Russia and the Ukraine crisis, 2013–23

Abstract

Narratives provide the storylines of conflict and in doing so become an arena of conflict themselves. When states mount information campaigns against each other, they are trying to change the narrative. The digital platforms of the new information environment have been identified by various analysts as a significant factor in contemporary strategy and crisis management. But while social media is noisier and more chaotic than traditional media, and unprecedented in its immediacy and accessibility, has it thus far been a game changer in strategic affairs?

In this Adelphi book, Sir Lawrence Freedman and Heather Williams examine the impact of state-led digital information - or disinformation - campaigns in four contexts: the India-Pakistan crisis over Kashmir in 2019; the heightened tensions between the United States and Iran following the assassination of Qasem Soleimani in 2020; China's messaging in response to the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020–22; and the Russia-Ukraine crisis from 2013–23. While noting the meaningful consequences of digital information campaigns, in each case the authors call for a sense of perspective. Such campaigns are only one aspect of wider political struggles. They are also difficult for their initiators to control, and less likely to influence foreign audiences than domestic ones. Overall, the authors argue, there is little evidence so far to suggest such campaigns will have as much influence over contemporary crises as the classical instruments of military and economic power.

Notes

1 Luke Harding, ‘Zelenskiy Open to China’s Peace Plan but Rejects Compromise with “Sick” Putin’, Guardian, 25 February 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/24/zelenskiy-open-to-chinas-peace-plan-but-rejects-compromise-with-sick-putin.

2 Jessica Brandt, ‘How Autocrats Manipulate Online Information: Putin’s and Xi’s Playbooks’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 44, no. 3, 22 September 2021, pp. 127–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/0163660X.2021.1970902.

3 Guy Schleffer and Benjamin Miller, ‘The Political Effects of Social Media Platforms on Different Regime Types’, Texas National Security Review, vol. 4, no. 3, Summer 2021, p. 86.

4 Olga Onuch, ‘EuroMaidan Protests in Ukraine: Social Media Versus Social Networks’, Problems of Post-Communism, vol. 62, no. 4, 15 June 2015, pp. 217–35, https://doi.org/10.1080/10758216.2015.1037676. See also Miriam Matthews et al., ‘Understanding and Defending Against Russia’s Malign and Subversive Information Efforts in Europe’, RAND Corporation, 2021, https://doi.org/10.7249/rr3160.

5 ‘Ukraine: Negotiating the News’, Human Rights Watch, March 2003, https://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/ukraine0303/Ukraine0303-01.htm.

6 ‘Leonid Kuchma: Gongadze Murder Case Dropped in Ukraine’, BBC News, 14 December 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-16176644.

7 Martin McKee, ‘The Poisoning of Victor Yushchenko’, Lancet, vol. 374, no. 9696, 5 August 2009, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61027-8.

8 Brendan Koerner, ‘How to Rig a Ukrainian Election’, Slate, 9 December 2004, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/12/how-to-rig-a-ukrainian-election.html.

9 Steven Lee Myers, ‘Ukrainian Court Orders New Vote for Presidency, Citing Fraud’, New York Times, 4 December 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/04/world/europe/ukrainian-court-orders-new-vote-for-presidency-citing-fraud.html.

10 Pavel Polityuk and Richard Balmforth, ‘Opposition Demand Recounts in “Stolen” Ukraine Election’, Reuters, 5 November 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-election-protest/opposition-demand-recounts-in-stolen-ukraine-election-idUSBRE8A40PO20121105.

11 ‘Ukraine Protests After Yanukovych EU Deal Rejection’, BBC News, 3 November 2013, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25162563.

12 Lawrence Freedman, ‘Attrition Before Breakthrough’, Comment Is Freed, 8 July 2023, https://samf.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/133683172?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts.

13 P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking, Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), p. 205.

14 Molly McKew, Evidence presented to ‘The Scourge of Russian Disinformation: Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’, 115th Congress, First Session, 14 September 2017, p. 8.

15 McKew, Evidence presented to ‘The Scourge of Russian Disinformation’; James Pamment, ‘The EU’s Role in Fighting Disinformation: Taking Back the Initiative’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2020; and Cerwyn Moore, ‘Russia and Disinformation: The Case of Ukraine’, Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, 2019.

16 Brad Roberts, ‘On Theories of Victory, Red and Blue’, Lawrence Livermore Papers on Global Security no. 7, June 2020, https://cgsr.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/CGSR-LivermorePaper7.pdf.

17 As quoted in Brian Gruber, ‘What Ukraine Wants (Part One)’, Medium, 27 February 2022. The original post was at 8pm on 21 November 2013.

18 Serhii Plokhii, ‘Goodbye Lenin: A Memory Shift in Revolutionary Ukraine’, Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University, no date, https://gis.huri.harvard.edu/leninfall.

19 Ulises A. Mejias and Nikolai E. Vokuev, ‘Disinformation and the Media: The Case of Russia and Ukraine’, Media, Culture and Society, vol. 39, no. 7, October 2017, p. 1035, https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443716686672.

20 Shaun Walker and Oksana Grytsenko, ‘Text Messages Warn Ukraine Protesters They Are “Participants in Mass Riot”’, Guardian, 21 January 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/21/ukraine-unrest-text-messages-protesters-mass-riot.

21 Ellen Nakashima, ‘Inside a Russian Disinformation Campaign in Ukraine in 2014’, Washington Post, 25 December 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/inside-a-russian-disinformation-campaign-in-ukraine-in-2014/2017/12/25/f55b0408-e71d-11e7-ab50-621fe0588340_story.html.

22 Bruce Etling, ‘Russia, Ukraine, and the West: Social Media Sentiment in the Euromaidan Protests’, Internet Monitor, September 2014, http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13031958.

23 Lawrence Freedman, Ukraine and the Art of Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), p. 81.

24 Cory Welt, ‘Ukraine: Background, Conflict with Russia, and U.S. Policy (R45008)’, Congressional Research Service, 19 September 2019.

25 Ibid.

26 For more background, see Freedman, Ukraine and the Art of Strategy.

27 Moore, ‘Russia and Disinformation: The Case of Ukraine’, p. 5.

28 Lennart Maschmeyer, ‘Digital Disinformation: Evidence from Ukraine’, CSS Analyses in Security Policy, vol. 278, February 2021, p. 3.

29 Irina Khaldarova and Mervi Pantti, ‘Fake News: The Narrative Battle over the Ukrainian Conflict’, Journalism Practice, vol. 10, no. 7, 2016, pp. 891–901.

30 Mark Galeotti, ‘Controlling Chaos: How Russia Manages in Its Political War in Europe’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 1 September 2017, https://ecfr.eu/publication/controlling_chaos_how_russia_manages_its_political_war_in_europe/.

31 US Department of State, ‘GEC Special Report: Russia’s Pillars of Disinformation and Propaganda’, August 2020, https://www.state.gov/russias-pillars-of-disinformation-and-propaganda-report/.

32 Todd C. Helmus et al., ‘Russian Social Media Influence: Understanding Russian Propaganda in Eastern Europe’, RAND Corporation, 2018, p. x, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2237.html.

33 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, September 2018, p. 976, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiy148.

34 Catherine Dill et al., ‘MH17 Anniversary’, Arms Control Wonk, 15 July 2016, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1201635/mh17-anniversary/. According to the authors, ‘Lieutenant-General A.V. Kartapolov, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, gave a briefing that purportedly implicated Ukrainian military forces in the shoot-down’. The briefing can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_KNS1nyNk.

35 Eliot Higgins, ‘MH17 – The Open Source Evidence’, Bellingcat, 8 October 2015, https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2015/10/08/mh17-the-open-source-evidence/comment-page-2/; and Bellingcat, ‘MH17 – The Open Source Investigation, Three Years Later’, 17 July 2017, https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/mh17-3rd-anniversary-report.pdf.

36 Singer and Brooking, Like War: The Weaponization of Social Media, p. 109.

37 Moore, ‘Russia and Disinformation: The Case of Ukraine’, p. 7.

38 Peter Pomerantsev, ‘Russia and the Menace of Unreality’, Atlantic, 9 September 2014, pp. 1–23.

39 Alec Luhn, ‘MH17: Vast Majority of Russians Believe Ukraine Downed Plane, Poll Finds’, Guardian, 30 July 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/mh17-vast-majority-russians-believe-ukraine-downed-plane-poll. See also ‘Opinions on the Responsible Party for Shooting Down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in the Netherlands in 2018’, Statista, https://www.statista.com/statistics/869526/opinions-on-responsible-party-for-shooting-down-mh17-in-the-netherlands/.

40 See Matthew Luxmore, ‘Ahead of MH17 Trial, Russians Appear Skeptical but Open to Its Findings’, Radio Free Europe, 8 March 2020, https://www.rferl.org/a/ahead-of-mh17-trial-russians-appear-skeptical-but-open-to-its-findings/30475886.html.

41 Anna Arutunyan, ‘How the Kremlin Stumbled on Nationalism’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 5 August 2015, https://ecfr.eu/article/commentary_how_the_kremlin_stumbled_on_nationalism3094/.

42 President of Russia, ‘Article by Vladimir Putin “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”’, 12 July 2021, http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181.

43 Glenn Kessler, ‘Fact-checking Putin’s Speech on Ukraine’, Washington Post, 23 February 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/02/23/fact-checking-putins-speech-ukraine/.

44 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, ‘Agreement on Measures to Ensure the Security of the Russian Federation and Member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’, 17 December 2021, https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/rso/nato/1790803/?lang=en.

45 Khaldarova and Pantti, ‘Fake News: The Narrative Battle over the Ukrainian Conflict’.

46 See Stepan Bulbenko, ‘Banderovskie fashisty zakhvatyvaiut Ukrainu i beznadezhnyi tsutsvang Yanukovicha’ Бандеровские фашисты захватывают Украину и безнадежный цуцванг Януковича [Banderite fascists capture Ukraine and Yanukovych’s hopeless Zugzwang], The World and Us, 17 September 2015, http://politobzor.net/show-11626-banderovskie-fashisty-zahvatyvayut-ukrainu-i-beznadezhnyy-cucvang-yanukovicha.html; and Khaldarova and Pantti, ‘Fake News: The Narrative Battle over the Ukrainian Conflict’.

47 Nakashima, ‘Inside a Russian Disinformation Campaign in Ukraine in 2014’; and Moore, ‘Russia and Disinformation: The Case of Ukraine’.

48 Samantha Bradshaw and Philip N. Howard, ‘The Global Organization of Social Media Disinformation Campaigns’, Journal of International Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1.5, 2018, p. 28.

49 RT DE (@de_rt_com), tweet, 6 April 2021, https://twitter.com/de_rt_com/status/1379497418543235072.

50 ‘Fake Video: How the Pro-Kremlin Media Tried to Accuse Ukraine of Shooting at Migrants’, EU vs Disinfo, 30 December 2021, https://euvsdisinfo.eu/fake-video-how-the-pro-kremlin-media-tried-to-accuse-ukraine-of-shooting-at-migrants/.

51 Paul Goode (@jpaulgoode), tweet, 1 March 2022, https://twitter.com/jpaulgoode/status/1498517335203848192?s=20&t=Yp-cemYXgO6S_iSNsaFiOQ; and Vasile Rotaru, ‘“Mimicking” the West? Russia’s Legitimization Discourse from Georgia War to the Annexation of Crimea’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, vol. 52, no. 4, December 2019, pp. 311–21, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2019.10.001.

52 Aton Pustovalov (@djxtrees), tweet, 19 February 2022, https://twitter.com/djxtrees/status/1495193495249772544?s=20&t=KErvrQLrikl3AKD9xNfWPQ.

53 See, for example, David M. Herszenhorn, ‘Russia Claims US Mercenaries Plan Chemical Attack in Ukraine’, Politico, 21 December 2022, https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-us-mercenaries-plan-chemical-attack-ukraine/#:~:text=Russian%20Defense%20Minister%20Sergei%20Shoigu,region%20%E2%80%9Cto%20commit%20provocations.%E2%80%9D.

54 John V. Parachini, ‘Debunking Russian Lies About Biolabs at Upcoming UN Meeting’, RAND Corporation, 12 September 2022, https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/09/debunking-russian-lies-about-biolabs-at-upcoming-un.html#:~:text=Additionally%2C%20even%20Russian%20sources%20have,Russian%20media%20outlets%20that%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20’.

55 Paul Kerley and Robert Greenall, ‘Ukraine War: Why Has “Z” Become a Russian Pro-war Symbol?’, BBC News, 7 March 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60644832.

56 Ministry of Defence of Russia (@mil_ru), Instagram post, 31 October 2022, https://www.instagram.com/p/CanFwqyM5m9/.

57 Sebastian Shukla, Alex Marquardt and Christian Streib, ‘“He Said He Was Going Towards Kyiv”: Russian Families Turn to Ukrainian Hotline in Desperate Search for Lost Soldiers’, CNN, 8 March 2022, https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/europe/ukraine-hotline-russian-soldiers-intl-cmd.

58 ‘Ukraine War: Zelensky Urges Russian Troops to Surrender’, BBC News, 15 March 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60748234.

59 Richard Pérez-Peña, ‘Refuse to Cooperate with the Kremlin’s War, Zelensky Tells Ukrainians and Russians’, New York Times, 2 April 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/01/world/europe/zelensky-russian-military-speech-video.html.

60 Isabel van Brugen, Lauren Giella and Meghan Roos, ‘Ukraine War Updates: Zelensky Tells Russians to Protest Mobilization’, Newsweek, 22 September 2022, https://www.newsweek.com/russia-ukraine-protests-news-live-updates-putin-mobilization-war-1745303; and Jared Gans, ‘Zelensky Offers Guarantees for Russian Soldiers Who Surrender’, Hill, 25 September 2022, https://thehill.com/policy/international/3659802-zelensky-offers-guarantees-for-russian-soldiers-who-surrender.

61 Cat Zakrzewski and Gerrit De Vynck, ‘The Ukrainian Leader Who Is Pushing Silicon Valley to Stand Up to Russia’, Washington Post, 3 March 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/02/mykhailo-fedorov-ukraine-tech/.

62 Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo), tweet, 26 February 2022, https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/1497543633293266944?s=20&t=Ef4UoSg7shZ1Vz0J-Jgxdw.

63 Isobel Koshiw, Lorenzo Tondo and Artem Mazhulin, ‘Ukraine’s Southern Offensive “Was Designed to Trick Russia”’, Guardian, 10 September 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/10/ukraines-publicised-southern-offensive-was-disinformation-campaign.

64 US Department of State, ‘To Vilify Ukraine, the Kremlin Resorts to Antisemitism’, 11 July 2022, https://www.state.gov/disarming-disinformation/to-vilify-ukraine-the-kremlin-resorts-to-antisemitism/.

65 Alastair Smout and Andrew Macaskill, ‘Russia May Use Chemical Weapons in False Flag Attack but Not More Broadly, Western Official Says’, Reuters, 11 March 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/russia-may-use-chemical-weapons-false-flag-attack-not-more-broadly-western-2022-03-11.

66 Davey Alba, ‘Russia Has Been Laying Groundwork Online for a “False Flag” Operation, Misinformation Researchers Say’, New York Times, 19 February 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/19/business/russia-has-been-laying-groundwork-online-for-a-false-flag-operation-misinformation-researchers-say.html.

67 Colm Quinn, ‘Is Ukraine’s PR Machine Sputtering?’, Foreign Policy, 10 August 2022, https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/10/ukraine-russia-zelensky-media-social/.

68 Paul McLeary, ‘Ukraine in Direct Contact with Musk amid Starlink Drama’, Politico, 20 October 2022, https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/20/ukraine-elon-musk-starlink-00062841.

69 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian’s Regular Press Conference on March 8, 2022’, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/202203/t20220309_10649938.html. It is also noteworthy that, a couple of months after the invasion, certain social-media influencers in China started spreading the pro-Russian narrative that NATO members should convince Ukraine to cede territory and bring the war to an end. See, for example, Weibo influencers such as HeTienEn, UnityByForce and Guyanmuchan.

70 Melissa Hooper, ‘The Scourge of Disinformation: Hearing Before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’, Human Rights First, 14 September 2017, https://humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Hooper-Helsinki-Testimony-12-Sept.pdf.

71 Maria Snegovaya, ‘Putin’s Information Warfare in Ukraine: Soviet Origins of Russia’s Hybrid Warfare’, Russia Report 1, Institute for the Study of War, 1 September 2015, https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep07921.1.

72 Brandt, ‘How Autocrats Manipulate Online Information: Putin’s and Xi’s Playbooks’, p. 134.

73 Freedman, Ukraine and the Art of Strategy, p. 137.

74 See Maschmeyer, ‘Digital Disinformation: Evidence from Ukraine’.

75 Brandt, ‘How Autocrats Manipulate Online Information: Putin’s and Xi’s Playbooks’.

76 See Moore, ‘Russia and Disinformation: The Case of Ukraine’.

77 Pamment, ‘The EU’s Role in Fighting Disinformation: Taking Back the Initiative’, p. 3.

78 Brandt, ‘How Autocrats Manipulate Online Information: Putin’s and Xi’s Playbooks’, p. 129.

79 Lawrence Freedman, ‘Prigozhin’s Mutiny’, Comment Is Freed, 24 June 2023, https://samf.substack.com/publish/posts/detail/130568843?referrer=%2Fpublish%2Fposts.

80 Khaldarova and Pantti, ‘Fake News: The Narrative Battle over the Ukrainian Conflict’.

81 Ibid.

82 See Nick Niedzwiadek, ‘Biden Derides Putin’s “Ridiculous” Whataboutism’, Politico, 16 June 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/16/biden-derides-putins-ridiculous-whataboutism-494885. This case was in reference to Putin’s attempts to avoid questions about the imprisonment of political dissidents by pointing to the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.

83 Kseniya Kizlova and Pippa Norris, ‘What Do Ordinary Russians Really Think About the War in Ukraine?’, LSE blog, 17 March 2022, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2022/03/17/what-do-ordinary-russians-really-think-about-the-war-in-ukraine/.

84 Pomerantsev, ‘Russia and the Menace of Unreality’.

85 Dmitry Adamsky, ‘Cross-domain Coercion: The Current Russian Art of Strategy’, IFRI Proliferation Papers, November 2015, p. 24, https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/pp54adamsky.pdf.

86 Heather A. Conley et al., ‘The Kremlin Playbook’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 13 October 2016, https://www.csis.org/analysis/kremlin-playbook.