Russia: Following classic recipe for misinformation

A beautiful Swedish article about the alleged Russian submarine which is sunk in Swedish waters and cannot surface. The Russians, of course, deny any Russian submarine is in peril. According to Liveleak.com, however, Russian Nuclear Submarine Dmitri Donskoi is disabled and cannot surface.

What follows below is the Swedish article (originally in Swedish) about the downed submarine. Simultaneously, the Russians deny this is happening.

Originally published at http://www.expressen.se/nyheter/foljer-klassiskt-recept-for-desinformation/

Following classic recipe for misinformation

Published October 20, 2014 18:52

Previously we have seen it during the Crimean crisis and the war in Georgia. Now the Russian disinformation prove also in terms of the ongoing Swedish intelligence operation against foreign submarine activity in the Stockholm archipelago.
Several Russian TV channels and news agencies reported – with great concurrency – the submarine that Sweden is seeking Dutch.

The data follow a classic recipe for misinformation.

When talking about Russian operational art, that is how Russia conducts military operations, one can say that it always largely relied on misinformation and misdirection. Misdirection can be simply said to be the military term for scams, where the aim is to draw the opponent’s full attention to a phenomenon, while you yourself carry out another operation.
You mix a bit of truth with a lot of fiction and happy in a way that will strike the receiver.
In this case, with the message that “we want to spare the Swedish taxpayers the cost of the search for a submarine.” We know that the money to defense classically has been a sensitive issue in Sweden.

One example is how Russia in August managed to make the world just over a week to be completely focused on the country’s aid convoy to the eastern Ukraine, while simultaneously went in with regular Russian troops and managed to turn the war.
Russia has not only greatly upprustat recent years. It has also been very purposefully reformed their operational art which now even more emphasis on information warfare and subversive activities that complement the classic military means, combined with a focus on acting in the gray area between peace and war.
The focus on information warfare is not really surprising considering how the media landscape has developed over the past two decades. News spread quickly and social media have got it already rapid progress to be lightning fast.
It is also an experience of the war in Georgia. The days before the war started, according to an American research flown into the fifties Russian journalists to South Ossetia. During the fight, they used simultaneously cyber warfare to limit the Georgian authorities and the media’s ability to communicate with the outside world. The experience of Georgia, we have over the past year seen translated in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Right from the beginning there were Russian journalists on the spot and could report the Russian version of what happened and got a strong impact in the Western media.

For Putin, it was important to consolidate power over the Russian media. Already in the early 00’s, the Kremlin had taken control of the main television channels and newspapers, often by operating out of its previous owners. Today has been an almost total dominance when it comes to reporting on the important topics.
By also be able to send the same basic message through multiple channels and newspapers, where every editorial adds its own nuance, creating an illusion to that of the verified information. All channels are reporting on the same event and about the same data and then it must surely be true, it becomes unconscious reaction.
PhD student Oscar Jonsson at British King’s College tend to refer to it as we succeed in creating a critical mass of information flow. The internationally renowned Russian polling institute Levada issued a report this summer that over 90 percent of the Russian population has Russian television as their main news source, and when the Kremlin controls the channels become Jonsson’s conclusion correct.
In Sweden we are skilled at using the internet to retrieve news and information. Internet, however, is not nearly as developed in Russia and Levada survey, it is only one per cent of respondents who read the news on foreign sites. To shape domestic opinion seems thus to be relatively simple.

An interesting example is the Russian Night Wolves motorcycle gang that President Putin repeatedly been seen riding a motorcycle with. Night Wolves leader, called the “surgeon”, has performed with Putin several times. Every summer organizing a Night Wolves motorcycle show where the first half is a historic theme as the depiction of a Russian type, such as Stalingrad, and the other half is a pure display of motorcycles and stunts.
This year, the show was performed in the naval port of Sevastopol on the Crimean annexation and was broadcast live and was referenced in the national state television. The theme for this year was the war of liberation of Ukraine, where the show starts to a number of motorcycles driving through the bow door on a Russian country Journal vessels. Then you start with a very lavish spectacle that almost reminiscent of an Olympic opening ceremony in ambition to reproduce a version of Majdankravallerna and then firefights between Ukrainian Nazi government forces and valiant freedom fighters – with real Russian tanks and assault rifles.
All abstracts of “Surgeon” from the mast of a Russian warship and accompanied by various music. The Fund sees two hands from which it is possible threads. On a finger sees the American national emblem and occasionally heard recordings of political speeches, including that of Hitler. The symbolism can not be mistaken. Ukrainians are Nazis who controlled from the United States and Europe. State co-ordination of information warfare can not be missed when military resources are used in a political drama that is broadcast live on nationwide television.

With international opinion, it is more difficult. There started Russia in the mid-00’s television channel Russia Today, today best known as RT. It was Russia’s version of CNN, Al-Jazeera and Chinese CCTV. RT has had a major impact in the West, and the other year was the second largest foreign news channel in the United States by the BBC.
RT has been controlled by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, but has since year gone up in a larger group called Rossiya Sevodnja (Russia today) under the direction of the Kremlin and media person Dmitry Kiseljev, known for his outbursts against Carl Bildt, in his television programs.

The recipe for the RT has been the same as for many other news channels. A very nice production and employment of young eloquent mainly American and British journalists who presented the channel’s message, focused mainly on events in the United States and Europe – often with defeatist elements riots and social problems.
RT has been the spearhead of the global Russian media effort during the Crimean War and the crisis in Ukraine. It has also meant that many have become aware of the channel’s real agenda.
Even during the occupation of Crimea ended one of the channel’s most famous anchor in a spectacular live broadcast, where she explained that she could no longer stand for this perversion of journalism. After shooting down of MH17 ended another RT journalist and stated straight out that RT only published lies about the incident and after the final manuscript. Apparently, the man in the Kremlin very pleased with how RT has worked because it has recently decided to increase funding by over 40 percent in 2015.

The “little green men” and MH17 are the clearest examples of Russia made use of disinformation and information warfare the past year. During the occupation of the Crimea there appeared “little green men” in the form of well-disciplined and well-equipped troops without dressing marks or other signs.

They wore the latest Russian military equipment that can only be found at the Russian special forces, but Russia and President Putin claimed in stone that they were only local and spontaneously composed concerned citizen groups who bought their equipment at a hardware store. It was the lies that everyone saw through, but the media in the West felt nonetheless compelled to render version.
A few weeks later, when the annexation was complete, President Putin confirmed that it has been of Russian soldiers. Interesting in this context is the medal since these soldiers were receiving, there back shows dates of operation as February 20 to March 18. On February 20, the day before Yanukovych fled Ukraine and until 26 February started the little green men appear in the Crimea, which attracted the attention of the Swedish military historian Lars Gyllenhaal.

In the case of MH17 was done by Russian media sent forth the most unbelievable story after another about what really happened with MH17. , it was NATO that had shot down the aircraft, it was the Ukrainian military, it was actually a CIA operation which age of the aircraft with frozen bodies before it was overthrown in Ukraine to blame Russia. Perhaps the most amazing version was that it actually moved it across the Indian Ocean lost MH370.
All stories utterly insane but created to represent both the noise and at the same time misleading. Independent Western media must take into account these reports and press releases and evaluate these as well as other information, which both takes time and effort while in some can manage to sow a seed of doubt. At this point had at least Western media learned of the occupation of the Crimea and occurred more dubious to the data. Even today, there are many that refer to some of the Russian versions, not least that a Ukrainian attack aircraft would have shot the aircraft, which is an absurdity I highlighted in a post on my blog.
The German intelligence service reported last week to the German parliament that it was pro-Russian forces shot down MH17, which has now been made to the German prosecution authorities launched an investigation into war crimes.

The revolution of social media in recent years has meant that it is far faster to disseminate information, but in the same way also misinformation. Social media is therefore a very rewarding tool for anyone wanting devoted himself to information warfare and an image or a video released on Twitter, for example, is difficult to verify.
Meanwhile, now the requirement that each user of social media must be able to apply the source-critical principles necessary to weed out misinformation. An example of this is the wild rumor that planted a Russian internet forums yesterday that a Russian nuclear-armed strategic missile submarine had sunk in the Stockholm archipelago. The rumor spread like wildfire and was reproduced also in the Polish state radio.
No one seemed to have laid a second to think about why this would be in the Baltic Sea or the submarine with over 20 meters unseen would have made it through the Sound where the depth is only 8 feet at the shallowest places.

As Peter Mattsson at the National Defence College complains in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet is now the Russian strategy for an inclusive society closest approach, where several government agencies subordinated to the General Staff .
Everything is aimed at coordinating the State resources for the best possible success in international relations where military means can be said to be just one of a number, in combination with information operations, diplomacy and economic means. The more coordinated you are, the easier it has been to play in the gray zone between war and peace as they exercised in Ukraine, where you are constantly trying to maintain the doubt about the direct Russian involvement. Meanwhile, the man deftly navigated in both the diplomatic and the economic sphere. The Russian motsanktionerna has specifically met EU countries where the economy is more dependent on trade with Russia and Russian-controlled media has been reporting on the protests and demonstrations against the sanctions against Russia.

It is important to point out that it is in no way confirmed that Russia is behind the suspected foreign submarine operations in the Stockholm archipelago. However, the Russian information warfare and the way it is used both to domestic and international public opinion well worth studying, not least given the way it has been used in the past year around Ukraine.
In Sweden we are today highly vulnerable to information warfare. It was not surprising to see some Swedish media reproduce the Russian Defense Ministry reports that it probably involved a Dutch submarine in the Stockholm archipelago. Regardless of the outcome, and the nationality of the submarine, there is every reason to revise the Swedish readiness to deal with misinformation and information warfare.
The portion of total defense that was doing just that, the Board of Psychological Defence phased 2008th Some tasks were taken over by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, but apparently there is potential for improvement both in this area and how the Swedish military general to handle warfare in the gray area where the powers is unclear from the information that is police (peace) and which are military (war).
A very sensitive area since Ådalen 1931, which created a Swedish touch horror of the subject and hence a vulnerability grateful to exploit an attacker.

Carl Bergqvist
Carl Bergqvist is a major in the Air Force since 2007 and runs the defense and security blog Wiseman’s Wisdoms leisure.