Reflexive Control as a Risk Factor for Using OSINT: Insights from the Russia–Ukraine Conflict

Abstract

Special governmental services, security services of leading companies, and private researchers rely on open-source intelligence (OSINT). With the development of the Internet and social networks, open-data intelligence is increasingly turning from a subtle art into a “mechanical” process—the more data, the better. OSINT professionals’ competence enables verification of information and minimizes the chances of deception unless the intention of the investigation and the data’s locale are previously known to their adversary. In this very case, the hunter can get into a trap dexterously rigged by an adversary. This article discusses the risks of disinformation through open sources in the context of the Soviet concept of “reflexive control”; that is, imposing unfavorable decisions on the enemy through the introduction of incorrect premises, exemplified by the experience of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict since 2014. The article evaluates the influence exerted on the governmental and military decisions by disinformation through open sources, examining several reported cases. Systematization of data on previous attempts at reflexive control, such as Russian information operations, can increase the accuracy of assessing the depth of an enemies’ reflexion, which helps to reveal their operational plans and predict further actions because disinformation often precedes other forms of aggression.

Throughout nine decades of the development of open-source intelligence (OSINT), organizations engaged in investigations, including state ones, have considered it, among other techniques, a tool for verifying or legalizing information received from other sources.¹ In March 2022, Ukrainian Defense Minister Ganna Maliar stated that 80% of intelligence information comes from open sources.² Independent researchers can sometimes build their assumptions based solely on open data, and such investigations are steadily multiplying, in line with the technical capacity to store, transmit, and process digital information. One of the main practical problems of OSINT is the “information explosion,” which requires automating data analysis to optimize the processing of the ever-growing amount of raw data.³

Meanwhile, the risks of an investigator’s actions’ predictability rise along with the increase in the algorithmization level, followed by the respective formalization of procedures for handling information and decisionmaking. This turns an analyst into a subject; that is, a performer, of intelligence activity into its potential object. One of the frameworks that permits a researcher to analyze the concept of imposing on an enemy certain prerequisites in favor of the choice that satisfies the manipulator is called reflexive control.⁴ Although strategists have studied it since at least the fifth century BC, to which the treatise The Art of War by Sun Tzu dates back, the relevant interdisciplinary theory at the intersection of mathematics and psychology was developed in the early 1960s in the Soviet Union. The theory aimed primarily to describe the processes of manipulating adversaries’ perceptions, beliefs, and actions without them realizing it. It later gained popularity among the Soviet and Russian military command.⁵ As used in this article, the term “reflexive control” will refer to a strategy that involves manipulating enemies’ decisionmaking processes, although there are multiple modern approaches to the analysis of deception and coercion, including such well-known frameworks as game theory, strategic communications, perception management, and deterrence theory. Because this study focuses primarily on the experience of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict and its tasks include the analysis of information operations by Russian and Ukrainian state bodies, I will use the terminology of the Soviet concept, although it is not common outside the post-Soviet space. Dissemination of disinformation through exposed agents—being a typical example of reflexive control in intelligence and known as “chickenfeed”—necessitates rigorous cross-checking of any data obtained through human intelligence (HUMINT), while information gleaned from OSINT tends to be perceived as a serendipitous discovery, due to the contrasting nature of its chain of custody (e.g., random social media users can be considered independent from the adversary). Moreover, some organizations do not have enough resources to crosscheck sources, especially when it comes to social networks.⁶ The quantity of evidence to support a particular speculation is occasionally misconstrued as proving its quality, although such illusions are not uncommon when analyzing information obtained by other methods.⁷

The reflexive analysis of the situations presented in this work is based on the principles formulated by Vladimir Lefebvre in his classic monograph Conflicting Structures,⁸ and the classification of reflexive technologies by Vladimir Lepskiy.⁹ Lefebvre is the founder of the Soviet theory of reflexive control, which was intended as an alternative to the then widespread game theory.¹⁰ Its key difference lay in the fact that it had considered the impact of the surrounding people’s values on decisionmaking even before game theory, influenced by behaviorism, began to allow for sociocultural factors as well as the limitations of information and cognitive capacity. A similar approach is applied in this work. Although the theory of reflexive control does not claim to be exhaustive when it comes to predicting the risk of disinformation, in order to obtain a better insight into patterns of thinking within the post-Soviet special services, we can limit ourselves to what appears to be a locally established, and therefore contextually relevant, strategic methodology. An approach to the analysis and forecasting of international conflicts tailored to the behavioral and cultural characteristics of the population (e.g., Russian) under consideration seems to be a useful addition to the tools for not only OSINT specialists, but also scholars in security studies and international relations.

The very term “disinformation” is of Russian origin and traces back to the first Soviet special information and propaganda department, with the speaking name “Disinformation Bureau,” created in 1923.¹¹ Its tasks included creating specific articles and news stories for the periodicals to facilitate the spread of fabricated materials.¹² During the early years of the Soviet Union, the Disinformation Bureau was supposed to counter negative images of the country in the foreign press and to promote communist ideology. Later, the bureau served to support Soviet foreign policy objectives, such as expanding its influence in Europe, Asia, and Africa, discrediting the Western powers and their allies, and portraying the Soviet Union as a champion of peace and social justice.

Careful consideration of applying reflexive control through open sources raises some methodological issues, such as what distinguishes ordinary propaganda in the media and certain anonymous pages on social networks from disinformation through open data. Classic propaganda techniques like those involving distracting attention to a worthless object for an internal audience, or the so-called firehose of falsehood, indicate simple reflexive control of the first rank. Based on the simplified decisionmaking scheme, proposed by Lefebvre, various first-rank reflexive control technologies can be reduced to the following interaction between a subject and an object. A subject conveys an object, the premises from which the object deduces the decision predetermined by the subject. This indicates the object’s reluctance or incapacity to create an exhaustive reflexive representation of the subject and therefore a zero rank of reflexion, implying unawareness that the subject could be manipulating them. However, intelligence specialists, having a higher rank of reflexion and knowing about potential manipulations, may try to form a reflexive image of the subject gained through OSINT, considering open sources independent of the subject. The subject, meanwhile, having formed a more advanced reflexive representation of the object (the second rank of reflexion), may have a lead on which sources they would rather look to for information and falsify it in advance; this is simple or double reflexive control of the second rank. More elaborate options are also possible, when the subject, aware of the object’s mistrust, reports real facts to make the object come to opposite (false) conclusions. Thus, although the propaganda intended for a wide audience is a particular case of the same reflexive control technology, disinformation targeting a subject who has at least basic critical-thinking skills and fact-checking capabilities understandably presents a far more complicated task. However, reflexive control operations can be multistage and imply, for example, influence on the political leadership through public opinion.

Another difficulty in the implementation of reflexive control stems from the challenge of deducing the most probable open sources into which a potential object of influence can tap. In fact, to maximize efficiency of disinformation through open sources, the organizer of the operation also needs detailed information about the methods and objects sought for in an adversary’s OSINT investigations. However, even without extensive preparation, the dissemination of slanted disinformation in open sources, entailing neither significant risks nor significant resources, can be conducted on an ongoing basis.

This article asks how reflexive control is carried out through open sources and to what consequences it leads. The topic is highly relevant, because successful application of reflexive control by disseminating misleading or biased information through open sources creates the risk of making decisions for the benefit of an enemy by the military command or public authorities.¹³ In order to assess the risks of using OSINT to collect information about an adversary, it is necessary to have at least a rough estimate of their expected rank of reflexion in various situations, which shows how many further steps in disinformation measures they can plan ahead.¹⁴ The scholarly literature has repeatedly provided evidence of the impossibility of successfully implementing reflexive control above the second rank in wide practice, due to objective limitations of human cognitive potential and computing power.¹⁵ However, given the data on HUMINT operations and other historical experience in intelligence, some researchers question the sustainable effectiveness of “strategic” deception even in second-rank reflexive control operations.¹⁶ So far, the only methodological approach to determining the expected enemy rank of reflexion consists in a rough estimate of its probability based on the usage frequency of certain ranks of reflexion during already-investigated adversary activity in the past.¹⁷ Thus, the purpose of the study presented in this article is to systematize the description of the most common scenarios for the use of reflexive control through open sources, to assess the depth of reflexion and analyze their impact on the course of the Russian–Ukrainian conflict since 2014. The results of the study can help us to uncover an adversary’s operational objectives and accordingly to plan protective measures against them.

Ranking reflexion without complete impartial information about the intentions of belligerents can present some difficulties, including the risk of overrating a current operational rank of reflexion, as illustrated by the following example. Ukrainian military experts in November 2022 worried what statements by Russian officials and journalists about the retreat of the Russian Armed Forces from captured Kherson could really mean. It could have been the preparation of public opinion in Russia for a painful decision (the first rank of reflexion), or a deceitful maneuver to lure the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) into a trap (the second rank of reflexion), or even disinformation to make the AFU apprehensive about an eventual trap, thus slowing down their advance toward Kherson (the third rank of reflexion). Unfortunately, even knowing the outcome—the AFU liberated Kherson without a fight—we cannot assert confidently what probable intentions the Russian speakers actually had before the operation. However, even in the absence of exhaustive information about all aspects of modern Russian information operations, they are worth examining to estimate the Russian command’s capability to use reflexive control.

Notably, the 2023 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. (IC) ranks Russia as a significant foreign influence threat to the United States, using its intelligence services, proxies, and a wide range of influence tools to undermine U.S. global standing, sow discord, and influence U.S. voters and decisionmaking. According to the U.S. IC, Moscow achieves this through a network of state media, proxies, and social media influence actors, and spreads original stories or intensifies preexisting popular or divisive discourses aiming to penetrate the Western information environment, including disseminating false content or amplifying information that benefits Russian influence.¹⁸

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Due to regulatory restrictions on the timing of the disclosure of either the Russian or the Ukrainian state archives related to special operations, the article uses only open data to describe current events. Because the study is dedicated to public opinion, the views of the expert community and officials as well as references are drawn from sources that envisage the technical possibility of verifying the authorship and authenticity of the relevant beliefs. If official statements are cited in the media, the links to publications in their respective online versions are offered. Given that a significant portion of the article is devoted to OSINT in social media, there are links to original social media posts that were later covered in the press. Certain materials that have already been deleted from the origin sources are provided with links to relevant copies in open archives of Internet resources. The article also contains materials from official state websites regarding the statements that were distributed through them rather than through official social media pages.

The methods of collecting information from different source categories vary significantly, but almost all of them can be falsified. In general, open sources can be divided into two types: authenticated open sources, which have a reliable intelligence chain of custody, and unauthenticated open sources, for which the chain of custody remains unverified or unestablished. The following empirical sections focus on examples of disinformation operations that have been, or could be, carried out for each respective source category.

AUTHENTICATED SOURCES

There is reason to believe that intervention in the official registers and archives of many states by their special services has long been a widespread practice. This is especially widely used when preparing a legend for intelligence agents, who are given false passports and biographies, while appropriate changes are made to the archival documents of educational institutions and enterprises, up to graduation albums and even “halls of fame.” The exception is a leakage from databases of the state organizations, banking sector, and large companies published on the dark web forums. For example, with little effort, one can find, through the dark web, the database of the State Tax Service of Ukraine for 2006, which contains the names, dates of birth, and addresses of the vast majority of Ukrainian citizens and foreigners who received a Ukrainian tax number before that year, not excluding intelligence officers who were registered at the addresses of departmental dormitories during and after their studies. Such archives contain valuable historical data, primarily reliable identification information on suspected agents, even if classified or distorted later on. An example of the successful use of such materials is a series of journalistic investigations published by bellingcat, which revealed the real names and biographies of many Russian intelligence officers.¹⁹ As for Internet services that provide access to personal data or search by biometrics, they can be secretly controlled by special services, thus supplying no information on covert agents and instantly informing their curators about such requests. Consequently, recourse to these services may carry unacceptable risks for investigations against hostile states.

Materials from the press, radio and television, and news websites are the most heterogeneous category of information sources for OSINT. For example, Russian state media, figuratively speaking, represent part of the armed forces of the Russian Federation.²⁰ But the situation is complicated by what is known about entire journalistic platforms in Europe (e.g., Bonanza Media in the Netherlands) and Africa created or developed with the covert assistance of Russian intelligence agencies to conduct propaganda.²¹ Meanwhile, real European citizens can be involved in such media projects, confident that they are conducting objective journalistic investigations supported by “crowdfunding.” Bonanza Media’s “documentaries” feature interviews with “eyewitnesses” to the 2014 downing of flight MH17 by some Ukrainian fighter jets and with a “cyber security expert” from Malaysia who claims that the audio recordings of some intercepted phone calls from pro-Russian separatists appearing in the criminal case are forged.²² Such evidence is then used for recursive internal propaganda in the Russian Federation, wherein it is even more convincing for its citizens if backed by some foreign and often adversarial sources.²³ However, it also affects European independent researchers. Thus, for example, the Dutch take third place, after English speakers and Russian speakers, among Twitter users supporting conspiracy versions of the downing of the MH17.²⁴ Remarkably, according to the same 2018 study, the groups of supporters and opponents of the official version of the investigation are almost equal in number. The fact that they are real users (and do not belong to “bot farms”), partly from the expert environment, indicates, in this particular case, the effectiveness of Russian propaganda through the press and social media.

Open-source research is a traditional tool for scientific and technological intelligence. Periodicals, patent databases, specialized international exhibitions, open presentations, and the marketing materials of leading companies are all carefully studied to extract information about real progress in the development of the state’s defense potential. No surprise, then, that it was this area where the most famous examples of reflexive control of the twentieth century arose, namely: the Strategic Defense Initiative in the United States and military parades in Moscow with mock-ups of intercontinental ballistic missiles, which were never deployed.²⁵ Therefore, the classic problems of scientific and technical intelligence, which can be described as a “lack of information about the development does not mean that it does not exist” and “information about the impossibility of development is not always reliable,” have been replenished with another one—namely, that “information about the existing development also does not guarantee that it exists.”²⁶ In 2015, during a broadcast on the Russian state Channel One, a description of some Russian unmanned underwater vehicle equipped with a nuclear power plant called “Status-6” (later known as 2M39 “Poseidon,” North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] reporting name—Kanyon), allegedly accidentally flashed briefly onscreen.²⁷ Its technical report indicated some specific deadlines for deploying the underwater complex, ostensibly capable of inflicting “guaranteed insufferable damage to the territory of a country.” According to most experts, this leak was deliberate to force the United States to reconsider their plans to supply Europe with missile defense.²⁸ In 2018, the Poseidon system was openly presented during Vladimir Putin’s annual address to the Federal Assembly, alongside other recent developments of the Russian military–industrial complex, which had either been stuck at the stage of testing, like the “Burevestnik” intercontinental cruise missile (NATO reporting name—SSC-X- 9 Skyfall), or had been produced in minimal quantities, like the “Avangard” missile system, meaning they could not change the global balance of power. Notably, the Russian Defense Ministry willingly invited U.S. inspectors to evaluate this promising missile system in Udmurtia, in 2015, although, according to the “New START” treaty,²⁹ any verification can be carried out by national technical means alone.³⁰ Being rather superficial, these information operations, aimed rather at a wide range of experts and the civilian population than at the IC, led to the maintenance of a sustainable image of the “second army of the world” until 2022. This impression still plays into the hands of the Russian Federation, making the European public reluctant to confront it and ready to exercise pressure on their governments to avoid any frightening escalation (e.g., caused by expanding support of European states to Ukraine).³¹

The U.S. decision to disseminate intelligence directly among the Ukrainian government and media during the onset of the Russian invasion in 2022 turned classified sources into valuable open sources. The intentional declassification and sharing of this intelligence were meant not only to inform but also to deter. American officials indicated possible Russian plans to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, a statement later reiterated by Joseph Biden. Nevertheless, in April 2022, three officials clarified that there was no evidence of Russia positioning such weapons near Ukraine, asserting the intel’s release was rather meant to dissuade Russian use. Claims were also made of Russia seeking military assistance from China, but these lacked substantial evidence according to U.S. and European officials. Again, the allegations were purportedly made to deter China from supporting Russia.³²

UNAUTHENTICATED SOURCES

Online maps, directories of phone numbers (both online and offline), and other resources that include the functionality of updating by ordinary users hold huge potential for OSINT and a significant risk of being used for disinformation purposes. In response to ongoing speculation that the Russian Armed Forces might be utilizing Google and Apple’s geoservices to identify targets within civilian infrastructure and eventually guide missiles, both companies temporarily suspended certain features for Ukraine in spring 2022. These features included displaying traffic congestion in real time, specifying the occupancy level in establishments, and the option of adding new geotags.³³ Popular phone number tagging apps like “GetContact” also have no safeguards against the deliberate spoofing that facilitates the planning of information operations. Moreover, due to the ease of interference, such directories and online maps are often deliberately filled with false information intended for pranks, let alone unintentional errors, which makes risks in the context of reflexive control highly unpredictable.

Forums, blogs, and other websites are the largest category of OSINT content sources. It is difficult even to list all the risks to which an analyst is exposed because of an indiscriminate approach to searching the Internet. Generally, these include outdated information, inaccurate information, misinformation posted by agents–administrators of the resource, misinformation posted without authorization through hacking the resource, software that informs the developer of interest in a particular topic and reveals the source of interest (“canary tokens”), and materials with embedded malware.

Even though the other half of these scenarios, which are directly related to reflexive control, are uncommon, they still pose a significant threat. The websites of government agencies in both countries have been regularly hacked throughout the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, sometimes under false flags. One such incident occurred on 14 January 2022, when the website of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine was hacked,³⁴ and then an announcement with some threats based on historical issues of a highly sensitive nature for the Poles and aimed at inciting ethnic hatred was posted on it.³⁵ Being posted in three languages—Ukrainian, Russian and Polish—the content of the text and metadata of the image were supposed to hint at the Polish origin of the advanced persistent threat.³⁶ The links that the text urged to click likely contained malware. Given the combination of accompanying historical circumstances, it is difficult to call this a convincing attempt at reflexive control. Nonetheless, it proves that unauthorized interference with the operation of web resources can have more complex goals than typical sabotage or reconnaissance.

However, the biggest “battles” over modification of static web content unfold in the public Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, which has gained a reputation as a universal source of information. For example, due to the appearance of a new account of the MH-17 incident suggesting the flight was downed by a Ukrainian Air Force SU-25 fighter, in 2014 a “war of edits” began on the page of the encyclopedia about the role of the fighter jet. The characteristics of the fighter, including a practical ceiling of 7,000 meters, meant it could not even theoretically shoot down a civilian airliner at an altitude of over 10,000 meters. Thus, it was this feature that Russian-speaking users sought to replace with higher values based on data, gleaned from the technical literature, on the modification of SU-25T (with an airtight cockpit), although the Ukrainian Air Forces were not armed with these. A certain Wikipedia user even noticed that the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses from which these edits originated belonged to the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.³⁷ A journalistic project revealed 6,909 edits to Wikipedia made from the IP addresses of Russian government agencies during 2003 and 2014,³⁸ and a 2022 study found that 86 Wikipedia editors had been banned for biased edits to articles related to Russia.³⁹

In the classification of Lepskiy,⁴⁰ these information operations refer to simple reflexive control of the second rank: party A, knowing that party B has a unit that deals with OSINT, falsifies those materials in open sources such that party B’s specialists form a false impression about the actions of party A. The following example illustrates the double reflexive control of the second rank. On 25 September 2019, unidentified attackers hacked the Lviv municipal community’s website Ratusha, which features local news.⁴¹ Then they posted there the news that during the international military exercises “Rapid Trident-2019” (in the Lviv region), a serviceman from Poland shot a Ukrainian soldier. The news was accompanied by a screenshot of an allegedly relevant message from the regional website of the Ukrainian National Police. A few hours later, this fake news was consistently refuted, first by Ratusha, whose editors reported that a hacker attack had been made on the site, then by the police, whose communication department denied it had provided this news item or made it available on its website. Later it turned out that the photography in question was taken in 2018 at the scene of a murder in Odessa. However, by the time of debunking, several national Ukrainian media, as well as a large number of Russian ones, had spread the fake news. Experts dismissed this episode as an attempt to discredit the Rapid Trident-2019 exercises in the Ukrainian and Russian public, as well as to undermine the efforts of Ukrainian and Polish diplomats to resolve complicated issues of interethnic relations.⁴² Such simple reflexive control of the second rank is depicted in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Scheme of reflexive control operation to spread disinformation on behalf of the news website Ratusha.

Reflexive control is exercised in two stages: first, the mastermind behind the operation influences the Ukrainian and Russian media by hacking the “Ratusha” website, and they, in turn, influence the general public.

Yet the most prominent and dynamic category of information sources for OSINT is social media—the main location for user-generated content. The intelligence discipline in this field has become so specific that it has received its own name—SOCMINT. A cultural phenomenon that implies a constant desire for self-presentation leads criminals to publish photos with their accomplices and stolen items, impels dishonest officials and their relatives to flaunt their wealth, prompts the military to reveal their positions and weapons, and so on. Social media and the associated basic level of publicity form such an essential part of modern culture that avoiding the creation of any public account is no longer advisable because its absence would seem suspicious. To provide necessary anonymity there is a practice of creating fake identities from scratch or stealing the identity of another individual. However, particularly interesting is falsification or publication of specially selected open data to manipulate the enemy, because it is quite difficult to verify the reliability of the source in social networks.

For example, Ruslan Leviev, a founder of the Conflict Intelligence Team (a group of Russian opposition bloggers who conduct open-source investigations into various circumstances of armed conflicts), has argued that PMC Wagner could have deliberately provoked the strike by the AFU at their base in Popasna city on 14 August 2022⁴³ in order to detect the positions of HIMARS rocket systems.⁴⁴ Almost six months had passed since the beginning of the full-scale aggression of the Russian Federation in 2022, so it was well known that both sides were actively using OSINT, including surveillance on the social networks of all possible participants in the hostilities. However, the photographs, which Russian war correspondent Sergei Sreda published on his Telegram channel on 9 August (five days before the shelling), provide not only enough information to determine the location of the PMC Wagner base, but even depict a sign with the name of the street, and a man remarkably similar to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is considered to be the founder and head of the military company.⁴⁵

On the same day, the publication was reposted to the GRAY ZONE Telegram channel, which, according to some researchers, is affiliated with PMC Wagner,⁴⁶ while Sergey Sreda works for the Federal News Agency, which some experts consider to be another part of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s media conglomerate.⁴⁷ The next day, on 15 August, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, Serhiy Gaidai, reported on the strike:

The AFU again successfully worked out attacking the enemy base, which had been pointed out by one of the representatives of the Russian media. This time it was yesterday in Popasna, where the Wagner’s base was smashed with a precise blow.⁴⁸

Ukrainian journalist Andriy Tsaplienko wrote the following: “Several Russian military propagandists report that they have not been able to establish contact with Yevgeny Prigozhin since the moment the AFU hit the Wagner headquarters in the occupied Popasna, Luhansk region.”⁴⁹ That is, the AFU and public figures reacted exactly as one would expect when a priority target was discovered. It is all the stranger that the correspondent, Sergei Sreda, allegedly guilty of a gross violation of the standards of his profession and the death of an unknown number of allied fighters, not to mention the threat to the life of his indirect leader, was not called to account and in the end retained his position in the Federal News Agency. On 6 September 2022, he was the first among Russian journalists to visit the village of Kodema in the Donetsk region, invaded by the Russian Armed Forces.⁵⁰ Therefore, there is reason to believe that the purpose of the operation was to draw the attention of the AFU to a certain object in Popasna, to track the activities for additional reconnaissance of the target and, thanks to this, or at the time of the shelling, to identify the positions of the Ukrainian HIMARS complexes.

Another remarkable example of an information–psychological operation of the Russian Federation was the fanning of mass hysteria about the so-called marking in Kyiv and other settlements in Ukraine during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. Several anonymous Telegram channels were created to offer Ukrainian citizens money for drawing signs at specified geopositions, putting up advertisements on poles or buildings in the streets, or shining a flashlight through the window at a certain time.⁵¹

The links to these channels were actively spread through patriotic Ukrainian resources, encouraging people to identify collaborators and eliminate the marks. Most likely, the calculation was that the population and law enforcement agencies would try to search out nonexistent voluntary “aimers” instead of focusing on real saboteurs, who did not need any marking, being equipped with modern means of communication and maps of the area. It should be noted that the goal was achieved and did indeed work for a time. Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the authorities of several cities, including Kyiv, officially appealed to citizens with a request to identify and immediately report any marked places, adding relevant photographs.⁵² Nevertheless, the following features of the channels’ content make it dubious that their creators actually planned to recruit such “aimers”:

1. the name of the channel (e.g., “Booms Claymore Air”) clarifies the ultimate goal of the tasks, which scares off potential performers;

2. mention is made of hand-to-hand handover of tools, which is a completely unjustified risk for alleged agents, the location of which is disclosed online; and

3. payment for the implementation of the task is offered in advance, making misappropriation of the payment without performing any work possible and risk-free, which in fact eliminates the target audience’s motivation to fulfill their obligations.

On 27 February 2022 (on the fourth day of the invasion), the advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine, Oleksiy Arestovich, gave a press briefing at which he stated that “marking” cannot be used to target military equipment or aircraft, and yet can be a reason for the spread of “spy mania.”⁵³

Being rather trivial, “throw-in” or “stuffing” information through social networks has gained popularity, spreading lightning fast both purposefully and naturally if the topic of the publication is resonant. The classic example is “air traffic controller Carlos,” who is the source of the fake account of the downing of MH17. For unknown reasons, Spanish citizen Jose Carlos Barrios Sanchez, as Radio Liberty found out in their investigation, had been writing a personal blog on Twitter since 2012, where he pretended to be an air traffic controller at the Kyiv Boryspil airport.⁵⁴ In 2014, he began to publish his account of the events allegedly witnessed while on duty, putting them in the context of the Russian narrative about Ukraine. On 17 July, the day of the accident, he tweeted that before the Boeing 777 disappeared from the radar, there had been two Ukrainian fighter jets next to it. It was this report that many Russian news agencies,⁵⁵ officials, and even Vladimir Putin,⁵⁶ as well as some independent researchers, referred to as an eyewitness account in the initial attempts to investigate the causes of the crash. It turned later out that the version of the Ukrainian Air Force involvement was untenable, Carlos must have never worked as an air traffic controller, and on top of everything, he had been repeatedly prosecuted for fraud by law enforcement agencies in Europe. In 2017, Carlos made a sensational confession on Radio Liberty about having published fake messages on Twitter at the behest of the Russian state broadcaster RT, for which he had been paid a total of $48,000. While it was not possible to confirm this statement, it has been revealed that, two months before the MH-17 crash, the Spanish branch of RT interviewed him as a Kyiv air traffic controller of Spanish origin. This precedent shows that the Russian special services and allied government agencies can perform multistage information and psychological operations, although this usually implies a long-term and fundamental preparation of the core resources that precedes the crucial stage of their application. In the mentioned case, when the second phase of the operation was launched, Carlos’ blog had already had several thousand subscribers, and his title had been confirmed by the television and radio interviews in several countries.

Conducting OSINT research related to the dark web and crypto-transactions presents a significant challenge compared to other categories of information sources.⁵⁷ This is a consequence of the fact that these technologies were originally designed for maximum secrecy and anonymity. For the same reasons, there are practically no popular social networks on the dark web, and most of the resources are aimed at selling certain goods or services. This means that practically no “random” materials appear there, while experienced users are well aware that even a minimum of published information can be carefully investigated by law enforcement agencies. Moreover, the simplest and relatively safe “business” for the dark web is ordinary fraud. Due to the specifics of the goods offered, victims are unlikely to seek legal assistance in case of loss of prepayment, which makes fraud the most rational and attractive illegal craft.⁵⁸ Therefore, if the task consists of exploring markets or offers during open-data research on the dark web, while lacking reliable information about the reality of specific transactions, one should bear in mind that the vast majority of “sellers” do not have the declared goods or the ability to provide the services they offer.⁵⁹ That is, a significant part of the information on the dark web, even presented in the form of “white” and “black” lists of resources, contains disinformation. However, there are other examples of reflexive control through publishing falsehoods on the dark web in order to discredit the individuals to whom certain illegal economic activities have been attributed. Thus, officials in a number of European countries have noted that Russia is conducting an information campaign against Ukraine, accusing it of insufficient control over the circulation of weapons received from allies in 2022.⁶⁰ In the course of monitoring Russian Telegram channels, experts of the Ukrainian Center for Security Studies “CENSS” discovered examples of fake advertisements for the sale of weapons through dark web marketplaces, wherein the Ukrainian origin of retailers was artificially emphasized.⁶¹

In April 2019, Russian state-run media began frequently quoting the anonymous Telegram channel “Confession of an FBK employee,” FBK being the Anti-Corruption Foundation led by the Russian oppositionist Alexei Navalny.⁶² Using the open blockchain of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency, the authors of the channel found overlaps between the dates of large transfers to FBK wallets for donations and the release of several well-known FBK investigative videos, while large withdrawals coincided in timing with Navalny’s vacations, known to be spent with his family abroad.⁶³ Thus, they conclude that FBK receives payment for the publication of compromising materials about certain individuals or for corresponding investigations, and the head of the fund spends cryptocurrency for personal needs. Using open data, it is not possible to ultimately prove or disprove these statements; nevertheless, this correlation pattern does not hold if tracked over extended periods. That is, the use of cryptocurrency, where there is no information about the parties to the transaction and the purpose of the payment, opens a wide space for information speculation in certain scenarios.

The so-called showdown of reflexive control is here worth considering because it could exemplify more rare technologies of the same kind. Party A wants to influence party C, causing it to distrust party B. Knowing that party B is carrying out intelligence activities, party A falsifies compromising material about itself and places it in such a way as to ensure it is discovered by party B’s specialists. After party B publishes these materials, party A publicly discredits party B in the eyes of party C, demonstrating the unreliability of the published materials. In such a scenario, party A does not incur any reputational losses, even if their involvement in this fabrication is revealed. In 2017, Ukrainian political blogger Anatoly Shariy, who is accused by the Security Service of Ukraine of treason and of working for the Russian special services,⁶⁴ organized a provocation against journalists from the Fifth channel, owned at that time by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. One of the covert blogger’s supporters reported on Facebook that he had exclusive compromising information about Shariy. When journalists showed an interest, the user sent them a series of photos and videos prepared in advance. After the journalists had demonstrated, on air on the television channel, the received materials about Shariy’s fraud and the money obtained for pro-Russian propaganda, the same blogger released the full versions of the videos, clarifying that they had been staged. In the next episode of the television program, the Fifth channel journalist was forced to admit that he had become a victim of an information operation. Characteristically, some Russian media widely covered the incident, even suggesting that Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Yuriy Stets, who was believed to oversee the Fifth channel, resigned on the same day precisely because of this situation.⁶⁵ This example of second rank double reflexive control is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Scheme of reflexive control operation to provoke the fifth channel into showing fake material.

Reflexive control is exercised in two stages: first, Anatoly Shariy influences the journalists of the Fifth channel, then he exposures his own provocation in his YouTube channel, and through the channel and Russian media influences the general public.

However, information operations of this kind are much less common than ordinary fakes because, in practice, they require lengthy preparation, limited opportunities to double-check the materials by the object of the provocation, and a certain serendipity, or at least a good opportunity. In its complexity, this special operation is comparable to the transmission of “chickenfeed” through a double agent. Perhaps one of the most illustrative among known examples of a comprehensive approach to organizing such a provocation is the operation held by the First Chief Directorate of the State Committee for Security (KGB) of the USSR under the code name NECRO in 1986. According to materials from the declassified archives,⁶⁶ the ultimate target of reflexive control was Yaroslav Stetsko, the chairman of the overseas center of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, one of the then most powerful organizations fighting for the independence of Ukraine and pursued in the USSR as a terrorist organization. According to the chairman of the KGB of the UkrSSR Stepan Mukha’s memorandum, an obituary of Yaroslav Stetsko, who, although seriously ill, was still alive at that time, was broadcast through operational capabilities, on behalf of the Ukrainian editorial office of Radio Liberty. The obituary was republished by some foreign print media owned by Ukrainian nationalists. The organization began discussing vigorously the candidacies of Stetsko’s successor, which, according to the KGB, caused his severe nervous breakdown and, consequently, premature death. Thus, the third rank of reflexion was applied (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Scheme of reflexive control operation to cause Yaroslav Stetsko’s deep dismay at the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and loss of confidence in his recovery.

Reflexive control is exercised in three stages: first, KGB publishes the fake obituary on behalf of the Ukrainian editorial office of Radio Liberty, which affects foreign print media of Ukrainian nationalists, secondly, publications affect the members of the Organization of Ukrainian nationalists, and thirdly, discussions in the organization’s environment affect Yaroslav Stetsko.

The rapid development of machine learning technologies and neural networks allows for the creation of increasingly advanced deep fakes. The sufficient level to deceive OSINT specialists has not been convincingly achieved so far. However, deep fakes are already being used for information operations. For example, on 24 June 2022, the mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffey, talked through a video call with the fake mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, for about half an hour.⁶⁷ Suspicions arose only after the “mayor” had begun asking obvious provocative questions that could ignite international tensions. Later, a recording of the conversation was published by Russian pranksters Vladimir Kuznetsov and Alexey Stolyarov (better known as Vovan and Lexus), whom UK officials had previously dubbed Russian state actors.⁶⁸

In March 2022, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine stated that they had been informed that Russia had been preparing a deep fake with Vladimir Zelensky’s image.⁶⁹ It was assumed that the video with the “President of Ukraine” declaring the necessity for capitulation would be published at the moment of greatest social tension in Ukraine. As shown above, a wide audience of ordinary users of social networks can provide a convenient transitional object for double reflexive control. Nowadays, one of the most common methods for creating fake news is borrowing a photo or video from an old publication, although this forgery is not difficult to detect using publicly available technologies (searching for similar images). Nevertheless, the widespread use of deep fakes, which could be massively shared by real users of social networks, may create serious challenges for OSINT in the near future.

DISCUSSION

Sometimes versions of a planned provocation can be easily dismissed because sound decisionmaking at the level of the military command or the state should never rely on one single data source. Thus, as for the shell that hit the headquarters of the private military group (PMC) Wagner in the town of Popasna, some researchers noted that the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) strike had been inflicted on the house situated next to the one depicted in the photographs. This testifies to the successful completion of additional reconnaissance by the AFU a few days after the photographs were published. Hence, assuming that the activities around the headquarters were staged, the PMC was supposed to put dozens of people, posing as military guards and other servicemen, awaiting Ukrainian intelligence and a strike, at mortal risk. There are also photographs by eyewitnesses, which show wounded militants being carried out from the place of impact after the strike,⁷⁰ which goes beyond reasonable staging. There is another possible explanation. Namely, the information operation was meant to provoke an attack on exactly the (empty) house shown in the photographs by Sergei Sreda, while they had not considered the GMLRS powerful enough to damage the real base located in the neighboring house. Nevertheless, this operation cannot be considered successful, because the PMC suffered at least image losses, and there was no evidence of the destruction of any HIMARS complex on that day. However, discovering undisputable proof for the success of special intelligence operations is rather problematic. It is due to the secrecy surrounding the process of making military–political decisions that it is sometimes almost impossible to establish conclusively whether an influence operation or other factors affected an adversary’s decision. The same problems occur in its more transparent areas (e.g., in competitive intelligence).⁷¹

The higher the rank of reflexion that investigators can comprehend, the more apt they are to overestimate an adversary’s guile, and, in an attempt to unravel a hidden agenda, the greater the tendency to perceive reflexive control where it is absent. For example, some military experts suggested on 14 February 2022 that the amount of open data on the movement of Russian troops to the borders of Ukraine signaling the preparation for an invasion was too large to be true.⁷² Alongside the interpretation that Russian military counterintelligence cannot cope with their tasks at all, they put forward two additional options. Either the Russian Federation did not plan to invade Ukraine, yet organized a large-scale bluff to put pressure on Western countries by threatening to intervene; or, should the unlikely intervention take place, the Russian troops would not advance in the directions wherein their concentration had been massively recorded and reported in social media. Nevertheless, immediately before the invasion, the Russian command still tried to spread disinformation about the end of the exercises and the return of their troops to places of permanent deployment.⁷³ The Ministry of Defense and the departmental television channel Zvezda showed photographs and videos of the transfer of military equipment back into Russia, which did not convince even independent OSINT specialists that preparation for invasion had stopped.⁷⁴ However, some Ukrainian officials and experts admit that the entry of Russian troops from the territory of Belarus in February 2022 surprised them. In their opinion, thanks to a coordinated disinformation campaign and ensuring operational security, the grouping of Russian troops in the northern direction of the invasion has achieved a twelvefold numerical superiority over the AFU.⁷⁵ The reasons aggression was expected only in the southeastern regions include the public goals of the Russian leadership (“protection of the people of Donbass),” statements by the leadership of Belarus about the impossibility of using its territory to attack Ukraine, the apparent concentration of Russian troops on satellite imagery, and other data from open sources.

Yet, as is the case with most of the current data on intelligence successes, we can rarely obtain definitive confirmation of the operations being planned or conducted. There is every reason to believe that in order to damage relations between Ukraine and the European Union, the Russian special services, directly or through pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, tried to create fake right-wing radical organizations, like the virtual far right party Ukrainian National Assembly (UNA copied the name of the real Ukrainian organization Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People’s Self-Defence [UNA-UNSO]). Its leader, Eduard Kovalenko, was engaged in provocations using Nazi symbols, making public statements of a xenophobic and anti-Semitic nature from 2004. For organizing protests against mobilization to the AFU in 2015, he was arrested by the Security Service of Ukraine and subsequently imprisoned, but in 2019, following the Russian–Ukrainian negotiations, he was exchanged for Ukrainian prisoners.⁷⁶ However, the influence of the pseudo-UNA was limited, while the connection between the pro-Russian “Party of Regions” and the largest Ukrainian right-wing party “Svoboda” proves to be quite dubious. Thus, a study of the “black accounting” of the “Party of Regions” showed that at least once, in 2010, a tranche of US$200,000 was transferred to their main opponents, the Svoboda party. It is also known that representatives of the Svoboda party often appeared on Ukrainian television channels controlled by pro-Russian politicians and were accused of lobbying for pro-Russian oligarchs’ interests.⁷⁷ In 2012, the European Parliament adopted a resolution expressing concern about the popularity of the Svoboda party in Ukraine and called on the democratic parties of the Ukrainian parliament not to interact with it.⁷⁸ Remarkably, the Svoboda party actually initiated the abolition of the law “On Language” on 23 February 2014, resulting in the lowering of the status of the Russian language. The fact that the new Ukrainian Parliament supported the decision (although in fact it was vetoed by the acting president of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov) was actively exploited by Russian propaganda, especially in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine. Several experts consider this initiative one key reason for the success of the subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014,⁷⁹ owning to the nonresistance of the government and most of the population against the Russian troops. However, it cannot be unambiguously classified as a large-scale influence operation based on the historical experience of the Soviet special services, such as operation “The Trust,” or the uncontrolled consequences of the political technologies used by the “Party of Regions” to polarize the electorate, thus mobilizing their supporters.

Overt claims of successful strategic deception themselves often prove to be excuses or cover-ups for certain harsh facts. For example, the liberation of the majority of the Kharkiv region begun on 30 August 2022, which has been one of the most successful military operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine so far,⁸⁰ seemed, at least superficially, to have come as a surprise to the Russian army. This might result from the fact that from April to 7 September 2022,⁸¹ many Ukrainian officials, the military, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky,⁸² and even some American officials, repeatedly stated that the AFU were launching a counteroffensive in the Kherson region.⁸³ However, on 12 September, the Cable News Network (CNN) called these statements a brilliant information operation that forced Russia to transfer part of its troops from the Kharkiv region to the south,⁸⁴ leading some researchers to explicitly label the statements an exercise in “reflexive control.”⁸⁵ The version of the “distracting maneuver” has become widespread in Ukraine, and has been repeatedly confirmed by officials.⁸⁶ Meanwhile, groupings of the AFU concentrated in the Kherson direction were not less numerous than those in the Kharkiv area, and counteroffensives were attempted in both locations. The speaker of the Defense Forces of the South of Ukraine, Natalya Gumenyuk, stated on 10 September that Russian troops in an unnamed area of the Kherson region retreated to backward positions.⁸⁷ The minister of defense of Ukraine, Oleksii Reznikov, in an interview with the New Yorker in October 2022, also confirmed that the AFU had planned a simultaneous counteroffensive in the south and east of the country for September.⁸⁸ It can be assumed that the lack of sustained success in the south prompted Ukrainian officials and their allies to conduct an information–psychological operation, which consisted in denying the real intention of a counteroffensive toward Kherson in September. Separately, it should be noted that the hypothesis of a Ukrainian distracting maneuver in the Kherson while preparing a real counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region had gained popularity in many Russian and Ukrainian open sources a few weeks before the AFU could secure their success.⁸⁹

Although the leaked documents of the U.S. Department of Defense revealed in April 2023 are not a reliable source of information, and some researchers consider them partially or completely falsified, journalists from Radio Liberty discovered within them a signals intelligence (SIGINT) report on a Russian information operation. The document claims that in February 2023 the Main Operational Directorate (GOU) of the Russian General Staff reported on “successful operation masking efforts” designed to convince Ukrainian intelligence of the possibility of a new offensive against Ukraine from the territory of Belarus. To prove its success, a representative of the GOU cited a report by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service on Ukraine’s reaction to the public coverage of the joint tactical flight exercises of the Russian and Belarusian military aviation units, which began on 16 January, and the transfer of division “Iskander-M” to Belarus, as well as to shifting the focus of Russian–Belarusian exercises from “defensive” to “offensive.” The AFU also allegedly considered the training in Belarus of those mobilized into the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division of the 1st Tank Army with the 6th Motorized Rifle Division of the 3rd Army Corps of the Russian Federation to be an attempt to covertly prepare combat-ready groups for rapid deployment in the Volyn axis to disrupt support from Western countries. As stated in the document of the U.S. Department of Defense, the Russian GOU recommended continuing the operation to misinform the Ukrainian command about the likelihood of an offensive from the territory of Belarus. Earlier, in March 2022, the General Staff of the AFU reported on “a great threat of an offensive from Belarus to Volyn”; on 21 February 2023, Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov said that he “does not believe” in a new attack on Ukraine from Belarusian territory, saying that the purpose of the joint Russian–Belarusian exercises is to “scare Ukraine.”⁹⁰ According to Reznikov and other Ukrainian officials, there were not enough Russian troops in Belarus at that moment for a new offensive, although there is still a need to keep a significant grouping of the AFU in the north of Ukraine to prevent such a scenario.

CONCLUSIONS

The Russian–Ukrainian conflict has demonstrated several qualitative changes in the use of OSINT, reflexive control, and disinformation compared to other political and military conflicts in recent years. One of the main differences lies in the scale and intensity of these activities, which have been amplified by the widespread use of social media. This has resulted in the use of disinformation campaigns targeted at specific audiences, including the use of fake accounts to overstate certain messages and to create the impression of broad public support.⁹¹ Additionally, both sides have used reflexive control to manipulate their adversary’s decisionmaking. Another key difference is the increased level of coordination between these activities. As a result, there is a growing need for greater awareness and comprehension of these tactics among governments, intelligence agencies, private organizations, researchers, media outlets, and the general public in order to counter their use and to prevent their escalation in future conflicts.

Having considered well-known examples of the alleged use of reflexive control through open sources in the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, we can conclude that most of the risks accompanying the realization of OSINT can be leveled if we responsibly approach the choice of sources and double-check the information. The effectiveness of Russian special services appears significantly hindered by bureaucracy and peculiarity of the authoritarian regime, wherein leaders are often only informed of what they want to hear; consequently, these services rarely achieve substantial success in the deception of foreign intelligence agencies or governments. At the same time, reflexive control poses a particular risk to countries with weaker intelligence capabilities, as well as to private researchers or organizations that may lack the resources to accurately identify and respond to such tactics. Therefore, it is crucial for these entities to understand the potential of deception via open sources and to devise strategies mitigating its impact. Should the possible methods of manipulation indicated in this article be considered during the investigation, it will not be easy to mislead the researcher for an extended period, even when using a single source of information. However, to make important political or military decisions, it is necessary to strive to obtain confirmation from HUMINT and SIGINT without relying solely on open data.⁹² This is consistent with the conclusions of other studies that indicate the need to advance regulations constantly for conducting OSINT in government and military structures, as well as for processing the data obtained in this way, to select and train appropriate personnel for working in this area of intelligence.⁹³

Most precedents described above show that the results achieved through reflexive control in open data against government institutions were rather tactical and did not last more than several days. Nevertheless, the methodology of the concept of reflexive control, which was formed by Soviet scientists, is still relevant and allows modeling of complex processes in hybrid conflicts, including information and psychological operations. Reflexive control models can be used not only to predict risks but also to plan countermeasures, including improving the efficiency of OSINT. The applied aspects of reflexive control have such significant potential that some experts perceive or wish to see reflexive control where it is not even attempted.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank Dr. Anatolii Melnychenko from National Technical University of Ukraine Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and Dr. Benjamin Martill and Dr. Vasileios Galanos from the University of Edinburgh, for useful discussions and feedback.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Illia Varzhanskyi

Illia Varzhanskyi is the Head of the Operational Security Strategies Laboratory at the World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development and a Serviceman in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. His research focuses on reflexive control theory, information and psychological operations, and open-source intelligence. He is a Ph.D. student at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as well as at the University of Edinburgh. The author can be contacted at [email protected].

Notes

1 Huw Dylan and Thomas J. Maguire, “Secret Intelligence and Public Diplomacy in the Ukraine War,” Survival, Vol. 64, No. 4 (2022), pp. 33–74. doi:10.1080/00396338.2022.2103257

2 Ganna Maliar (@ganna.maliar), Facebook post, 14 March 2022. https://www.facebook.com/ganna.maliar/posts/2109736632518701

3 Burgert Senekal and Eduan Kotzé, “Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) for Conflict Monitoring in Contemporary South Africa: Challenges and Opportunities in a Big Data Context,” African Security Review 28, No. 1 (2019), pp. 21–22. doi:10.1080/10246029.2019.1644357; Patrick Putman, “What Is Open Source Intelligence?,” United States CYBERSECURITY Magazine, https://www.uscybersecurity.net/open-source-intelligence/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

4 Corneliu Bjola, “Propaganda as Reflexive Control,” in Countering Online Propaganda and Extremism (1st ed.), edited by Corneliu Bjola and James Pamment (New York: Routledge, 2019), pp. 11–27. doi:10.4324/9781351264082-2

5 See, for example, Mikhail Ionov, “On the Methods of Influencing an Opponent’s Decisions,” Military Thought, No. 12 (1971); Mikhail Ionov, “On the Impact on the Enemy in Anti-Aircraft Combat,” Vestnik PVO, No. 1 (1979); Mikhail Ionov, “On Reflective Enemy Control in a Military Conflict,” Military Thought, No. 1 (1995); Druzhinin Valentin and Kontorov David, “Voprosi voennoi sistemotehniki,” Vojennoe Izdateltsvo (1976); Konstantin Tarakanov, Matematyka y vooruzhennaia borba (Moscow, 1974); Serhei Leonenko, “Refleksyvnoe upravlenye protyvnykom,” Armeiskyi sbornyk, No. 8 (1995); Nykolai Turko and Serhei Modestov, “Refleksyvnoe upravlenye razvytyem stratehycheskykh syl, kak mekhanyzm sovremennoi heopolytyky.” In Otchet o konferentsyy [Systems Analysis on the Threshold of the 21st Century: Theory and Practice] (1996); Serhei Komov, “Forms and Methods of Information Warfare: Military Theory and Practice,” Military Thought, No. 4 (1997); Felyks Chausov, “Osnovu refleksyvnoho upravlenyia protyvnykom,” Morskoi sbornyk, No. 1 (1999); Felyks Chausov, “Nekotorue podkhodu k sovershenstvovanyiu systemu upravlenyia voiskamy (sylamy) novoho oblyka,” Morskoi sbornyk, No. 3 (2011).

6 Michael Z. Zgurovsky and Yuriy P. Zaychenko, Introduction to Big Data: Conceptual Analysis and Applications (Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, 2020). doi:10.1007/978-3-030-14298-8

7 Emily M. Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, and Shmargaret Shmitchell, “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots” (Proceedings of the 2021 ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, March 2021). doi:10.1145/3442188.3445922

8 Vladimir Lefebvre, Conflicting Structures (Washington, DC: JPRS, 1974).

9 Vladimir Lepskiy, Technologies of Control in Information Wars (From Classical to Post-Nonclassical Rationality) (Moscow: Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2016).

10 Jonathan David Farley, “The Torturer’s Dilemma: The Math on Fire with Fire,” San Francisco Chronicle, 13 January 2012. https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/The-torturer-s-dilemma-the-math-on-fire-with-fire-2507085.php

11 Mahairas Aristedes and Mikhail Dvilyanski, “Disinformation—Дезинформация (Dezinformatsiya),” The Cyber Defense Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (2018), p. 21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26554993

12 ^‌Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. ЦК КПСС. Протоколы заседаний Политбюро ЦК РКП(б) – ВКП(б) (подлинники постановлений и материалы, стенограммы отдельных заседаний ПБ ЦК РКП(б) – ВКП(б) [Central Committee of the CPSU. Protocols of Meetings of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) – VKP(b) [Originals of Resolutions and Materials, Transcripts of Selected Meetings of the PB of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) – VKP(b) 1919–1952]. Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj arhiv social’no-politicheskoj istorii [Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History], delo [case] 312, p. 20.

13 Margarita Jaitner and Harry Kantola, “Applying Principles of Reflexive Control in Information and Cyber Operations,” Journal of Information Warfare, Vol. 15, No. 4 (2016), pp. 27–38. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26487549

14 The author’s personal knowledge of the language allows the following remarks: rank of reflexion refers to the Russian term “ранг рефлексии.” A more accurate translation into English would suggest “level of reflexion” or “degree of reflexion” (the best capacity to imitate an opponents’ thoughts or predict their behavior). However, in the English-language scientific literature on the Soviet theory of reflexive control, exactly this term was firmly trenched.

15 Dmitry Novikov and Alexander Chkhartishvili, Рефлексия и Управление: Математические Модели [Reflexion and Control: Mathematical Models] (Moscow: Издательство физико-математической литературы, 2013), pp. 194–195.

16 Shlomo Shpiro, “Blinding the Bear: Israeli Double Agents and Russian Intelligence,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 36, No. 1 (2022), pp. 1–19. doi:10.1080/08850607.2022.2108282

17 Aleksey Mints, Andrew Schumann, and Evelina Kamyshnykova, “Stakeholders’ Rank of Reflexion Diagnostics in a Corporate Social Responsibility System,” Economic Annals-ХХI, Vol. 181, No. 1–2 (2020), p. 97. doi:10.21003/ea.v181-08

18 “Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,” Office of the Director of National Intelligence, last modified 6 February 2023, https://www.odni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-2023-Unclassified-Report.pdf (accessed 13 April 2023).

19 Bellingcat Investigation Team, “The Brazilian Candidate: The Studious Cover Identity of an Alleged Russian Spy,” bellingcat, last modified 17 June 2022, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2022/06/16/the-brazilian-candidate-the-studious-cover-identity-of-an-alleged-russian-spy (accessed 8 December 2022); Moritz Rakuszitzky, “Second GRU Officer Indicted in Montenegro Coup Unmasked,” bellingcat, last modified 22 November 2018, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/11/22/second-gru-officer-indicted-montenegro-coup-unmasked (accessed 8 December 2022).

20 Interfax, “Shoigu: Information Becomes another Armed Forces Component,” Interfax, last modified 28 March 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20160520021300/https://interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=58185 (accessed 8 December 2022).

21 Bellingcat Investigation Team, “The GRU’s MH17 Disinformation Operations Part 1: The Bonanza Media Project,” bellingcat, last modified 12 November 2020, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/11/12/the-grus-mh17-disinformation-operations-part-1-the-bonanza-media-project/ (accessed 8 December 2022); Shelby Grossman, Daniel Bush, and Renee DiResta, “Evidence of Russia-Linked Influence Operations in Africa,” FSI, last modified 29 October 2019, https://fsi.stanford.edu/publication/evidence-russia-linked-influence-operations-africa (accessed 8 December 2022).

22 According to the “Bonanza Media” statements: JIT WITNESS: Two Fighter Jets Were Following MH17, YouTube (Bonanza Media, 2020), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE9dqAaxoes; MH17—Call for Justice, YouTube (Bonanza Media, 2019), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkDWwYk4-Ho

23 The Russian government is widely known to struggle actively against domestic opposition media, thus confining the main source of information that runs counter to the official narrative to foreign media. Meanwhile, certain information from the foreign media that is covertly controlled by Russian authorities is targeted at the Russian audience that mistrusts domestic sources. Nevertheless, the majority of the audience perceive the above publications in the Western press as reconfirming the trustworthiness of official sources.

24 Yevgeniy Golovchenko, Mareike Hartmann, and Rebecca Adler-Nissen, “State, Media and Civil Society in the Information Warfare over Ukraine: Citizen Curators of Digital Disinformation,” International Affairs, Vol. 94, No. 5 (2018), p. 984. doi:10.1093/ia/iiy148

25 Manuela Guill, “Strategic Defense Initiative: Defense against Ballistic Missiles or a Technique of Strategic Deception?” American Intelligence Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1989), pp. 10–17; Michael Mihalka, “Soviet Strategic Deception, 1955–1981,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 (1982), pp. 51–65. doi:10.1080/01402398208437102

26 Robert Clark, “Scientific and Technical Intelligence Analysis,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1975), pp. 3–5.

27 The “New START” treaty, signed 8 April 2010, by the United States and Russia, aimed at restricting the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 on each side, as well as limiting the overall amount of intercontinental (including submarine-launched) ballistic missiles, and strategic nuclear-capable bombers. The treaty also provided various verification and transparency measures to ensure compliance with the stipulated limits.

28 Bill Gertz, “CIA: Leak of Nuclear-Armed Drone Sub Was Intentional,” Washington Free Beacon, 18 November 2015, https://freebeacon.com/national-security/cia-leak-of-nuclear-armed-drone-sub-was-intentional (accessed 8 December 2022).

29 2015-11-10 21-00, YouTube (RussianArms YouTube channel, 2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FgPBGteLzU

30 Anton Mardasov, “‘Убийцу Американской ПРО’ Направят Под Иркутск” [“American Missile Defense Killer” Will be Sent Near Irkutsk], Свободная Пресса, last modified 23 September 2015, https://svpressa.ru/war21/article/132431/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

31 Dagmar Rosenfeld, “Olaf Scholz: Hat Putin Ihnen Jemals Mit Einer Ausweitung Des Krieges Gedroht, Herr Kanzler?” [Olaf Scholz: Has Putin Ever Threatened You with an Escalation of the War, Chancellor?], Die Welt, last modified 23 October2022, https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/plus241724711/Olaf-Scholz-Hat-Putin-Ihnen-jemals-mit-einer-Ausweitung-des-Krieges-gedroht-Herr-Kanzler.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

32 Ken Dilanian, Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, and Dan De Luce, “Bold, Effective and Risky: The New Strategy the U.S. Is Using in the Info War against Russia,” NBC News, last modified 6 April 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014 (accessed 4 June 2023).

33 ‌Kent Walker, “Helping Ukraine,” Google, last modified 4 March 2022, https://blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/helping-ukraine/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

34 “Attack on Government Websites: A New Section of Cyberwarfare against Ukraine,” Centre for Strategic Communication, last modified 14 January 2022, https://spravdi.gov.ua/en/attack-on-government-websites-a-new-section-of-cyberwarfare-against-ukraine/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

35 The territory of present-day western Ukraine changed its ownership many times. The last time it was included in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR) after the Red Army’s intervention in Poland in September 1939.

36 Yuri Zoria, “Ukraine under a Cyberattack with a Russian Trace,” Euromaidan Press, last modified 14 January 2022, https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/01/14/ukraine-under-massive-cyberattack-with-a-russian-trace/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

37 “Обсуждение:СУ-25” [Discussion:SU-25], Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, last modified 21 July 2014, https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9E%D0%B1%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B6%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5:%D0%A1%D1%83-25#%D0%9F%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3_%D1%81_%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%BC_%D1%85%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%82%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BA_%D0%A1%D0%A3-25 (accessed 8 December 2022).

38 Jari Bakken, “Anonymous Wikipedia Edits from the Russian Government,” last modified 2014, https://jarib.github.io/anon-history/RuGovEdits/ru/latest/index-en.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

39 “Is the Wikipedia Community under Threat?” Institute for Strategic Dialogue, last modified 26 October 2022, https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-in-the-news/is-the-wikipedia-community-under-threat/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

40 Lepskiy, Technologies of Control, p. 174.

41 “‘Недолюди Из Украины’. Как УкрСМИ Опять Повелись На Пропаганду Кремля. #Медиагигиена” [“Subhumans from Ukraine.” How Ukrainian Media Have Been Lured for the Propaganda of the Kremlin Again], LIGA, last modified 16 October 2019, https://www.liga.net/politics/articles/nedolyudi-iz-ukrainy-kak-ukrsmi-opyat-povelis-na-propagandu-kremlya-mediagigiena (accessed 8 December 2022).

42 Ukraine and Poland, as neighboring countries, have a centuries-old complicated history of relations, sometimes experiencing acute tensions. Therefore, on 24 September 2019, just before the day of the fake release, Ukrainian Ombudsman Lyudmila Denisova and her Polish counterpart Adam Bodnar signed the so-called anti-xenophobic covenant, meant to protect the rights of Ukrainian citizens in Poland and Poles in Ukraine.

43 Ruslan Leviev (@RuslanLeviev), tweet, 14 August 2022, https://twitter.com/RuslanLeviev/status/1558880955657584642

44 The High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) is one of the highest priority targets for Russian reconnaissance. For example, see: “Ukraine: What Are Himars Missiles and Are They Changing the War?” BBC News, August 30, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-62512681

45 GREY ZONE (@grey_zone), Telegram repost from Военкор Среда (@voenkors), 9 August 2022, https://t.me/grey_zone/14670

46 Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2), tweet, 14 September 2022, https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1570065679977439235

47 “Game of Trolls: The Hip Digi-Kids Helping Putin’s Fight for Online Supremacy,” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, last modified 18 August 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/trolls-putin-russia-savchuk (accessed 8 December 2022).

48 Luhansk regional state administration (@odalug), Facebook post, 15 August 2022, https://www.facebook.com/odalug/videos/1083399245930760/

49 Andriy Tsaplienko (@Tsaplienko), Telegram post, 14 August 2022, https://t.me/Tsaplienko/13392

50 Sergei Sreda, “Военный Корреспондент ФАН Показал, Как Выглядит Освобожденная Кодема” [FAN War Correspondent Showed What the Liberated Kodema Looks Like], Федеральное агентство новостей, last modified 6 September 2022, https://riafan.ru/23630612-voennii_korrespondent_fan_pokazal_kak_viglyadit_osvobozhdennaya_kodema (accessed 8 December 2022).

51 “Срочно! Жалуемся На Канал! Платят Деньги За Метки!” [Urgent! Complain about This Channel! They Pay Money for Marks!], sovet.kidstaff.com.ua, last modified 26 February 2022, https://sovet.kidstaff.com.ua/question-3108330 (accessed 8 December 2022).

52 “За нанесення міток для коригування вогню можна сісти на 15 років—КМДА” [You Can be Imprisoned for 15 Years for Placing Marks for Guiding Missiles—Kyiv City State Administration], Ukrainska Pravda, last modified 27 February 2022, https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/02/27/7326311 (accessed 8 December 2022).

53 “Сучасна військова техніка не здійснює наведення по мітках на стовбах і дахах—Арестович” [Modern Military Equipment Does Not Guide by Markings on Masts and Roofs—Arestovych], Ukrainska Pravda, last modified 27 February 2022, https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/02/27/7326441/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

54 Carl Schreck and Ana Poenariu, “Catch Carlos If You Can,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, last modified 14 March 2018, https://www.rferl.org/a/catch-carlos-if-you-can-mh17-russia-ukraine/29065244.html

55 Russia Today, “Испанский блогер о ситуации на Украине: Люди переполнены ненавистью” [Spanish Blogger about the Situation in Ukraine: People Are Filled with Hatred], RT на русском, last modified 9 May 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20140510193147/http://russian.rt.com/article/31215 (accessed 8 December 2022).

56 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), “Путин напомнил Стоуну об “испанском диспетчере,” говоря о катастрофе MH17” [Putin Reminded Stone of the “Spanish Air Traffic Controller” When Talking about the MH17 Crash], Радио Свобода, last modified 31 August 2017. https://www.svoboda.org/a/28708322.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

57 “Money Laundering with Digital Currencies: Working Group Established,” Europol, last modified 9 September 2016, https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/money-laundering-digital-currencies-working-group-established (accessed 8 December 2022).

58 Bo Ra Jung, Kyung-Shick Choi, and Claire Seungeun Lee, “Dynamics of Dark Web Financial Marketplaces: An Exploratory Study of Underground Fraud and Scam Business,” International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2022), pp. 6–18. doi:10.21428/cb6ab371.dbbe560f

59 Ibid., pp. 9–18.

60 Dmytro Shkurko, “Вся Інформація Від Росії Щодо “Контрабанди Зброї” з України є Масованою Пропагандою і Брехнею—Пітер Стано, Речник ЄС Із Питань Зовнішньої Та Безпекової Політики,” [All Information from Russia Regarding “Weapons Smuggling” from Ukraine Is Massive Propaganda and Lies—Peter Stano, EU Spokesman for Foreign and Security Policy], Ukrinform, last modified 14 July 2022, https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-world/3528669-piter-stano-recnik-es-iz-pitan-zovnisnoi-ta-bezpekovoi-politiki.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

61 “Аналітичний Огляд Результатів Моніторингу Російських Джерел Інформації Щодо Висвітлення Ними Окремих Питань Обігу Стрілецької Зброї Та Легкого Озброєння” [Analytical Review of the Results of the Monitoring of Coverage of Certain Issues of the Circulation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Russian Sources], Center for Security Studies “CENSS,” last modified 27 July 2022, https://censs.org/info-operations-rf-weapons-zsu/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

62 RT на русском (@rt_russian), Telegram repost from Исповедь сотрудника ФБК (@confessionfbk), 22 April 2019, https://t.me/rt_russian/14350 (accessed 8 December 2022).

63 RT на русском (@rt_russian), Telegram repost from Исповедь сотрудника ФБК (@confessionfbk), 24 April 2019, https://t.me/rt_russian/14378 (accessed 8 December 2022).

64 “СБУ Оголосила Про Підозру Відомому Проросійському Пропагандисту Шарію” [The SSU has Announced the Suspicion of the Well-Known Pro-Russian Propagandist Shariy], Security Service of Ukraine, last modified 16 February 2021, https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-oholosyla-pro-pidozru-vidomomu-prorosiiskomu-propahandystu-shariiu (accessed 8 December 2022).

65 Igor Karmazin, “‘Украинские Журналисты Упали Ниже Дна’ Как Блогер Анатолий Шарий Уволил Министра Информации Украины” [“Ukrainian Journalists have Fallen Below the Bottom”: How Blogger Anatoly Shariy Fired the Minister of Information of Ukraine], Lenta.RU, last modified 2 June 2017, https://lenta.ru/articles/2017/06/02/sharij/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

66 Oleksandr Skrypnyk, “Як КГБ СРСР Поховав Ще Живого Ярослава Стецька” [How the KGB of the USSR Buried Yaroslav Stetsk Still Alive], Історична правда, last modified 5 July 2021, https://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2021/07/5/159786/ (accessed 8 December 2022)

67 “Vitali Klitschko Fake Tricks Berlin Mayor,” Deutsche Welle, last modified 24 June 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/vitali-klitschko-fake-tricks-berlin-mayor-in-video-call/a-62257289 (accessed 8 December 2022).

68 Ben Wallace, “Video Released Showing Russian Hoax Call with UK Defence Secretary,” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, last modified 21 March 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/21/video-released-showing-russian-hoax-call-with-uk-defence-secretary (accessed 8 December 2022).

69 Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine (@DIUkraine), Telegram post, 3 March 2022, https://t.me/DIUkraine/27 (accessed 8 December 2022).

70 Mark Krutov (@kromark), tweet, 14 August 2022, https://twitter.com/kromark/status/1558884637224624128 (accessed 8 December 2022).

71 “2022 State of Competitive Intelligence Report,” CRAYON Inc., last modified 21 December 2022, https://www.crayon.co/state-of-competitive-intelligence (accessed 8 December 2022).

72 Rob Lee (@RALee85), tweet, 14 February 2022, https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1493153810725941249 (accessed 8 December 2022).

73 “Минобороны: Россия Начала Возвращать Войска с Учений в Места Дислокации” [Ministry of Defense: Russia Has begun to Return Troops from Exercises to Places of Deployment], BBC News Русская служба, BBC, last modified 15 February 2022), https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-60385611

74 Conflict Intelligence Team (@CITeam), Telegram post, 20 February 2022, https://t.me/CITeam/2297 (accessed 8 December 2022).

75 Mykhaylo Zabrodskyi, Jack Watling, Oleksandr Danylyuk, and Nick Reynolds, “Preliminary Lessons in Conventional Warfighting from Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, 30 November 2022, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/preliminary-lessons-conventional-warfighting-russias-invasion-ukraine-february-july-2022 (accessed 4 June 2022).

76 Taras Tarasiuk and Andreas Umland, “Unexpected Friendships: Cooperation of Ukrainian Ultra-Nationalists with Russian and Pro-Kremlin Actors,” The Illiberalism Studies Program, 29 September 2021, https://www.illiberalism.org/unexpected-friendships-cooperation-of-ukrainian-ultra-nationalists-with-russian-and-pro-kremlin-actors/ (accessed 4 June 2022).

77 Ibid.

78 “European Parliament Resolution of 13 December 2012 on the Situation in Ukraine 2012/2889(RSP),” European Parliament, 13 December 2012, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-7-2012-0507_EN.html

79 Brian Nichiporuk, Andrew Radin, Michael Kofman, Katya Migacheva, Olesya Tkacheva, and Jenny Oberholtzer, Lessons from Russia’s Operations in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (RAND Corporation, 2017), p. 20. doi:10.7249/RR1498

80 Kateryna Stepanenko, Grace Mappes, George Barros, Angela Howard, and Mason Clark, “Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, September 10,” Institute for the Study of War, last modified 10 September 2022, https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-10 (accessed 8 December 2022).

81 Slovo i Dilo, “ВСУ Планируют Идти в Контрнаступление На Херсон—Ким” [AFU Plan to Launch a Counteroffensive on Kherson—Kim], Слово и Дело, last modified 27 April 2022, https://ru.slovoidilo.ua/2022/04/27/novost/bezopasnost/vsu-planiruyut-idti-kontrnastuplenie-xerson-kim (accessed December 8, 2022).

82 Україні Потрібна Сучасна Протиракетна Зброя. Звернення Президента 14.06.2022 [Ukraine Needs Modern Anti-Missile Weapons. Address of the President 06/14/2022], YouTube, Office of the President of Ukraine, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHHNmg3i-n8 (accessed 8 December 2022).

83 Jim Sciutto and Tim Lister, “Ukrainian Forces Aim to Retake Kherson by Year’s End as Gains Made in South, US and Ukrainian Officials Say,” CNN, last modified 7 September 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/07/politics/ukraine-russia-war-kherson/index.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

84 Tim Lister and Darya Tarasova, “Russia’s Collapse in Northeast Ukraine Ignites Fury from Putin Loyalists,” CNN, last modified 12 September 2022, https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/11/europe/ukraine-russia-eastern-front/index.html (accessed 8 December 2022).

85 Benjamin Jensen, “Ukraine’s Rapid Advance against Russia Shows Mastery of 3 Essential Skills for Success in Modern Warfare,” The Conversation, last modified 16 September 2022, https://theconversation.com/ukraines-rapid-advance-against-russia-shows-mastery-of-3-essential-skills-for-success-in-modern-warfare-190704 (accessed 4 June 2023).

86 General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (@GeneralStaff.ua), Facebook post, 7 March 2023, https://www.facebook.com/GeneralStaff.ua/posts/544055641240852

87 “ЗСУ Впевнено Просуваються На Півдні” [In the South, the AFU Advanced Several Tens of Kilometers in Some Areas—Humenyuk], Suspilne Media, last modified 10 September 2022, https://suspilne.media/280378-na-pivdni-zsu-na-deakih-dilankah-prosunulis-na-dekilka-desatkiv-kilometriv-gumenuk/ (accessed 8 December 2022).

88 Joshua Yaffa, “Inside the U.S. Effort to ARM Ukraine,” New Yorker, last modified 17 October 2022, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/24/inside-the-us-effort-to-arm-ukraine (accessed 8 December 2022).

89 Readovka (@readovkanews), Telegram post, 30 August 2022, https://t.me/readovkanews/40992 (accessed 8 December 2022); ЗеРада (@ZeRada1), Telegram post, 29 August 2022, https://t.me/ZeRada1/9970 (accessed 8 December 2022).

90 Mark Krutov, “Слухи о новом наступлении на Киев были дезинформацией Генштаба ВС РФ” [Rumors about a New Attack on Kyiv were Disinformation of the Russian General Staff], Радио Свобода, last modified 25 April 2023, https://www.svoboda.org/a/sluhi-o-novom-nastuplenii-na-kiev-byli-dezinformatsiey-genshtaba-vs-rf/32378541.html (accessed 4 June 2023).

91 Dominique Geissler, Dominik Bär, Nicolas Pröllochs, and Stefan Feuerriege, “Russian Propaganda on Social Media during the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine.” Preprint, submitted 2022. arXiv, doi:10.48550/arXiv.2211.04154.

92 Gašper Hribar, Iztok Podbregar, and Teodora Ivanuša, “OSINT: A ‘Grey Zone’?,” International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2014), p. 545. doi:10.1080/08850607.2014.900295

93 Peter C. Gruters and Katherine T. Gruters, “Publicly Available Information: Modernizing Defense Open Source Intelligence,” Special Operations Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1 (2018), pp. 97–102. doi:10.1080/23296151.2018.1457895