact almost exclusively driven by fear of Russia among the many countries queuing up to join. Their concerns were shaped by decades and in some cases centuries of brutal subjugation at the hands of the Russian Empire in its Tsarist and Soviet forms. If Russians want somebody to blame for the current NATO presence on their doorstep, they would be well advised to look in the mirror.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has now confirmed that these earlier fears of resurgent Russian imperialism were more than justified. Putin himself has openly compared the current invasion to Russian Tsar Peter the Great’s eighteenth century wars of imperial conquest, and has referred to occupied Ukrainian regions as “historical Russian lands.” He routinely denies Ukraine’s right to exist, while insisting Ukrainians are Russians (“one people”). Meanwhile, incitement to genocide has become completely normalized on Russian state television, with Russian soldiers in Ukraine acting on this genocidal rhetoric. The entire NATO narrative has served as a convenient smokescreen for what is a classic campaign of colonial conquest to destroy independent Ukraine.

The Kremlin knows very well that it has nothing to fear from NATO, and is evidently comfortable leaving its borders with the Alliance unguarded. Despite his anti-NATO posturing, Putin is actually motivated by a rising sense of alarm over the emergence of a democratic Ukraine, which he sees as an existential threat to his own authoritarian regime and a hated symbol of Russia’s post-1991 retreat from empire. As Ukraine has gradually slipped further and further away from the Kremlin orbit during Putin’s reign, his responses have become increasingly extreme, evolving from political interference in the 2000s to escalating military aggression since 2014. We have now reached the stage of open genocide.

With the invasion of Ukraine set to enter a third year, too many Western commentators and politicians are still laboring under the delusion that some kind of compromise with the Kremlin remains possible. This assumes the invasion of Ukraine is a conventional war with limited geopolitical objectives, which is clearly not the case. Instead, Putin is a messianic leader convinced of his own historic mission, who has staked everything on the destruction of the Ukrainian state and the reversal of Russia’s Cold War defeat. By pointing the finger of blame at NATO, Putin has sought to distract attention from this chilling reality, but a brief look at Russia’s recently demilitarized NATO borders should be enough to dismiss such claims.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

In late November, Ukrainians commemorate the artificial famine of the early 1930s known as the Holodomor. One of Stalin’s most notorious crimes, this deliberately engineered famine killed at estimated four million Ukrainians in less than two years. Declassified Soviet records now depict Stalin’s behavior as part of a broader campaign to extinguish Ukraine’s statehood aspirations.

Stalin’s bid to crush Ukraine’s dream of independence ultimately failed. Millions of Ukrainians would continue to resist Soviet rule, becoming the largest group of political prisoners during the final decades of the Soviet Union before playing a critical role in the eventual collapse of the USSR. Nevertheless, many irreplaceable features of Ukraine’s cultural heritage were lost forever during the Holodomor. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term “genocide,” saw Stalin’s attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation as “the classic example of Soviet genocide.” There is now a growing scholarly consensus that defines the Holodomor as an act of genocide committed against Ukraine.

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Modern Ukrainians are acutely aware that their freedom is not free. Most have a friend or family member who has been killed or wounded in Russia’s invasion. Many are also the descendants of people killed by the Stalin regime.

In June 2017, I interviewed Ukrainian museum director Ihor Poshyvailo about the Holodomor, asking how Ukrainians should commemorate Moscow’s past violence. Now, Poshyvailo finds himself working around-the-clock to prevent Moscow’s latest attempt at destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage. He has condemned modern Russia’s escalating aggression against Ukraine as a genocide and has called the current invasion “a war against our historical memory, against our being Ukrainian.” These accusations are increasingly supported by independent inquiries.

Genocides are called the “crime of crimes” because they target a group’s basic right to exist. In historical terms, genocides are exceedingly rare, complicating scholarly understandings of how this extreme behavior unfolds. Russia-Ukraine relations are remarkable in this regard, as Kremlin dictators are now accused of committing genocide against Ukrainians twice in just ninety years.

Not everyone is surprised. Historian Daria Mattingly, who has studied the Holodomor’s rank-and-file perpetrators, says the genocidal violence of the current Russian invasion reflects the nature of the Putin regime. “As an unapologetic imperial power, Moscow consistently treats the people it oppresses as resources, not human beings worthy of rights and protections,” she comments.

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Moscow’s atrocities in Ukraine blur the lines between past and present. Today, eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region is relentlessly bombed from just over the Russian border. Grief at the senseless destruction pours out of residents. “Life used to be beautiful here. They have left us without our loved ones, without our parents, without husbands, without sons, without our previous life, without jobs, without anything,” newly widowed Olga recently told a reporter.

Kharkiv also experienced terrible suffering during the Holodomor, when it was among the most badly affected regions of Ukraine. In 1932, a 36-year-old schoolteacher, Oleksandra Radchenko, kept a private diary, later serving ten years in a Soviet gulag after it was discovered by the Soviet authorities. Describing whole villages dying out, she wrote, “I am so afraid of hunger; I’m afraid for the children. It would not be so offensive if it were due to a bad harvest, but they have taken away the grain and created an artificial famine.”

For some Ukrainians, understanding the Holodomor’s long-suppressed history has been key to reclaiming their national identity. In 2019, I sat down with renowned scholar and theologian Ihor Kozlovskyi. Detained by Russia’s proxy forces in eastern Ukraine in 2016, he was tortured for nearly two years before being released in a prisoner exchange. When I asked him why understanding the Holodomor was important for modern Ukrainians, he told me this was the only way “to build our truly independent state free of aggression and dictatorship.”

Kozlovskyi passed away from a heart attack this year, but his words remain more important than ever. Learning from the past also holds a somber warning for the West. Despite strenuous Soviet efforts to hide information about the Holodomor, some intrepid journalists raised the alarm even as the genocide unfolded. Notwithstanding these news reports, personal appeals, and confirmation from his own diplomats, US President Franklin Roosevelt officially recognized the Soviet Union in November 1933, spurred on by what some scholars now call a mixture of US economic self-interest and realpolitik.

Today, many Western leaders continue to insist Putin cannot be allowed to repeat Stalin’s crimes. But Ukrainian pleas for comprehensive aid to expel Russian forces and finally break this violent cycle are only being partially addressed. On the anniversary of the Holodomor, Western leaders have the opportunity to bring life-saving poetic justice to the people of Ukraine, fighting against the memories and brutal realities of two Kremlin dictators.

Kristina Hook is Assistant Professor of Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

He has continued to promote this anti-colonial narrative ever since. At a September 2023 forum in Vladivostok, Putin stated that Russia had “never been a colonizer anywhere.” One month later, he told an international audience at the annual Valdai Discussion Club that “the era of colonial rule” was long over, before accusing the West of robbing the entire planet. “The history of the West is essentially a chronicle of endless expansion,” Putin declared without a hint of irony, despite ruling over what is by far the world’s largest country thanks to centuries of relentless imperial expansion.

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Anybody with a basic knowledge of Russian history will recognize the absurdity of Putin’s efforts to portray his country as an ideological opponent of imperialism. Modern Russia includes vast territories conquered from the fifteenth century onward. During the Tsarist era, imperial Russia swallowed up numerous non-Russian nations and incorporated much of the northern Eurasian landmass, eventually reaching the Pacific Ocean.

Expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus provided generations of Russian rulers with access to valuable resources including oil, gas, gold, diamonds, timber, and much more. These natural treasures have been a primary source of Russia’s wealth for hundreds of years, representing a textbook example of colonial exploitation.

While the Russian imperial elite has enriched itself, the non-Russian peoples of the empire have received very little in exchange for the plunder of their natural resources. Indeed, these non-Russian regions remain among the poorest and most deprived areas of today’s Russian Federation. Putin has exploited this marginalization, recruiting disproportionately large numbers of soldiers from these regions for his invasion of Ukraine.

The hypocrisy of Putin’s anti-colonial posturing is most immediately apparent in relation to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine. He has publicly compared the invasion of Ukraine to Russian Tsar Peter the Great’s eighteenth century wars of imperial conquest, and appears unperturbed by the obvious contradictions between this openly imperialistic behavior and his professed opposition to “Western colonialism.” In Putin’s dystopian world, of course, Russia is fighting to liberate Ukrainians from the nefarious influence of the West.

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Russian armed forces face difficulties in replenishing military and paramilitary supplies amid failed offensive in Avdiivka

Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Putin’s brand of anti-colonialism echoes Soviet narratives that first emerged in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution before evolving further during the Cold War. Soviet anti-colonial propaganda initially focused on criticism of Tsarist imperialism and support for the oppressed nations of the old Russian Empire. However, this changed once Stalin assumed power in the late 1920s. During the following decades, the Stalinist regime rehabilitated the imperial nationalism of the Tsarist era. Soviet textbooks even asserted that non-Russians had voluntarily chosen to join the Russian Empire.

The advent of the Cold War led to a major surge in Soviet anti-colonial propaganda, with the Communist authorities actively backing the liberation movements which swept Africa and Asia in the decades following World War II. Throughout the past year, Putin has repeatedly sought to highlight this history of Soviet support for countries seeking to shake off Western colonial rule, particularly when addressing African leaders.

Putin’s anti-colonial aspirations also reflect modern Russia’s failure to undertake a critical introspection of Tsarist and Soviet imperialism. During the three decades since the fall of the USSR, there has been almost no effort to examine the Kremlin’s colonial policies toward the many non-Russian peoples subjected to centuries of imperial rule. Instead, Russia’s state archives have largely remained closed, while Moscow has refused to embrace the kind of decolonization policies witnessed in independent Ukraine, the Baltic states, and some other former Soviet republics.

Since Putin came to power at the turn of the millennium, Russia has rehabilitated the ideology of imperialism while glorifying the Tsarist and Soviet empires, with a steady stream of films, TV serials, literature, and school textbooks celebrating and reinforcing Russia’s imperial identity. Meanwhile, crimes against the non-Russian peoples of the empire, such as the genocidal Holodomor famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the early 1930s, have been whitewashed or erased entirely from official histories.

Surprisingly, the reluctance of modern Russia to confront the country’s imperial past has been mirrored by many Western academics and commentators, who have continued to overlook the issue of Russian colonialism despite the troubling imperialistic instincts of the Putin regime. Western histories of Russia still often follow the template established by the Kremlin and include references to “one thousand years of Russian history,” without acknowledging Ukraine’s own rival claim to the legacy of the medieval Kyivan Rus state.

Putin’s bid to position Russia as the world’s leading anti-colonial power is more than just geopolitical opportunism brought on by the necessity of frayed relations with the West. It is the culmination of decades of Tsarist, Soviet, and post-Soviet indoctrination that has excused Russian colonialism towards Ukrainians and other non-Russian peoples, while conflating Russia’s own anti-Western xenophobia with broader opposition to the dominant role of the West in global affairs.

The countries of the Global South may have many good reasons for pursuing closer ties with Putin’s Russia, but a shared opposition to imperialism is most certainly not one of them. On the contrary, if anti-imperial sentiment in the Global South has any impact on attitudes toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it should logically fuel support for Ukraine’s fight against Russian imperialism.

Taras Kuzio is a professor of political science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. He is the winner of the 2022 Peterson Literary Prize for the book “Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War: Autocracy-Orthodoxy-Nationality.”

Russian War Report: Desperate for recruits, Russia offers one million rubles to join its military

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 19:14:31 +0000

Security

Russian MoD seeks to boost recruitment efforts across Russia

Tracking narratives

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Investigations

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Media policy

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Russian armed forces face difficulties in replenishing military and paramilitary supplies amid failed offensive in Avdiivka

In a November 8 article, the Wall Street Journal reported that Russian officials in an April visit to Egypt had asked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “to give back more than a hundred engines from Russian helicopters that Moscow needed for Ukraine.” Another source quoted by the Wall Street Journal also said that Russian officials were seeking to “[go] back in secret to their customers trying to buy back what they sold them.” The Washington Post, in an October 16 investigation, quoted US intelligence reporting that satellite imagery helped identify a North Korean container ship that could have provided munitions for Russia. The investigation found that three hundred containers had been shipped from North Korea’s Rajin Harbor to the Russian harbor of Dunai and were subsequently located at an ammunition depot next to the Azov Sea.

The DFRLab additionally found evidence that the Russian armed forces are turning to civilians to help with purchasing additional paramilitary equipment, including drones, thermal sights, vehicles, and medicine. The Russian charity fund “All for Victory” hosted fundraisers organized by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, including an additional “emergency fundraiser” to support soldiers on the front line during the battle of Avdiivka in October 2023. According to an October 13 Telegram post, the fundraiser aimed to collect money to purchase “drones, thermal sights, [. . .] anti-electronic warfare devices to protect themselves against [the enemy], tactical medicine, bulletproof vests and helmets, warm clothes and boots.”

Screencap of a promotional poster for the “People’s Front” and “Everything for victory!” joint fundraiser named “Emergency collection ‘Avdiivka. Everything for victory!’” Source: People’s Front/archive)

The DFRLab also found that several military bloggers reposted the original post to their channels, reaching an audience of nearly eight hundred thousand people, according to data from a query using Telegram monitoring tool TGStat. Pro-Russian news outlet DNR News reported that the initiative had raised around eighty-two million rubles (approximately nine hundred thousand dollars) in seven days.

Screencap of a TGStart readout, breaking down the reach of the People’s Front post that advertised the fundraiser. As of October 31, the post had been viewed a total of 815,204 times. (Source : TGStat/archive)

Additionally, Solovyov held a separate fundraiser during a livestream dedicated to the purchase of 1,440 units of Chinese-made DJI Mavic and FPV drones, earning a total of nearly 470 million rubles (approximately 5.175 million dollars) over the course of three days.

Screencap of the collection report for the “Solovyov Live” livestreamed fundraiser. Of the required 480 million rubles, the fundraiser collected 470 million rubles, as of October 25, 2023. (Source: pobeda.onf.ru/archive)

“The People’s Front,” a Russian organization that President Vladimir Putin directly headed from 2013 until 2018, established the “Everything for Victory” charity fund. The charity fund and the government-sponsored organization are intertwined, as the People’s Front was renamed in May 2022, as “The People’s Front, All for the victory,” only a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine. In 2022, the organization focused on providing humanitarian aid, which it advertises on its VKontakte page; it later shifted to providing paramilitary goods, initially as means to support the self-proclaimed separatist armed forces of the Donbas region. Still later, it shifted to providing the same goods but to the battalions of the Russian army, with additional promotional support on social media from military bloggers.

Upon investigating the phone number on display on the charity fund’s website, the DFRLab found that the number had been promoted as a general helpline across Russia, in which the Russian Red Cross also participates. Regional information portals, including Russia’s public service platform (Gosuslugi) in the region of Saint Petersburg, pushed the phone number as the health ministry’s local helpline during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A comparison of screencaps showing the phone helpline as displayed on the “People’s Front” advertisement alongside an earlier use, where it was presented as the Gosuslugi helpline for the Saint-Petersburg region regarding the COVID pandemic (Source: pobeda.onf.ru/archive, left; Gosuslugi/archive, right)

—Valentin Châtelet, Research Associate, Brussels, Belgium

Russian MoD seeks to boost recruitment efforts across Russia

The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) website dedicated to the recruitment of contract soldiers is engaging in a massive campaign to build an “elite division of contract soldiers” and has pledged a one-time down payment of one million rubles (approximately eleven thousand dollars) upon signing the contract. This special recruitment bonus will supposedly be available from November 1 to November 25. Russian military bloggers “Старше Эдды” (“Older than Edda”), “Пул N3” (“Bullet No. 3”), “Kotsnews,” and “Военкор Котенок” (“Military correspondent Kotyonok”) all amplified the MoD campaign on their Telegram channels.

A similar campaign took place in October, which another channel, “Reviewer of the war,” referred to as “the biggest one-time down payment for contract soldiers.” In that earlier campaign, the Russian MoD promised that new contractors would be paid six hundred thousand rubles (approximately 6,600 dollars) upon signing.

The Georgia-based “Get lost!” initiative, which aims to help Russians flee from mobilization, drafting, and summons to military commissariats reported on November 12 that Russian authorities had engaged in a widespread SMS campaign to entice men to enroll as soldiers. The initiative claimed that messages were sent to residents of the Bashkortotan and Tatarstan Republics, as well as Irkutsk Oblast. Although the DFRLab was unable to independently confirm the authenticity of most of the senders, it identified one phone number that users on callfilter.app, a website dedicated to report phone scams, identified as “military commissariat.” On November 14, the initiative reported that additional calls to enroll were identified online, as military commissariats sent out messages on messaging apps.

—Valentin Châtelet, Research Associate, Brussels, Belgium

Russian disinformation campaign to encourage split in Ukrainian leadership

Echoing an earlier situation featuring a poorly made deepfake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, three deepfake videos of General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, recently surfaced on Telegram. In the new fabricated videos, a clear facsimile of Zaluzhnyi claimed or alluded to Zelenskyy’s supposed intention to kill the general. These videos appeared against the backdrop of the death of Hennadii Chastiakov, Zaluzhnyi’s aide, from an explosion, the cause of which remains under investigation.

On the evening of November 6, the day the aide was killed, Russian Telegram channel Radio Truha published the first of the deepfake videos. The channel is connected to another channel, Truha Barselona. Both channels claim to provide “satire” regarding Anatolii Sharij, a pro-Russian Ukrainian blogger charged with high treason. The video copied graphics of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and supposedly depicted Zaluzhnyi saying that his birthday had already passed and asked viewers not to give him gifts, implying any such gift would be explosives such as those that killed his aide.

The awkward movement, unnatural facial expressions, and changed voice of the general, as well as the absence of a statement on his official channels, suggested that the video was not real. That did not stop, however, multiple Russian pro-Kremlin Telegram channels from amplifying the video. As of November 16, the video had received 233,000 views and been shared 1,500 times, according to TGStat, a Telegram analytics tool. While the original video had a disclaimer with the channel’s handle “@RadioTruha,” some of the pro-Kremlin channels cut the ending, thus obscuring its satiric origin.

Screenshot of the first deepfake video, as first published by pro-Russian Telegram channel @RadioTruha. (Source: @RadioTruha/archive)

The second fabricated video appeared on November 7, posted by Radio Truha but without the handle watermark at the end of the video. In this video, a fake Zaluzhnyi calls for mutiny, asking soldiers to march on Kyiv and stop listening to the “criminal orders of Zelenskyy.” The Center Countering Disinformation debunked the video and highlighted that it was widely shared on TikTok, X, and Telegram. Here again, Zaluzhnyi’s appearance, voice, and movement seen in the video appeared clearly unnatural.

Screencap of the second deepfake video of Zaluzhnyi, as first posted by @RadioTruha. (Source: RadioTruha/archive)

Radio Truha’s compatriot channel, Truha Barselona, published a third fake video; in this third fabricated video, Zaluzhnyi is seen claiming that, because Zelenskyy owns all Ukrainian media, they “wrongfully claimed that it is a deepfake.” This poorly made video supposedly featuring the commander-in-chief had received almost three hundred thousand views and been shared 7,500 times as of November 16.

Screencap of the Telegram post for the third deepfake video in which the fake Zaluzhnyi declares that claims that the videos are fake are themselves false. (Source: @TruhaBarselona/archive)

While even some pro-Kremlin users acknowledged the clearly fake nature of the video, some shared it without additional comment. Meanwhile, Ukrainians mocked the forgeries with a deepfake of their own, in which a Zaluzhnyi facsimile declares that he and Zelenskyy had argued over which target in occupied territory to hit, implying that they are plentiful.

On November 13, Truha Barselona published a deepfake of Zelenskyy, in which he appears to order Ukrainian troops to leave the Donbas town of Avdiivka and which includes footage of a supposed cemetery of Ukrainian soldiers that had “not evacuated from Bakhmut.” The video features the same telltale signs of inauthenticity as the three fake Zaluzhnyi videos.

It is not the first time that Russian sources have tried to portray a conflict between Ukrainian military and political leadership. In late April, they launched an advertising campaign suggesting Zaluzhnyi had political ambitions. Since then, occasional ads and articles on forged websites have appeared sporadically, making similar claims. In one such instance, ads appeared in early November claiming that Zaluzhnyi would take Zelenskyy’s seat after the former penned a column for the Economist.

—Roman Osadchuk, Research Associate

Media investigation finds Ukrainian colonel coordinated Nord Stream pipeline attack

On November 11, the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published a joint investigation arguing that, according to anonymous sources in Ukraine and Europe, the explosion of three lines of the Nord Stream gas pipeline on September 26, 2022, were coordinated by Roman Chervinsky, a former commander of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. According to the Washington Post and Der Spiegel interlocutors, Chervinsky managed a team of six people who rented the vessel and, using deep-sea diving equipment, installed explosive devices on the pipelines.

The two media outlets also reported that, according to their sources, Chervinsky had not acted alone and that he was obeying orders from high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including Major General of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Viktor Hanushchak, who reports to Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi. However, Ukrainian authorities denied the involvement of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the pipeline explosion, and Chervinsky himself also denied having any role in the attack. The Washington Post and Der Spiegel also clarified that there was no evidence that Zelenskyy had approved this attack and that Chervinsky’s involvement in this case revealed internal tensions within the Ukrainian government, specifically between the country’s intelligence and military establishment and the political leadership.

Chervinsky has been in custody since April 2023 in Ukraine, where he is accused of abusing his power in a failed special operation aimed at recruiting a Russian pilot in 2022. According to Ukrainian Security Services, Chervinsky acted without permission and, in doing so, gave away coordinates of a Ukrainian airbase in Kanatove, which then became a target of Russian missile attacks in July 2022, killing the commander of the base’s military unit and wounding seventeen others. According to the Washington Post and Der Spiegel, Chervinsky also coordinated a complex operation in 2020, which attempted to trick Wagner mercenary group fighters into entering Ukraine from Belarus in order to bring them to justice. While Chervinsky failed in this operation as well, Belarusian authorities instead arrested thirty-three Wagner fighters near the country’s capital, Minsk, charging them with trying to overthrow the government around the 2020 presidential elections. Minsk subsequently handed them over to Russia in August 2020.

—Givi Gigitashvili, Research Associate, Warsaw, Poland

Russia gets gradually closer to blocking VPNs in 2024

Content that is unfavorable or problematic in the Kremlin’s eyes is still available online for Russian internet users using circumvention tools such as virtual private networks (VPNs) to access it. Russia has already blocked several VPNs, but the move was not total or system-wide. It seems that a more comprehensive crackdown on VPNs will come about in 2024, however.

In early September, Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development introduced a draft government resolution expanding the powers of internet regulator Roskomnadzor in terms of blocking information about or access to prohibited online resources in Russia. In the same period, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev stated that authorities would not penalize Russians for using VPNs—technology that helps Russians to circumvent government blocks to access restricted information.

Later in September, Roskomnadzor developed criteria for blocking information that provides tips on how to bypass censorship, describes the advantages of such tools, or urges their purchase. Reportedly, the restrictions will not be applied to scientific, technical, and statistical information on ways of bypassing the blockage. The proposal, if approved, would come into force on March 1, 2024, and be valid through September 1, 2029.

According to digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda, the proposal would not only violate digital rights but also possibly the right to privacy. There would be a high risk of “getting blocked for any publication about the capabilities of VPNs, proxies, anonymizers, Tor” and out-of-court decision making would deprive website owners and authors the right to defend themselves, the organization noted.

In October, Artem Sheikin, a member of Russia’s Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, stated that, starting in 2024, the country’s internet regulator will be able to block all VPN services available in app stores that provide access to prohibited websites.

In November, the Ministry of Digital Development “clarified” that Russian authorities would only block specific VPN services that “a commission of experts identify as a threat to the security of the internet.” In his Telegram post, head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein wrote that “VPN services pose a threat to users, as some of them collect their personal data and activity history” and leaks of databases of public services with real IP addresses of users have recently begun to occur more and more often.”

In 2023, Russia’s internet restrictions reached previously unheard-of levels. According to Freedom House, Russia’s freedom on the net score decreased from the previous year in 2023. Russian outlet Kommersant reported Roskomnadzor’s estimation that the number of blocked resources in Russia had increased by 85 percent from 2022 through the middle of 2023.

—Eto Buziashvili, Research Associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

The post Russian War Report: Desperate for recruits, Russia offers one million rubles to join its military appeared first on Atlantic Council.

Why Ukraine refuses to negotiate with “habitual liar” Vladimir Putin

Peter Dickinson — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 21:32:30 +0000

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has dismissed mounting calls for a negotiated settlement with Russia, arguing that Vladimir Putin simply cannot be trusted to keep his word. In a withering social media post published on November 14, Ukraine’s top diplomat claimed Russia routinely disregards its international commitments and cited numerous examples of the Kremlin blatantly breaching agreements reached at the negotiating table. “Putin is a habitual liar who promised international leaders that he would not attack Ukraine days before his invasion in February 2022,” Kuleba noted.

The Ukrainian Foreign Minister’s outspoken rejection of negotiations with the Putin regime comes at a delicate moment for the coalition of countries opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. International concerns have been mounting since late summer over the slow progress of Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive, with some commentators pointing to the lack of a decisive military breakthrough as evidence that earlier hopes of defeating Russia on the battlefield are now unrealistic. The mood darkened further in early November, when Ukrainian commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny acknowledged in an interview with Britain’s The Economist that the war with Russia had reached a stalemate.

Officials in Kyiv have denied recent reports that Ukraine’s allies are pushing the country to enter into peace talks with Russia. “No leader of the United States or European Union, our partners, nobody puts pressure on us to sit at the negotiation table with Russia and give something away,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated in early November. Zelenskyy himself has repeatedly ruled out any direct talks with Putin, insisting instead that the time for diplomacy will only come once Russian troops have retreated from Ukraine.

Kuleba has now elaborated further, listing a series of broken Russian promises to illustrate why Kyiv has no faith whatsoever in negotiations with Moscow. The Ukrainian Foreign Minister referenced a number of international agreements that were subsequently broken by Russia, beginning with the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and ending with the 2022 Black Sea Grain Initiative. On multiple occasions, he pointed out, Russia had committed to respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, but this did not prevent Putin from launching the largest European war of aggression since World War II. “Russia’s tactics have remained consistent in its many wars over the last three decades: Kill, grab, lie, and deny,” he wrote. “Why would anyone genuinely believe that Russia in 2023 is any different from Russia in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2008, 2014, 2015, and 2022?”

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Ukraine’s leaders are not alone in questioning the sincerity of Russian diplomacy. Indeed, Moscow’s credibility on the international stage has been seriously undermined by almost a decade of aggression against Ukraine that has been accompanied by a relentless flood of often transparent disinformation. When Russian soldiers without insignia first seized control of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in February 2014, Putin initially denied any Russian involvement, only to later admit that he had in fact personally given the order to invade. This naked deceit set the tone for Russia’s escalating attack on Ukraine.

Weeks after the military takeover of Crimea, Putin made similarly implausible claims of innocence as the same so-called “little green men” sparked a war in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. For the next eight years, Moscow officials would continue to stubbornly insist Russia was not involved in eastern Ukraine, despite mountains of evidence clearly demonstrating the presence of the Russian military and the Kremlin’s direct control over the entire invasion. Russia’s policy of blanket denials made it virtually impossible to establish a viable ceasefire or move forward toward a sustainable settlement of the war in eastern Ukraine. Instead, Moscow made sure the conflict remained unresolved and continued to simmer, setting the stage for the full-scale invasion of February 2022.

The build-up to the current invasion was marked by a further increase in Russian disinformation. For months prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Putin and other leading Russian officials loudly proclaimed that they had no intention of invading Ukraine and accused the West of warmongering. Some senior Kremlin figures even mocked international alarm over the possibility of a major European war. “February 15, 2022 will go down in history as the day of the failure of Western war propaganda. Humiliated and destroyed without firing a shot,” commented Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova just days before columns of Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine.

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Given Russia’s long record of broken treaties and barefaced lies, it is little wonder the Ukrainian authorities insist negotiations can only begin after the Russian army has been beaten on the battlefield and forced to withdraw from Ukraine. Nor is there any indication that Putin himself is ready to negotiate. On the contrary, the Russian dictator is openly preparing his country for a long war and appears to be more convinced than ever that time is on his side.

Putin faces no real anti-war movement at home and has largely weathered the economic storms created by imperfectly implemented Western sanctions. While Russian military losses in Ukraine have been exceptionally high, the Kremlin has been careful to recruit cannon fodder from perceived low-risk groups such as convicted criminals, members of Russia’s ethnic minorities, and military-age males conscripted from occupied regions of Ukraine. This has made it possible to insulate the Russian middle classes from the horrors of the conflict unfolding in neighboring Ukraine.

With international resolve to oppose the invasion now beginning to visibly weaken and Western leaders distracted by events in Israel, Putin is also confident of outlasting the democratic world in Ukraine. He has always believed the West ultimately lacks the stomach for a prolonged confrontation with Russia, and is prepared to wait as long as necessary until international support for Ukraine wanes.

In the present circumstances, any attempts to pressure Ukraine into negotiating a compromise peace with Russia would have disastrous consequences for the future of international security. Unless Russia is decisively defeated, there is almost no chance of the Kremlin honoring any commitments made during negotiations. Instead, a messy peace deal would reward Putin for his decision to invade Ukraine and fuel Russia’s sense of impunity, paving the way for the next phase of Moscow’s campaign to extinguish Ukrainian statehood and revive the Russian Empire.

The Ukrainians understand this perfectly well. They have learned from bitter experience that Putin’s Russia cannot be trusted, which is why they are now so adamantly opposed to premature peace talks and recognize that making concessions to the Kremlin will only prolong their country’s agony. Anyone calling for a return to the negotiating table needs to be similarly realistic about the true nature of the Putin regime. A ceasefire may seem like the quickest way to end the bloodshed, but this is wishful thinking. In order to secure a lasting peace, Ukraine must win.

Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Months after the outbreak of hostilities, Putin compared his invasion of Ukraine to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great while claiming that he was “returning Russian lands.” During subsequent ceremonials marking the “annexation” of four partially occupied Ukrainian provinces, he declared these regions would be part of Russia “forever.” On the first anniversary of the invasion, Putin told crowds in Moscow that Russia was fighting for its “historical lands” in Ukraine.

Putin’s historical illiteracy and duplicity were once again on display in spring 2023 when he publicly inspected a seventeenth century French map depicting the lands of Eastern Europe including today’s Ukraine. The Russian dictator pointed to the map as supposed proof that “no Ukraine ever existed in the history of mankind,” despite the fact that Ukraine was clearly indicated by name on the map.

If he had been paying more attention, Putin would have noticed that the map did not contain any references to the Russian Empire, which was at the time known as Muscovy. Nor did it feature his own hometown, Saint Petersburg, which was not founded until the beginning of the eighteenth century. In contrast, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is thought to date back over 1500 years, making it far older than Russia’s leading cities.

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Putin is not the first Russian ruler to deny the existence of the Ukrainian nation. On the contrary, Ukraine denial has been a central pillar of Russian imperial policy for centuries. The Russian Empire consistently refused to acknowledge Ukraine precisely because the repression of Ukrainian national identity was regarded as essential for the survival of the Czarist regime. Instead, Ukrainians were labelled as “Little Russians” by the Czarist authorities, who banned the Ukrainian language while declaring, “a separate Little Russian language never existed, does not exist, and shall not exist.”

Putin’s insistence on Ukraine’s alleged lack of legitimacy reflects Russia’s deep insecurity about its own past. Generations of Russians have traced their national story back to Ukraine and the Kyivan Rus state of medieval Europe. However, many historians regard today’s Russia as the successor to the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which first rose to regional prominence as a vassal state of the Mongol Empire long after the decline and fall of the Kyivan Rus.

Despite these tenuous ties to the Kyivan Rus era, Russian rulers since the seventeenth century have laid claim to Kyiv’s historical legacy in order to justify the colonization of Ukraine and strengthen their European credentials. Putin has continued this tradition, unveiling a huge monument to tenth century Kyivan Rus ruler Prince Volodymyr the Great in central Moscow in 2016, despite the fact that the Russian capital city was not founded until more than a century after Volodymyr’s death.

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Following the 1991 collapse of the USSR, growing international awareness of Ukrainian history has raised awkward questions about many deeply engrained aspects of Russia’s national narrative dating back to the Czarist and Soviet eras. This helps to explain why Putin and other members of the Russian establishment regard the consolidation of Ukrainian statehood as an existential threat to their own authoritarian empire. Independent Ukraine’s embrace of European democratic values has only served to heighten this sense of danger within the Russian elite.

Putin has sought to frame the invasion of Ukraine as a crusade for historical justice and the return of ancestral Russian lands. In reality, it is an old-fashioned colonial war that echoes the worst excesses of European imperialism. His mythologized version of Russian history is utterly incompatible with the notion of a separate Ukrainian nation; he is therefore obliged to deny its existence entirely.

This denial is now fueling a genocide in the heart of Europe. Russian troops have already killed thousands of Ukrainians and have deported millions more. Throughout the regions of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control, the Russian occupation authorities are openly engaged in the methodical eradication of Ukrainian identity and the forced russification of the remaining population.

In such circumstances, international calls for a compromise peace are deeply disingenuous. It should be crystal clear to all objective observers that unless Ukraine can achieve a decisive victory, any pause in hostilities would merely provide the Kremlin with breathing space to rearm and regroup before renewing hostilities. Putin has weaponized history to justify the destruction of a neighboring state that threatens his dreams of a new Russian Empire. Until this imperial ideology is decisively defeated, the war will continue.

The delegation arrived in the US at a critical time amid political debate over a new aid package for Ukraine. The religious leaders had a unified message of thanks for the United States and a shared request for continued support. They underlined that Ukraine is engaged in a battle for the future of global security that is also a fight for freedom of religion.

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Russia’s full-scale invasion has changed the nature of religious life in Ukraine. Religious communities have been forced to confront the violence of the invasion and adapt as members are impacted by the war, including suffering war crimes and facing religious persecution at the hands of Russian occupation forces.

Archbishop Yevstratiy Zoria of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine stated that Ukrainians are “eyewitnesses of Russian atrocities.” This was echoed by Chief Rabbi Bleich, who stressed that Ukraine’s religious leaders “represent millions of people that were displaced, the women and children being killed every single day.” Further emphasizing the impact of the Russian invasion on today’s Ukraine, Bishop Ivan Rusyn of the Ukrainian Evangelical Church said the war “is about the very existence of our freedom, identity, values, and culture.”

The delegation acknowledged the importance of Ukraine’s pluralistic religious landscape and addressed concerns, often spread by those questioning the legitimacy of aid to Ukraine, about the religious climate in the country. Freedom of religion is a critical part of modern Ukrainian society. In stark contrast, the Kremlin authorities in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine have suppressed these freedoms along with other basic human rights.

As Bishop Ivan Rusyn explained, those living in temporarily occupied territories are being targeted simply for practicing a faith different to that imposed by Russia. An investigation into Russia’s religious persecution in occupied regions of Ukraine found 43 cases of targeted persecution of clergy and more than 109 acts pressuring churches and religious figures representing Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Expert testimony at the United Nations has highlighted incidents of violence against Ukrainian religious communities included disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and unlawful deportations perpetrated by Russian forces against clergy and members of religious communities.

Beyond Russian-occupied territory and across the whole of Ukraine, religion has been physically targeted. In a February 2023 report, the Institute of Religious Freedom found that nearly 500 religious sites and spaces were damaged, destroyed, or looted during the first year of the Russian invasion.

Bishop Rusyn highlighted the grave impact of Russia’s war on Ukraine’s religious communities and recounted how his seminary in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha had been struck by six Russian missiles. “We have pastors and chaplains who were murdered,” he stated , imploring American audiences to “please hear our cry.”

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During their discussion about Russia’s war on Ukraine and its impact on religion, visiting faith leaders also addressed concerns regarding recent developments in unoccupied Ukraine. A recent draft law adopted by the Ukrainian parliament addressing Russian influence has drawn significant attention to the state of religious freedom in wartime Ukraine. While some narratives decry the law as a threat to religious freedom, all members of the delegation stressed that the law will in fact protect Ukrainians against the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to weaponize religion through the Russian Orthodox Church.

This step against what the delegation identified as a Russian-controlled church comes as no surprise when considering recent actions by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Russian Orthodox Church has emerged as a prominent supporter of the war, with Russian Patriarch Kirill backing the invasion and assuring Russian soldiers that they will be absolved of all sins should they die in Ukraine. Orthodox private military companies have also reportedly been established to fight against Ukraine.

Bishop Rusyn stated that AUCCRO members do not consider the recent draft legislation to be a threat to religious freedom in Ukraine. Instead, he and fellow panel members emphasized that the protection of religious freedom should not be used as an excuse to permit Russian influence.

In his closing remarks, Ambassador John Herbst drew attention to Russian propaganda narratives surrounding religion in its war on Ukraine. One of the main lines of propaganda employed by the Kremlin and its proxies depicts Ukraine as a nation of Nazis, despite substantial evidence debunking such claims.

Russia’s claims are particularly troubling in light of the Kremlin’s own record of persecution. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, the Russian authorities have continued to persecute religious minorities across Russia as part of a wider crackdown on Russian civil society.

Russian attacks on different religious denominations in occupied regions of Ukraine are just one aspect of the Kremlin’s efforts to extinguish Ukraine’s pluralistic national identity and impose an authoritarian Russian model on the country. As Rabbi Bleich explained, “Ukraine is taking the heat for the democratic world.”

Delegation members stressed that supporters of freedom and human rights should treat Ukraine as a priority in the defense of global security and democracy. Lapses in support lead to vulnerabilities that create opportunities for Russia. The delegation’s presentation to the American people painted a clear picture of the dangers posed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the threat this represents to the core value of religious freedom.

Shelby Magid is deputy director at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Russian forces suffer losses in attempt to break through Ukrainian line at Avdiivka

During a press briefing on October 26, John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House, confirmed that, according to US reports, Russian army officers are shooting soldiers for refusing to obey orders to attack. He also confirmed high losses for the Russian troops at Avdiivka, although he added that the Russian Armed Forces retain offensive capabilities and can achieve tactical successes. Though largely in ruins because of the fighting, Avdiivka is a strategically important town, and it could open the way to the southern parts of Donetsk Oblast for Ukrainian forces.

In a Telegram post on October 28, the commander of Ukraine’s Tavria operational-strategic group, Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, said that Russian losses had increased. Also, on October 28, British intelligence said it believed the Russian command threw at least eight brigades into the assaults on Avdiivka. This resulted in the most significant losses for the Russian Armed Forces in a single battle in 2023 so far. At the same time, the Russian army launched four Iskander-K cruise missiles at Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainian Air Force intercepted three of them, while the fourth missile reportedly missed its target.

On October 29, the Ukrainian army reported that the Russian army continued its offensive actions in the area around Kupiansk, Avdiivka, and Marinka and tried to regain lost positions near Andriivka and Robotyne. A resumption of Russian attacks in all regions except Lyman, where the regrouping of Russian Armed Forces units is underway, was reported by Ukraine’s army on October 28. The most intense fighting took place in the region around Avdiivka and Marinka.

In the evening of October 30, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) noted a reduction in the intensity of Russian attacks compared to the previous days. In particular, there had been no attacks in the regions of Lyman or Zaporizhzhia, though five battles took place near Avdiivka and ten near Marinka.

The AFU Air Force has reported the shooting down of all twelve Shahed drones, as well as both Kh-59 missiles fired at Ukraine on October 29–30. On October 30, the Russian army hit the Odesa region with Onyx anti-ship missiles. According to the regional administration, a ship repair plant was damaged, and two enterprise employees were wounded.

Elsewhere, the commander of Ukraine’s Eastern Group troops, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Russian forces had brought reinforcements to the Bakhmut region and had transitioned from defense to offense, trying to regain lost positions. In particular, Russian airborne troops and the so-called “Storm Z” units, which are made up of former prisoners recruited in lieu of imprisonment, are being actively used.

The situation is also complicated in the region of Kupiansk, where Russian units are trying to advance in several directions simultaneously. On October 30, locals reported that explosions were heard and smoke seen overhead in occupied Sevastopol after missiles flew over. The occupation authorities reported that the strikes were carried out with Storm Shadow cruise missiles. On its Telegram channel, the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief’s Office confirmed that an air defense facility of the Russian occupation forces in Crimea was hit on October 30. In the same Telegram post, the department also confirmed that, on October 25, it had destroyed an S-400 air defense missile system in occupied Luhansk, which had only been rumored up to that point.

Meanwhile, on the international engagement front, Ukrainian officials continued to engage with officials from allied countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with a bipartisan US congressional delegation on October 30, when he briefed them on the situation at the front and discussed further assistance needed for the Ukrainian armed forces. A few days earlier, on October 28, the New York Times reported that US experts had modified a Soviet-made Ukrainian Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) system to fire Patriot missiles. Such “hybrid” SAMs will assist Ukraine in defending itself against Russian missile strikes.

Elsewhere, on October 26, the commander-in-chief of the AFU, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, held a meeting with Commander of NATO in Europe General Christopher Cavoli, as well as with Admiral Tony Radakin, chief of the British defense staff. Together, they discussed the situation on the front, supplies of ammunition, and air defense equipment for Ukraine. A few days later on October 30, the British defense secretary said that his government would provide more military aid to Ukraine and would not let other countries forget about the war.

Finally, Azerbaijan sent a large shipment of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, including cables to repair the power grid, a critical need before winter arrives.

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Ramped-up Russian propaganda machine targets the Armenian government

In an October 25 interview with the Wall Street Journal, two days after signing defense cooperation agreement with France, including an unprecedented agreement on buying French weapons, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made a resounding call for diversifying Armenia’s security alliances, shaking the traditional (i.e., Russia-favored) balance of power in the region.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Pashinyan as saying the post factum realities of Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s seizure of the territory brought the Armenian government to a decision to diversify relationships in the security sector. Notably, Pashinyan also said he sees no benefits in maintaining Russian military bases in Armenia. Officially, there are no procedures aimed at the closure of the sizable Russian military base on the country’s border with Turkey.

As Armenia increasingly moves away from Russia due to Moscow’s continuous failures to fulfill its contractual obligations and the loss of its biggest leverage over Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Russia’s influence has softened significantly. This diminishing influence has prompted Kremlin propaganda to become more aggressive in its efforts to maintain its influence on Armenia.

In early October, against all of Russia’s warnings, Armenia ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. These recent events, combined with the failure of Russia’s peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh that led to the complete depopulation of Armenians from the territory, prompted Kremlin propagandists to call more openly and intensively for the overthrow of the Armenian government.

Russian state TV channel Channel 1 dedicated an hour-long program to attacking Pashinyan, portraying him as a Western puppet and a traitor. Specifically, the October 23 broadcast of the show “Heir Tutti’s Dolls” included a segment titled “Nikol Pashinyan: a harbinger of disaster,” during which the hosts claimed that Pashinyan was mentally ill, among other things.

In the opening of the program, a reporter addressed Pashinyan’s October 17 speech before the European Parliament, in which he openly called out Russia and stated that Armenia is ready for closer ties with the EU. In the segment, the report declared “allies, partners, and his own people were thrown at the feet of the Borrels and all sorts of Ursulas,” referencing High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. The reporter further editorialized that, while Pashinyan “was crawling under the puppets of the Anglo-Saxons, his wife, Anna Hakobyan, was driving around Kyiv, whispering with [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken, cozying up to Zelenskyy, and, on behalf of her husband, even agreed to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine.”

The program also made unfavorable comparisons between Pashinyan, Zelenskyy, and former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, portraying all of them as Western puppets. The DFRLab previously reported on Russia’s greater propaganda efforts to push conspiracy theories that the West has appointed unfit leaders to bring disastrous outcomes to these countries.

The next day, Armenia delivered a note of protest to the Russian ambassador to Armenia over the TV program. Russia responded quickly. On October 26, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) summoned the Armenian charge d’affaires in Moscow. According to the Russian state agency RIA Novosti, MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova added that the Armenian diplomat was told about the “unacceptability” of the ongoing “unbridled anti-Russian campaign” in Armenia, including on public television and other government-controlled media and through Telegram channels. Regarding the Wall Street Journal interview, Zakharova said that Pashinyan fell for provocative questions aimed at causing maximum damage to their respective countries’ relations and added, “unfortunately, in the current Armenian realities, such incitements work.”

On October 29, Armenia Public TV aired an episode of the program “Public Discussion” titled “the falsity and manipulation about Armenia on the Russian air” that focused on discussing the “Heir Tutti’s Dolls” episode. Civil society members and Western-aligned political figures participating in the program speculated that Russia is possibly preparing a “disaster,” such as cutting the gas supply, that it would pin on the Armenian government through messaging and that perhaps worse actions beyond subversive activities (such as information operations) could be taken against Armenia, given Russia’s aggression against Georgia and Ukraine.

—Ani Mejlumyan, research assistant, Yerevan, Armenia

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Putin will win unless the West finally commits to Ukrainian victory

Ivan Verstyuk — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 15:07:10 +0000

As the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine moves toward the two-year mark, Vladimir Putin is still far from achieving his original goal of extinguishing Ukrainian independence and subjugating the entire country. Nevertheless, there are no indications that the Russian dictator is looking to end the war. On the contrary, Putin evidently believes time is on his side in Ukraine, and appears more confident than ever that he can ultimately outlast the West.

Putin’s preparations for a long war are perhaps most immediately apparent in Russia’s 2024 budget, which includes an unprecedented increase in military spending to around double the figure for the current year. He is putting the entire Russian economy on a war footing, and is undeterred by the cuts this will necessitate in other areas such as social spending, healthcare, and education.

Putin is also counting on favorable changes in the global geopolitical landscape. Russia has openly welcomed the recent shift in international attention toward the Israel-Hamas conflict; there is good reason to expect this trend to continue in 2024 as global audiences and Western leaders grow increasingly tired of the war in Ukraine.

With the US entering an election year, many in Moscow anticipate that the current Western focus on Ukraine will diminish in the coming months. Putin would no doubt welcome a call from US President Joe Biden proposing some kind of grand bargain to end the war, but he is just as happy to wait until next November’s presidential ballot to see whether a potential new American leader may be prepared to offer even more favorable terms.

Based on his own extensive experience gained during more than two decades on the global stage, Putin also fully expects his less seasoned Ukrainian adversaries to make mistakes that will further undermine international support for their country. In particular, he is confident Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s frequent requests for military aid will eventually lead to friction in the relationship between Kyiv and the West.

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There is no question that the invasion of Ukraine has proved extremely costly for Russia, both in military losses and in terms of the damage done to the country’s international standing. At the same time, Putin has done much to prepare Russia for the realities of today’s international isolation. He has made the Russian economy surprisingly sanctions-resistant, and has achieved a degree of self-sufficiency in the military-industrial sector.

Nor is there any particular concern in the Kremlin over the possibility of internal unrest. While the short-lived Wagner mutiny hinted at the fragility of Putin’s grip on Russia, it is hard to see where any future threats to the country’s current leadership could come from. All domestic political opposition has been crushed, while the last vestiges of an independent media have been silenced. Meanwhile, Putin has been careful to prevent the emergence of any potential rivals from within the ranks of the Russian army, and has kept loyalists like Sergei Shoigu and Valeriy Gerasimov in top military positions despite their many blunders.

These factors mean there is currently little incentive for Putin to end the war. Indeed, any outcome other than an unambiguous Russian military victory would likely lead to uncomfortable questions being asked regarding the sacrifices Russians have made since the start of the invasion. From Putin’s point of view, it is far better to maintain a long-term conflict in Ukraine with the prospect of increasingly favorable circumstances.

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Clearly, Ukrainian and Western leaders have so far failed to convince Putin that time is not on his side. Achieving this goal will be no easy task, but it can be achieved through a combination of enhanced military support and resolute geopolitical unity.

At present, Ukraine’s military strategy is focused on attempts to exhaust the Russian army via attrition tactics. This could succeed in weakening Russia’s offensive capabilities, but it will not produce the kind of military victory that most Ukrainians believe their country needs if it is to remove the threat of a repeat Russian invasion in the coming years. In order to defeat Russia decisively on the battlefield, Ukraine needs to receive far greater volumes of military aid along with unhindered access to the latest military technologies.

The West certainly has the resources to provide Ukraine with the tools it needs to defeat Russia. The combined GDP of all NATO member countries is more than twenty times the size of Russia’s GDP. However, the hesitancy and uncertainty displayed by Western leaders throughout the war has helped persuade Putin that the democratic world lacks his own political will and is ultimately too weak to challenge him.

If Western leaders are serious about preventing a Russian victory, they should demonstrate their resolve via long-term commitments to Ukraine with the clearly stated objective of a decisive Ukrainian military victory. This would do much to counter expectations in Moscow of an eventual collapse in Western support for Ukraine. Even Putin understands that there is no way Russia could hope to compete if the West finally chooses to deploy anything like the full weight its vastly superior financial, military, and technological resources.

Western leaders often speak about the high stakes of the war in Ukraine. In the coming months, they must match these words with actions. If they fail to do so, the price of Russian victory will be far higher than the cost of increasing support for Ukraine. This is an inescapable geopolitical reality that transcends all election cycles and will shape the international security climate for decades to come.

Ivan Verstyuk is a Ukrainian analyst and commentator based in Kyiv.

Attempted airport pogrom highlights rising antisemitism in Putin’s Russia

Joshua Stein — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 20:50:05 +0000

An antisemitic mob stormed Makhachkala Airport in southern Russia’s Republic of Dagestan on October 29 intending to hunt down Jewish passengers on an incoming flight from Tel Aviv. This attempted pogrom was eventually thwarted by local law enforcement officials, but the scenes of murderous intent sent shock waves around the world while raising serious questions about the rising tide of antisemitism in Putin’s Russia.

Events in Dagestan unfolded against a backdrop of heightened international tension over the recent escalation of hostilities in Israel. Russia has adopted what many see as a pro-Palestinian position toward the crisis, further straining what was already a tense relationship with Israel. In recent years, Russia has rebuffed calls to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization and has deepened its alliance with anti-Israel Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

On the eve of the recent unrest in Dagestan, Russia welcomed a Hamas delegation to Moscow in what was the group’s first high-profile foreign visit since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Hamas officials reportedly vowed to give priority treatment to Russian citizens among the hostages seized in southern Israel, noting that Russia was “a closest friend.”

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Dagestan and the surrounding North Caucasus region have a long record of ethnic nationalism and religious extremism, especially following the import of Wahhabism in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Conflicts between nationalist and religious extremist groups have plagued the region for years. This extremist influence was on full display during the storming of Makhachkala Airport.

The attempted pogrom also echoed the worst excesses of Russian nationalism, which has a history of antisemitism stretching back hundreds of years. The term “pogrom” itself can be traced to imperial Russia, which witnessed frequent outbreaks of deadly violence targeting Jewish communities. Meanwhile, the most notorious antisemitic forgery in history, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, originated in Russia at the turn of the twentieth century.

This legacy of antisemitic baggage is particularly important at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin is actively promoting an aggressive brand of imperial nostalgia. Officially, modern Russia is a pluralistic state that celebrates its ethnic and religious diversity. Indeed, Putin has accused neighboring Ukraine of antisemitism and has framed the current invasion as a quest to “de-Nazify” the country. Unfortunately for the Kremlin, there is little evidence to support such assertions.

The groundless claim that Russia invaded Ukraine to combat Nazism is a transparent attempt to justify an old-fashioned war of imperial aggression. When confronted with the uncomfortable fact that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is himself Jewish, top Kremlin officials have retreated into the quagmire of antisemitic conspiracy theories. In May 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov attempted to dismiss Zelenskyy’s Jewish identity by declaring that “Hitler also had Jewish blood.” More recently, Putin alleged that Zelenskyy had been deliberately chosen by the West as a Jewish puppet to cover up the “anti-human essence” of the Ukrainian state.

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There is antisemitism in Ukraine, of course, just as there is in all states. The real issue is whether extremist actors have inordinate political power, enjoy the support (or at least inaction) of the government, or the ability to coordinate large-scale violence. In Putin’s Russia, that may well be the case. Many see the recent attempted pogrom at Makhachkala Airport as a direct consequence of the antisemitic invective that has become increasingly normalized in the Russian public discourse following the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In the nationalistic environment of wartime Russia, the country’s Jewish community has faced accusations from some quarters of being insufficiently supportive of the invasion. Senior Rabbi Berel Lazar has felt obliged to speak out against “vulgar antisemitism” that poses a “huge danger” to Russian Jews. In one particularly chilling incident, prominent Russian journalist Alexei Venediktov found a pig’s head with the word “Judensau” (German for “Jewish pig”) placed outside his apartment.

Russian Jews with close ties to the Kremlin have also become targets of antisemitic attacks. Russia’s most high-profile propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, recently faced criticism that his media network employs too many Jewish staffers. When Solovyov’s colleague and fellow pundit Yevgeny Satanovsky, who is also Jewish, used strong language to accuse senior Russian Foreign Ministry officials of antisemitism and criticize the government’s policy on Israel, he was promptly dismissed.

These developments are fueling alarm among Russia’s remaining Jews and reawakening painful historical memories, while also sparking debate over the future security of the community. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt was Chief Rabbi of Moscow for almost thirty years, but was forced to flee the country in March 2022 after refusing a request from state officials to publicly support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He has since called on Russian Jews to leave the country.

“When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses toward the Jewish community,” Rabbi Goldschmidt told The Guardian in December 2022. “We’re seeing rising antisemitism while Russia is going back to a new kind of Soviet Union, and step by step the iron curtain is coming down again. This is why I believe the best option for Russian Jews is to leave.”

Joshua Stein holds a PhD from the University of Calgary and is a researcher on antisemitism and ethics.

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While the Western world was busy repeating the “never again” mantra, Putin’s Russia was increasingly embracing a very different sentiment. From the early years of his reign, Putin actively revived lingering Cold War era antagonism toward the West within Russian society. He also transformed traditional reverence for the Soviet role in the defeat of Nazi Germany into something akin to a state religion, complete with its own dogmas, heretics, rituals, and feast days. People across Russia soon began to repeat the menacing slogan, “we can do it again.” Whereas Soviet troops had once marched to Berlin and occupied half Europe, today’s Russia was now threatening defeat the West through a combination of economic, informational, cyber, and if necessary, military tools.

In this confrontational climate, Europe’s faith in the moderating impact of international trade was perceived by Russia as a fundamental weakness. When viewed from the Kremlin, the profitability of Europe’s growing economic ties with Russia was actually seen as a green light for Moscow to pursue policies of aggression against third parties without fear of consequences.

Members of the Russian establishment remained convinced that while their Western counterparts enjoyed making idealistic speeches, they were ultimately driven by a far baser hunger for money. This Russian contempt for so-called Western values was further strengthened by experience, particularly the indecently rapid clamor for a return to business-as-usual following Moscow’s 2008 invasion of Georgia. The same was true in the wake of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine.

Russian perceptions of Western weakness and hypocrisy directly paved the way for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Moscow expected the West to loudly protect the invasion before meekly accepting the new geopolitical realities and resuming economic cooperation with Russia. Based on prior experience, this was an entirely reasonable expectation. It appears to have taken the Kremlin completely by surprise when Western leaders imposed unprecedented sanctions, and when European nations began working to drastically reduce their reliance on Russian energy imports. For Ukraine, however, this show of resolve came too late to avert the devastating consequences of the invasion.

The tragedy of Russia’s criminal invasion could have been avoided if the West had sent an unambiguous message to Moscow indicating that the days of imperial aggression were over. Instead, too much trust was placed in the ability of deepening economic ties to deter international aggression, while modern Russia’s retreat into old-style imperialism was not taken sufficiently seriously.

The failure of trade-based diplomacy is also relevant in relation to China. Economic ties between Beijing and the West are often characterized as being mutually dependent, with some arguing that this makes any serious deterioration in relations unlikely. The same argument is sometimes applied to China and Taiwan, which have a robust economic relationship despite political tensions. However, this flawed logic has already been exposed by the West’s failed Russia policies.

Publicly, at least, China has declared a neutral position toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In practice, China is reaping the benefits of closer ties with an isolated Russia, while at the same time avoiding any sanctions pressure from the West. Regardless of the outcome in Ukraine, Beijing stands to benefit; a Russian victory would strengthen China, while a Russian defeat would increase Moscow’s dependency on Beijing.

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If Russia is able to achieve even a partial victory in Ukraine, the consequences for global security would be catastrophic. Western leaders must escalate their support for Ukraine to prevent this outcome and make sure Putin’s invasion ends in decisive defeat.

Looking ahead, it is clear that while economic inter-dependency can help maintain peace among like-minded democracies such as EU member states, it is utterly ineffective in terms of authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia. Instead, new approaches are needed that prioritize human values over trade balances or financial interests. Above all, the West must rid itself of the naive illusions that set the stage for today’s Russian war in Ukraine.

It is also vital to speak to dictators in the language of strength. After all, this is the only language that leaders like Vladimir Putin truly understand. To Putin and his fellow dictators, any talk of win-win situations and mutually beneficial cooperation is interpreted as a sign of weakness. Instead, today’s world requires institutions capable of imposing powerful sanctions on countries that break international law.

This process should begin with Ukraine. As Western leaders continue to shape their response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, they have an opportunity to build a new system of international relations capable of deterring future dictators from embracing aggressive foreign policies. Immediate priorities should include tougher sanctions against Russia, dramatically increased military aid for Ukraine, and the confiscation of Russian assets to finance the Ukrainian recovery process. Ultimately, Ukrainian victory and Russian defeat will be the greatest deterrent of all for any authoritarian rulers contemplating their own wars of aggression.

Kira Rudik is leader of the Golos party, member of the Ukrainian parliament, and Vice President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE).

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The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has focused international attention on Russia’s problematic role as one of the most influential nations at the United Nations. Some have asked why Russia has not been expelled for its attack on Ukraine, and have pointed to the expulsion of the Soviet Union from the UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, in response to the November 1939 invasion of Finland.

Others have questioned the legal status of the Russian Federation as a UN member state, noting that Russia has never actually gone through the proper formal and recognized procedures of applying to become a member of the United Nations. The Soviet Union was a key founding member of the United Nations and enjoyed a seat on the UN Security Council, but the USSR officially ceased to exist on December 26, 1991. Russia then took over the vacated Soviet seat at the top table of the United Nations without any further formalities.

When Czechoslovakia ceased to exist just two years later, the two new nations that had once been component parts of that country, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, both formally applied for and were granted membership status in the United Nations. The same is true for the states that were once part of Yugoslavia. This is a step that Russia never took. The Charter of the United Nations states that “the admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations shall be effected by a decision of the General Assembly.” While Slovakia and the Czech Republic went through this procedure, the Russian Federation did not.

The UN Charter also states that membership of the body is contingent on “accepting the obligations contained in the present Charter.” On these grounds, too, Russia does not meet the required standards. The UN Charter states that all United Nations members “shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” By invading Ukraine and attempting to annex entire Ukrainian regions, Russia has evidently violated this fundamental commitment expected of all UN member states. It can therefore be argued that Russia’s membership of the United Nations is invalid as it was not formally applied for, and because the invasion of Ukraine places Russia in direct breach of the UN Charter.

This raises obvious questions over Russia’s continued presence among the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. Russia’s status within the UNSC is particularly controversial as Moscow stands accused of repeatedly abusing its veto power to further its own foreign policy objectives and avoid censure for breaches of international law. The Security Council’s five permanent members are the only nations to wield veto power.

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Almost twenty months since the invasion began, few would argue that the devastating scale of Russia’s attack on Ukraine has highlighted the shortcomings of the United Nations. As noted by Tom Grant, a Senior Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, “Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is the most serious violation of the UN Charter in the Charter’s history.” How can a country engaged in Europe’s largest invasion since World War II and led by a man wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes be allowed to undermine an organization committed to maintaining world peace?

The absurdity of Russia’s position among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council is fueling calls for fundamental reform of the United Nations. For two years in a row, the reform of the United Nations Security Council has featured in US President Joe Biden’s annual address to the UN General Assembly. The reform debate centers on the need for the highest body at the United Nations to be more representative. At present, the UNSC lacks any permanent members from Africa or Latin America, and is also missing valuable input from emerging powerhouses such as India and significant developed economies including Japan.

One of the roadblocks to such reform is the current make-up of the Security Council, which under the existing regulations would be required to vote to approve any expansion of the UNSC. This would likely be blocked by Russia, due to perceptions in the Kremlin that any expansion would weaken the Russian position. Tellingly, other permanent members would also see their influence diluted by an expanded UNSC, and yet the push for this reform is being led by one of them, the United States.

Other possible reforms of the United Nations include the removal or restriction of veto powers for permanent members of the UN Security Council. This could potentially prevent individual countries from unilaterally derailing efforts to address global crises or uphold international law. Some critics feel even this would not go far enough, and argue for a complete rethink of the role played by the United Nations in international affairs.

The UN was founded in 1945 to maintain international peace and security, but it has been unable to prevent one of its leading members from invading a neighbor and committing war crimes not witnessed in Europe since the darkest days of twentieth century totalitarianism. Clearly, the UN Security Council is broken and the entire UN approach to issues of war and peace is no longer fit for purpose.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a watershed moment in world history that will have a profound impact on the future of international relations. If the United Nations wants to survive as an institution and remain relevant in the decades ahead, it must be ready to embrace fundamental reform.

Paul Niland is the founder of Lifeline Ukraine.

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In the West, it has become common to explain this pro-war sentiment by arguing that Russians have been brainwashed by the Kremlin-controlled state media. Some commentators also mention widespread Russian apathy and disengagement from politics. However, these explanations risk infantilizing Russian society and stereotyping Russians as passive conformists with no agency of their own.

Most Western observers struggle to perceive Russian support for the war as a conscious choice because they are unable to accept that supporting a genocidal war could ever be seen as rational. Nevertheless, studies of past wars of aggression and authoritarianism tell us that the protagonists of evil typically regard their actions as both reasonable and justifiable. In Russia’s case, it is the country’s imperial past and the imperial intimacy of the Russian relationship with Ukraine that serve to justify the current war.

This imperial intimacy reflects deeply rooted historical ideas of kinship and fraternity that have encouraged generations of Russians to view Ukrainians as part of their nation. It is a hierarchical intimacy, with Ukrainians cast in the role of “little brothers” in need of protection and tutelage. This encompasses the necessity of “disciplining” Ukrainians for their own good. Such thinking is a central pillar of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “Russian World” ideology.

Putin’s notorious July 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians” was a manifesto of imperial intimacy that openly questioned Ukraine’s right to statehood while denying the existence of a separate Ukrainian nation. Instead, Putin argued, Ukrainians were really Russians (“one people”). On the eve of the full-scale invasion, he declared that Ukraine was “an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space.”

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Officially, the Kremlin has sought to justify the war by pointing to decades of post-Cold War NATO expansion while portraying Ukraine as a far-right threat to Russia itself. However, when addressing domestic audiences, Putin has often been more open about his imperial agenda. Speaking in summer 2022, he compared the current invasion to the eighteenth century imperial conquests of Russian Czar Peter the Great and claimed it was now his turn to “return” Russian lands. A few months later, Putin oversaw a lavish Kremlin ceremony marking the “annexation” of four Ukrainian provinces. Amid the unmistakable trappings of empire, he declared that these partially occupied Ukrainian regions had returned to Russia “forever.”

Such imperial posturing in relation to Ukraine resonates widely with the Russian public. Many Russians see today’s war as an historic mission to overcome the injustice of the Soviet collapse and reunite their country with Ukraine following decades of “artificial separation.” The imperial intimacy underpinning their attitudes toward Ukraine allows them to overlook the obvious opposition of the Ukrainian people to this reunion.

Over the past twenty months of full-scale warfare, denial of Ukrainian statehood and talk of imperial revival have become prominent features of Russia’s heavily censored and carefully choreographed information space. Ukrainians are routinely dehumanized and Ukraine itself is dismissed as an intolerable “anti-Russia.” Meanwhile, pundits on Russian state TV regularly discuss the need to exile or annihilate large numbers of Ukrainians. This genocidal rhetoric is typically framed as the inevitable price of achieving historical justice and saving Ukrainians from themselves.

While it is convenient to blame today’s war on Vladimir Putin and view it as the product of one man’s criminal fantasies, the problem of Russian imperialism is far bigger than Putin alone. Many millions of ordinary Russians support the war because they continue to view Ukraine through the distorting prism of imperial intimacy.

The situation is unlikely to change until a majority of Russians recognize that true patriotism means acknowledging past injustices bestowed by empire on Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Lithuanians, Chechens, and many others. This would open the way for the emergence of a new Russia with the potential to live in peace with its neighbors while finally realizing its vast potential. Unless this change occurs, Russian imperialism will remain a major destabilizing factor in global security.

Neringa Klumbytė is director of the Lithuania Program at Miami University’s Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies.

Vladimir Putin is still convinced he can outlast the West in Ukraine

Dennis Soltys — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 19:51:25 +0000

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has succeeded in uniting the democratic world to a degree not seen in decades, but the Western response to the war continues to be hampered by excessive fear of provoking Putin. The Russian dictator has masterfully exploited this inclination toward self-deterrence, and has used a series of thinly veiled nuclear threats to slow down the supply of military aid to Ukraine. Each new round of weapons deliveries is preceded by endless debates and delays in Western capitals, leading to greater loss of life in Ukraine while further emboldening the Kremlin.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine now in its twentieth month, Moscow appears happy to play a waiting game and is openly preparing for a long war. In other words, Western leaders have clearly failed to convince Putin that he has no hope of outlasting them in Ukraine. Until this changes, the war is likely to continue.

One of the most striking symbols of the West’s excessive caution is the collective reluctance to declare that Ukrainian victory is the ultimate objective of Western policy. Instead, Western officials prefer to talk in vaguer terms of supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” This ambiguous language encourages Moscow to draw out the war and seems to leave room for dubious “land for peace” negotiations or other compromises with the Kremlin. It will take far tougher words and deeds to stop Putin.

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The West’s fear of escalation is proving particularly problematic in the context of Ukraine’s current counteroffensive. For the past four months, The Ukrainian military has been attempting to break through heavily fortified Russian defenses and advance toward the Azov Sea. Progress has been painfully slow, leading many analysts to note that Ukraine lacks the necessary military capabilities to achieve its goals. Indeed, some have observed that no NATO commander would attempt such an offensive with the weapons currently available to their Ukrainian counterparts.

At the same time, when Ukraine’s Western partners demonstrate boldness, the results are soon apparent. In recent months, Ukraine has used cruise missiles provided by Britain and France to deplete Russia’s air defenses throughout occupied Crimea, and to carry out a number of attacks on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. This has succeeded in forcing Russia to withdraw the bulk of its fleet from Crimea, and has enabled Ukraine to break the naval blockade of the country’s southern ports.

Ukraine’s recent progress on the Crimean Front should help convince the country’s partners that the only way to end the war is by expanding military aid. The Russian army is already facing mounting logistical problems as it seeks to defend a front line that stretches for approximately one thousand kilometers. In recent months, Ukraine has managed to destroy a large amount of Russian artillery, leading to a noticeable decline in the intensity of artillery fire. By supplying more long-range weapons and aircraft, Western leaders can help Ukraine reduce Russia’s ability to wage war while preparing the ground for future Ukrainian breakthroughs.

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Wearing down Russia’s military capabilities in Ukraine is critical as there is little sign of rising anti-war sentiment inside Russia itself. On the contrary, Putin’s propaganda machine appears to have created a powerful pro-war consensus within Russian society.

Monthly research conducted by Russia’s only internationally respected independent pollster, the Levada Center, has identified consistently strong support of over 70 percent for the invasion. While polling data in authoritarian regimes like Putin’s Russia must be treated with skepticism, there is virtually no sign of any meaningful public opposition to the war in Russia or among the multi-million strong Russian diaspora.

The failure of the Wagner uprising in late June 2023 and the subsequent apparent assassination of Wagner leader Yevgeniy Prigozhin appear to have significantly strengthened Putin’s domestic position. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s failure to achieve any major breakthroughs since the start of the counteroffensive more than four months ago has further bolstered Russian public morale.

Putin has also done a good job of shielding the Russian population from the impact of the ongoing invasion. He has so far managed to avoid recruiting large numbers of conscripts from major cities such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, focusing instead on poorer regions of the country and ethnic minority communities.

With little chance of Putin facing domestic unrest any time soon, the most realistic way of ending the war is by defeating the Russian army on the battlefields of Ukraine. This can only be achieved if Western leaders overcome their fear of provoking Putin and provide Ukraine with the tools to finish the job.

Recent reports indicate US President Joe Biden is now close to confirming the supply of ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine. If Biden does give the green light for delivery, Germany may follow suit with its own long-range missiles. This would send an important message to Moscow that Western resolve is as strong as ever. Alternatively, continued hesitance on the issue of long-range missiles will encourage the Kremlin to believe that the democratic world is wavering in its commitment to stand with Ukraine.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a test of the West’s political will. Putin is convinced his opponents are fundamentally weak and unprincipled. He is prepared to wait until the democratic world finally tires of confrontation and accepts the new geopolitical realities created by Russian military aggression. Unless Western leaders can prove him wrong, the threat posed by Russia will only grow.

Dennis Soltys is a retired Canadian professor of comparative politics and a specialist on the Eurasian region.

Russian War Report: Civilian cafe attacked and a fake Ukrainian news site is exposed

Digital Forensic Research Lab — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 17:56:38 +0000

Security

Tracking narratives

Website impersonating Ukrainian news agency spreads narratives aimed at undermining Ukrainian morale

Media policy

Russia increasingly using criminal charges for online activities, says digital rights group

Russia’s federal budget draft indicates a funding boost for state media

International affairs

Putin meets South Sudanese President Salva Kiir

Strike on Ukrainian cafe leaves more than forty dead

An attack on the village of Hroza in northeast Ukraine left more than four dozen people dead, according to a Telegram statement from Ukraine’s Office of the General Prosecutor. According to the statement, the attack occurred around 1:25 p.m. local time on October 5, destroying a local cafe shop. It also noted local prosecutors have launched a pre-trial investigation. In a separate Telegram post, which included graphic imagery, Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Kuleba blamed Russia for the attack, stating, “A terrorist country deliberately kills peaceful Ukrainians. The world needs to see what true evil is.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) also condemned the attack. “Intentionally directing an attack against civilians or civilian objects is a war crime,” UN OCHA Humanitarian Coordinator for Ukraine Denise Brown stated. “Intentionally launching an attack knowing that it would be disproportionate is a war crime.”

Meanwhile, a Reuters report published on October 3 claimed that the Russian army has embedded so-called “Storm-Z” units within conventional Russian units to conduct counterattacks against Ukrainian gains in crucial front sectors. Reuters reported that the Storm-Z units comprise 100-150 personnel, including civilian penal recruits and Russian soldiers under punishment. The Russian army and defense ministry have not confirmed the existence of the Storm-Z units.

—Andy Carvin, managing editor, Washington DC

—Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research, Sofia, Bulgaria

Website impersonating Ukrainian news agency spreads narratives aimed at undermining Ukrainian morale

The DFRLab has identified at least one Facebook ad promoting a website impersonating a Ukrainian news agency. The now-defunct Facebook page “Onaqaq online shop” published the ad. It accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukrainian leadership of corruption and misusing aid provided by the United States. The ad featured a caricature of the president alongside text noting the creation of a US team to monitor how aid to Ukraine is being used. The ad declared that all of Ukraine’s elite are corrupt and shared a debunked claim about a former “commander-in-chief,” likely a reference to Oleksii Reznikov, buying a villa for his daughter.

Screenshot of an ad from a now-defunct Facebook page. (Source: Facebook)

The ad included a link to the website thumbra.com, which when accessed by the DFRLab redirected to unian.in, a page masquerading as the website for the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency, unian.ua. At the time of writing, the website no longer redirected to the copycat website. Much of the content on the copycat website links back to UNIAN’s actual website, including share buttons. The link in the ad led to a forged story regarding Ukraine’s allies becoming skeptical of its ability to succeed in the war against Russia. The article cited decreased military aid as an indicator that allies are abandoning Ukraine.

Screenshots of a real UNIAN story (left) compared to the forgery page promoted by the Facebook ad (right). (Sources: Unian, left; Unian.in/archive, right)

Multiple aspects of the forgery point to it likely being of Russian origin. The strongest indicator is that the URL address includes “skepsis-i-podozritelnost,” which is transliterated from Russian, not Ukrainian. Second, the article is written in Ukrainian, but the tone and style differ from that of the information agency. Third, the faux article’s banner image, a stock photo, does not have a caption, as is standard for UNIAN. The image was also edited to include a text overlay, which reads “Allies don’t believe in us anymore?” UNIAN does not edit the stock photography it uses for banner images.

These types of forgeries are not unique. On September 18, a Ukrainian researcher found a similar forgery replicating the UNIAN website, which spread a narrative claiming that Ukraine’s allies are decreasing weapons shipments to Ukraine to force it to negotiate with Russia. The article stated that Ukraine’s losses were “in vain” as its allies plan to “sacrifice” the country for their own self-interest.

Campaigns such as this are likely intended to decrease the morale of Ukrainians. The DFRLab has previously covered similar attempts by Russia to impersonate media, including Operation Doppelganger, in which Russian assets impersonated prominent European news outlets.

—Roman Osadchuk, research associate

Russia increasingly using criminal charges for online activities, says digital rights group

In its latest monthly digest, Russian digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda examined high-profile cases in which Russian politicians or activists were punished, via administrative or criminal charges, for their online activities. According to Roskomsvoboda, the cases illustrate an increasing use of criminal charges rather than administrative ones, a reversal of what it observed in 2022.

The report also noted instances of Russians being punished for Telegram posts that “disrespect” or “discredit” Russian authorities or the army. One person was criminally charged for giving an interview to Ukrainian media, while another was charged for “participating in an extremist community.”

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Russia’s federal budget draft indicates a funding boost for state media

On September 29, the Kremlin submitted the 2024-2026 draft federal budget to the State Duma. According to the independent Russian news outlet Verstka, the Kremlin plans to increase funding for its state-run platforms, which are known to sow disinformation and propaganda. The increase coincides with Russia’s 2024 presidential elections.

The budget reportedly allocates 315 billion rubles ($3 billion) to support Russian media for the next three years. The budget assigns 121.3 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) for 2024, 94.1 billion rubles ($945 million) for 2025, and 99.5 billion rubles ($1 billion) for 2026. Overall, the draft media budget represents a decrease of 20 billion rubles ($200 million) from the previous budget; according to Verstka, the draft indicates that state-owned media will receive the largest funding stream in the election year, after which funds will decrease.

The report also noted that in 2024, RT will receive 1.8 billion rubles ($18 million) more than it received last year, and Vladimir Solovyov’s channel Solovyov LIVE will receive 750 million rubles ($7.5 million).

—Eto Buziashvili, research associate, Tbilisi, Georgia

Putin meets South Sudanese President Salva Kiir

South Sudanese President Salva Kiir travelled to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, September 28, where the two reportedly agreed to strengthen the relationship between the two countries, particularly focusing on trade, energy, and oil.

According to a transcript posted by the Kremlin, Putin told Kiir, “This is only the beginning. We have many good opportunities in a variety of fields, including energy.”

Oil-rich South Sudan seceded from Sudan in 2011 with Kiir at the country’s helm. South Sudan was admitted to the United Nations in the same year. The country has had a tenuous relationship with the international body, however, which extended an arms embargo against South Sudan in 2022; Russia abstained from that vote. Given that Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Kiir may look to Russia as an ally in his bid to have the embargo lifted. Notably, Kiir told Putin that Russia was a “strong friend” of South Sudan.

In his statement, Putin claimed Russia would also support South Sudan on the domestic front. Kiir is facing mounting pressure from the international community to move forward with a peace deal signed in 2018 and prepare for elections in 2024.

Putin’s meeting with Kiir comes off the back of the July 2023 Russia-Africa summit, in which Russia attempted to strengthen and solidify its relationships with African countries. In May 2023, the African Union warned that African countries should “resist all forms of instrumentalization” in a conflict that threatens to “transform Africa into a geostrategic battleground,” adding that it would come at the detriment of the continent.

—Tessa Knight, research associate, London, United Kingdom

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Can US Abrams tanks help Ukraine achieve a battlefield breakthrough?

Olivia Yanchik — Sat, 30 Sep 2023 14:21:27 +0000

The first US M1 Abrams tanks have arrived in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced early this week. Pentagon officials confirmed the delivery, with a spokesperson commenting that “the mere presence of Abrams tanks serves as a potent deterrent.”

This is the initial batch of an anticipated 31 Abrams tanks which Ukraine will receive in line with a decision announced by US President Joe Biden in January 2023. The Abrams is widely regarded as among the most powerful tanks currently operating and is seen as significantly more advanced than the bulk of the tanks used by the Russian military. With Ukraine set to receive enough US tanks to equip a single battalion, few expect the Abrams to have a major impact on the battlefield. However, these deliveries represent an important addition to Ukraine’s growing arsenal of Western tanks.

During the first ten months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s international partners remained cautious over the delivery of modern battle tanks. Instead, a handful of countries including Poland and the Czech Republic provided significant quantities of extensively refurbished Soviet era tanks. These tanks were regarded as particularly suitable due to Ukraine’s familiarity with their operating systems and the availability of spare parts.

Ukrainian requests for modern battle tanks were finally answered in early 2023. Britain was the first partner country to commit, announcing in mid-January that it would be sending Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. Berlin announced publicly that they would not move on tanks until Washington agreed to send Abrams. Once a deal was struck, Germany then followed suit, agreeing to deliver Leopard tanks and allowing other countries to do likewise.

All three models represent a significant upgrade on the armor previously available to the Ukrainian military or the Russian army. They offer a range of practical advantages including better protection, higher mobility, night vision capabilities, more accurate firepower, and greater range.

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While Ukrainians have welcomed the delivery of modern battle tanks as a major breakthrough for the country’s war effort, a larger debate is also underway over how and under what circumstances tanks will be used in the modern battlespace going forward. This debate, at times disregarding Ukraine’s lack of air superiority and Russia’s poor strategy of massing tanks, draws on the heavy losses in tanks witnessed over the past nineteen months of Russia’s full-scale invasion to argue that advances in missile and drone technologies are rendering tanks obsolete on the modern battlefield.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, is one of a number of experts critical of recent efforts to condemn tanks to the military graveyard. “It is too soon to write off the tank, and we should resist jumping to other sweeping conclusions about the future of warfare based on a conflict whose lessons are not yet clear,” he noted in September 2022.

Many analysts have also pointed out that the catastrophic tank losses suffered by Russia during the initial phase of the invasion can be chalked up to how the tanks were used rather than indicating any more fundamental issues with the role of tanks in modern warfare. Russian commanders have been accused of poor logistical planning and preparation, while columns of tanks were routinely deployed in vulnerable positions without sufficient infantry support to protect them from anti-tank weapons or the growing threat of drone strikes.

Advocates of tank warfare argue that poor strategy should not obscure the need for heavy armor in cutting through a line or holding territory once liberated. With the right strategic approach and the right air defense assets, tanks can continue to play a crucial battlefield role. Abandoning tanks entirely could also have grave consequences for troops on the ground. “Without tanks, a military involved in a large-scale ground war would have to rely on armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles to fill that same role, which would lead to a greater percentage of catastrophic losses,” observed Rob Lee.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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Ukraine’s expanding fleet of modern battle tanks have so far been sparingly deployed. According to reports in late August, Ukraine had lost just five of its 71 Leopard 2 tanks in the thirteen weeks since the start of the country’s long-anticipated counteroffensive. Ukrainian commanders are clearly waiting for the right moment to use their enhanced tank force. While Russia’s well-prepared defensive positions in southern Ukraine represent a formidable obstacle, the flat and open terrain of the region is potentially ideal for tanks if Ukrainian forces are able to break through the Russian lines.

So far, progress has been painfully slow but fairly steady, with deep minefields needing to be cleared at every step before personnel carriers and tanks can move through. Limited breaches have been achieved but remain heavily contested, with Russia moving substantial reinforcements to block further Ukrainian advances. The density of minefields close to Russia’s first defensive lines means that Abrams tanks and other modern Western armor are currently unable to play a prominent role in offensive operations. That will change if Ukraine succeeds in consolidating its position beyond Russia’s initial line of defense and pushes into less heavily fortified areas.

Ukraine’s Abrams tanks have the technical capabilities to exploit any breakthroughs, but logistical challenges should not be underestimated. The Abrams model is notorious for high fuel consumption and will therefore be limited in range by the proximity of fuel supplies. Meanwhile, all of Ukraine’s Western tanks use different ammunition, creating further potential supply headaches in the event of rapid advances.

Some critics have suggested that the delivery of 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine is little more than a token gesture. However, even in relatively small quantities, this sophisticated fighting machine significantly enhances Ukraine’s offensive capabilities. Much is likely to depend on the ability of Ukrainian commanders to integrate these US-made vehicles into existing units and deploy them effectively in complex combined arms operations.

The arrival of Abrams tanks on the Ukrainian battlefield will not transform the course of the war. However, if used alongside other recently delivered modern battle tanks and in conjunction with infantry, artillery, drones, and air cover, Abrams tanks could help Ukraine achieve its current goal of striking south and cutting the land bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

Olivia Yanchik is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has set the tone for Russia’s viciously anti-Ukrainian public dialogue and has frequently engaged in what could be classed as genocidal language. He routinely asserts that Ukrainians are actually Russians (“one people”), and has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s right to exist while insisting the country is guilty of occupying “historical Russian lands.” In one particularly chilling recent outburst in September 2023, Putin denounced the “anti-human essence” of the modern Ukrainian state. Such dehumanization is widely recognized as an important indicator of genocidal intent.

Others throughout the Russian establishment have enthusiastically echoed Putin. According to research conducted by the Washington-based New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal, Russia’s state-orchestrated incitement to genocide includes “the denial of the existence of a Ukrainian identity” by senior Russian officials and state media.

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The UN defines genocide as “the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.” The five acts internationally defined as genocide include killings, causing serious harm, deliberately inflicting physically destructive conditions of life, imposing birth prevention measures, and forcibly transferring children to another group. Russia stands accused of committing all five acts against Ukrainians.

Evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine is extensive. An array of state and non-state international organizations have documented a vast amount of Russian crimes in Ukraine including the torture and execution of civilians and POWs, forced deportations, and the targeting of Ukrainian cultural, historical, and religious sites. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians were killed during the Russian attack on Mariupol in spring 2022. Dozens of other Ukrainian towns and cities have since suffered similar fates.

The Kremlin began setting the stage for these crimes many years before the onset of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. According to the Just Security forum at the New York University School of Law, this process dates back to at least 2008 or 2009, and has been marked by “increasingly hostile language laying the groundwork for rejecting Ukraine’s existence as a state, a national group, and a culture.”

Even casual consumers of Russia’s mainstream media will be immediately familiar with this poisonous anti-Ukrainian agenda. Indeed, the demonization of Ukraine has long since become totally normalized throughout the Russian information space, with the Ukrainian authorities groundlessly portrayed as fascists and symbols of Ukrainian national identity routinely equated with Nazism. Russian television hosts and invited “experts” regularly talk of the need to destroy Ukraine.

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Ukraine’s advance in Kursk: What’s next and implications

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For more than a decade, Putin’s powerful propaganda machine has prepared the Russian public for the genocide they are now committing in Ukraine. This process has included the coordinated promotion of anti-Ukrainian messaging designed to rob the country of legitimacy and position it as an existential threat to Russia. Ukraine has consistently been portrayed as a failed state, an anti-Russian project devised by the West, and a puppet of anti-Russian forces. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian language and all other expressions of Ukrainian national identity have been derided as artificial and historically illegitimate.

This relentless flood of anti-Ukrainian propaganda appears to have conditioned the majority of Russians to accept the current invasion. Independent polls indicate overwhelming levels of public support for the war, despite widespread awareness of atrocities such as the destruction of entire Ukrainian cities and the deliberate bombing of Ukraine’s essential civilian infrastructure.

President Zelenskyy is not the only prominent figure to accuse Russia of committing genocide in Ukraine. Indeed, US President Joe Biden and his rival Donald Trump both did so during the early months of the invasion. More recently, US lawmakers visiting The Hague in September 2023 said Putin had “tried to erase a culture, a people, and a religion, and that is the definition of genocide.” They join a growing chorus of experts and academics who unambiguously state that Russia’s actions in Ukraine represent a genocide.

It will be some time before the United Nations and other relevant international bodies arrive at a definitive legal verdict on the genocide question. At this relatively early stage in the investigation process, the International Criminal Court has already issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the mass abduction of Ukrainian children, which itself likely qualifies as an act of genocide. As investigations progress, the role of Russia’s propaganda machine and the genocidal intent displayed by Kremlin officials including Putin himself will be closely scrutinized.

Dr. Taras Kuzio is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy and an associate research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. His latest book “Fascism and Genocide. Russia’s War Against Ukrainians” was published by Columbia University Press this year.

Speaking alongside Kristoffersen, NATO Military Committee Chair Admiral Rob Bauer noted the similarities between the withdrawal of Russian forces from the Norwegian border and Moscow’s strikingly relaxed reaction to Finnish NATO membership in spring 2023. The Kremlin obviously recognizes that NATO poses no threat to Russia, he observed, “otherwise they would have responded completely differently to the accession of Finland.”

Bauer’s comments highlight the inconsistency of Russia’s apparent indifference to last year’s decision by Finland and Sweden to abandon decades of neutrality and join NATO. Moscow made no effort to oppose or deter the NATO bids of the two Nordic nations, despite the fact that Finnish membership more than doubled Russia’s land border with the alliance, while impending Swedish membership will transform the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.

In the eleven months leading up Finland’s April 2023 accession, there were no disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks, political assassinations, airspace intrusions, diplomatic threats, or any of the other hybrid warfare tactics Russia is accused of using elsewhere in recent years. Nor were there any menacing military build-ups. On the contrary, Russia downplayed the entire issue and actually pulled the vast majority of its troops and military hardware away from the region. In August 2023, Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen confirmed that the border area was “pretty empty” of Russian troops. “If we were a threat, they would certainly not have moved their troops away, even in a situation where they are engaged somewhere else,” she commented.

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Putin’s conspicuous lack of concern over Finnish and Swedish NATO membership makes a complete mockery of his efforts to justify the invasion of Ukraine by brandishing Ukraine’s own far more tenuous ties to the military alliance. While Ukraine has understandably been increasingly eager to join NATO since the onset of Russian aggression in 2014, membership has never looked even vaguely plausible. NATO members rejected the idea of granting Kyiv a membership action plan back in 2008, and have since offered little more than platitudes while consistently downplaying the chances of Ukraine actually joining the alliance. Indeed, on the eve of Russia’s full-scale invasion, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally assured Putin that Ukraine would not secure NATO membership “in the next 30 years.”

This has not prevented Putin from framing the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a justifiable response to NATO’s post-Cold War enlargement into the former Eastern Bloc and engagement with Ukraine. He frequently insists the growth of the alliance since 1991 was in breach of unwritten assurances allegedly offered during the twilight years of the Soviet era, and has positioned his decision to attack Ukraine as a preventative measure to safeguard Russia itself.

These unsubstantiated arguments have proved surprisingly persuasive among international audiences, where they have benefited from strong undercurrents of anti-Western sentiment and widespread opposition to America’s dominant role in world affairs. However, Russia’s decision to voluntarily demilitarize its existing NATO borders is now seriously undermining the credibility of Putin’s efforts to portray the alliance as a security threat to the Russian Federation. Russian resentment over NATO enlargement is sincere enough, but it has little to do with security concerns. Instead, Putin objects to NATO because it prevents Russia from bullying its neighbors.

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