 Welcome to the Integrated Deterrence video series presented by the Air Force Culture and Language Center. This video is Russian Disinformation Warfare and is broken into seven chapters. We will start with an introduction followed by misinformation, disinformation, and alternative narratives. Next, we will explore strategic goals, Russian disinformation against the United States, Russia's current disinformation ecosystem, and countermeasures. Finally, we will end with a conclusion. On July 17, 2014, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17 was shot down over Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. The plane was downed by Russian soldiers who accidentally shot it during the invasion of Ukraine. Following the accident, the Russian government and media outlets made false claims about the event, saying Ukrainian fighter jets shot down the plane that the downing was a false flag attack to vilify Russia and other lies. These narratives were broadcast on a range of media platforms so that Russia could provide alternative explanations for the accident without taking responsibility. As late as 2019, Russia developed websites to promote false information about the incident. The case of MH-17 exemplifies how the Russian government and its partners generate and disseminate disinformation, and how the effects can last for years. Russia's disinformation campaigns are common in global politics and surround its actions, like the 2008 Georgian War and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine. They also target international issues, such as the 2016 Brexit vote, 2016 US presidential election, and COVID-19 pandemic. Disinformation campaigns are a form of information warfare that involves flooding targets with information so they can't form clear or fact-based decisions. Russia has operationalized this method, meeting its run in a continuous and professionalized manner. Russian leaders view the world in a constant state of competition and have adapted information warfare strategies to the ever-changing media landscape. Russia's disinformation campaigns have several strategic purposes, including restoring Russia to great power status, preserving Russia's sphere of influence, protecting President Putin's regime, and enhancing military effectiveness. Internationally, a major goal is weakening relations between Western states, particularly the members of NATO and the European Union. The United States is a common target for its international disinformation campaigns to destabilize US domestic politics and foreign policy. Another goal is to discredit worldwide democratic governance. Democratic societies are susceptible to disinformation attacks because of their diverse media infrastructures and lightly regulated speech. Disinformation is a form of hybrid warfare whereby conventional military force is supported by irregular tactics. Once in the open, disinformation can never be completely defeated, but it can be mitigated through identification and minimization. Chapter 2. Misinformation, Disinformation, and Alternative Narratives Both misinformation and disinformation involve sharing false or debunked information. Misinformation is false or out-of-context information that is presented as fact, regardless of the intent to deceive. Disinformation is misinformation that is intentionally false and shared with the intent to deceive or mislead. Three common tactics for disinformation are fogging, the construction and communication of multiple explanations, flooding, the aggressive repetition of disinformation, and surfacing, the creation of plausible, alternate explanations. Russia's actions in the information space include spreading and creating disinformation and promoting viewpoints that reflect Russian interests. One example is the proliferation of the idea that Ukraine is historically part of Russia and should be reabsorbed. This is not disinformation, but an alternative narrative to popular views of Ukrainian sovereignty. Chapter 3. Strategic Goals Russia's first goal of information warfare and foreign policy is to restore its great power stash. The Russian government and much of its populace believe that Russia is a major power and information warfare is necessary to regain global influence. This idea is based on the view that global influence is mutually exclusive. Russia can only gain influence if another country, especially the United States, loses influence. Under this model, disinformation diminishes U.S. influence and increases Russia's global prowess. Another goal is to preserve Russia's sphere of influence. Russia's defense strategy relies on having buffer states to protect it from hostile militaries. Russia's main population centers in the western part of the country have few natural barriers and have been historically protected by Russia's control of the Eastern European Plain, including Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Russia's worst-case scenario involves former allies joining the U.S. Alliance Network, including NATO. The expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe has weakened Russia's defensive position and its leadership is desperate to prevent further expansion. Information warfare is essential to make the United States and NATO unpopular in the region to prevent states from joining the U.S.-led alliance. Another goal is preserving Putin's rule in Russia. His government has a strong interest in prohibiting western-style democracy in Russia and neighboring countries. His network of elites is threatened by events like the Color Revolutions that establish democratic governance in former Soviet states because if similar uprisings happened in Russia, it would eliminate their influence. Therefore, eroding confidence in democracy to avoid revolts against Russian leadership and allied governments is necessary for Putin's political survival. Lastly, Russia's military leadership views non-kinetic tools, including disinformation, as an important form of military power. Information warfare is seen as mutually supportive with kinetic measures whereby disinformation campaigns are used to justify Russian military activities like the 2014 invasion of Crimea. There, Russian disinformation campaigners portrayed Russian forces as local ethnic Russian actors, resisting Ukrainian rule. Furthermore, the application of information warfare is used as asymmetric warfare against NATO's large, sophisticated military forces. Chapter 4 History of Russian information warfare against the United States Russian disinformation operations became commonplace beginning in 1923, following Joseph Stalin's assent to leader of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Office of Disinformation. This office was a high-level section of the KGB, the country's primary security agency that existed throughout the Soviet era. Major disinformation campaigns against the United States included conspiracy theories that John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and that HIV AIDS was developed in U.S. labs. In fact, the USSR planted newspaper articles in 80 different countries alleging the AIDS conspiracy. Major information warfare campaigns against the United States restarted in 2013 and Russia is constantly engaging in disinformation warfare using diverse media formats. Campaigns begin rapidly, professionally and in response to external stimuli. One example is the COVID-19 campaign whereby Russia leveraged long-standing disinformation about vaccine use, distrust of democratic governments and promotion of fringe political ideas to destabilize competitors. Chapter 5 Russia's current disinformation ecosystem Russia's ecosystem for the production and dissemination of disinformation relies on overt and covert platforms. The U.S. State Department has identified five pillars of this disinformation system, official government communications, state-funded global messaging, cultivation of proxy sources, weaponization of social media, and cyber-enabled disinformation. This multi-pronged approach provides three advantages. First, segmentation of the media allows actors to tailor their messages to different audiences. Second, plausible deniability allows Russian officials to deny disinformation sources through proxy messengers. Last is the multiplier effect. Whereby disinformation produced by one outlet is copied by others to accelerate its spread. Having multiple sources makes fogging, flooding, and surfacing easier. Disinformation produced from one pillar is often picked up by others, with the Russian government directing the overall strategy. The first disinformation pillar, government communication, refers to official statements made by the Russian government. Official statements are a prolific source of disinformation, with examples including the denials of the 2018 poisoning of former Russian intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and the 2020 assassination attempt on opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The second pillar, state-funded global messaging, refers to Russia's international platforms for broadcasting state-sponsored content. The flagship is RT, formerly known as Russia Today, an international television network broadcasting in English, Arabic, Spanish, and French. Online, Sputnik publishes in several languages and serves a similar function. According to Foreign Agent Registration Act data, the Russian government spent $146 million on messaging in the United States between 2016 and 2021. The third pillar, proxy sources, are publishers that produce or reproduce disinformation. These sources provide legitimacy to disinformation and obscure the government's connection to the material. They are typically internationally available Russia-aligned outlets or local language-specific outlets that amplify Russian narratives. Proxies often use local or western authors to further obscure their Russian connections. Examples include pseudo-academic bodies like the Strategic Culture Foundation, Catehan, and New Eastern Outlook, conspiracy websites like Canada-based global research and security websites Southfront and Geopolitica.ru. The fourth pillar, the weaponization of social media, employ trolls that use fake accounts on social media to spread messages. The most notorious example is the Internet Research Agency, a Russian government operation that used trolls to spread disinformation during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. Social media accounts pretending to be US citizens or local news outlets engage US nationals in political topics, promoting opposing viewpoints to anger users into hardening their political stances and polarize the electorate. The fifth pillar, cyber-enabled disinformation, includes cyber attacks. Russia is the world's largest sponsor of cyber attacks. In 2020, Microsoft reported that Russia committed 55% of state-sponsored attacks against its software. Russia uses attacks to collect data on individuals and organize it for targeting to create the foundation for future disinformation campaigns or to edit and delete data. An example is the 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee's e-mails, which the Kremlin linked non-profit WikiLeaks later published. An example of how this ecosystem produces and disseminates disinformation is the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 is a bio-weapon created by the United States. An expert interviewed on Zvezda TV, a station owned by the Russian Ministry of Defense, first espoused this theory in January 2020. Shortly thereafter, the claim was repeated by members of Russia's parliament, broadcast on RT and Sputnik, amplified by proxy sites and shared on social media. The anti-U.S. conspiracy theory soon became widely popular. Countering Russia's advanced information warfare capabilities requires consistent and concerted efforts. Best practices include identifying disinformation in its tactics, having engaged civil society to combat disinformation, and the adoption of cybersecurity procedures in government and business. Examples of countries that have successfully countered Russian disinformation are the Czech Republic or Czechia and Estonia. Both countries have actively monitored disinformation and supported academics, businesses and volunteer groups to monitor, counter, and educate against disinformation. Within the United States, the State Department has its own office for countering disinformation, the Global Engagement Center, which has been active since 1980. Today, the center includes exposing Russia's information warfare tactics. However, its effectiveness is limited by its focus on traditional media and a lack of funding. As a result, many of the most important actors are media companies, which must remain vigilant against sharing Russian disinformation. Potential improvements in government responses to disinformation include working with European allies, establishing a national alert system, and expanding the U.S. government's international media footprint. Having a well-informed citizenry with solid critical thinking skills is also vital to identify and counter disinformation because civilians are frequent targets for its consumption and proliferation. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has had limited success in countering Russian information warfare and needs an integrated response to successfully defend the information space. Chapter 7 Conclusion For nearly a century, Russia has engaged in disinformation campaigns against its foreign and domestic enemies. Currently, it has a sophisticated ecosystem of disinformation that it uses to weaken democracies around the world and challenge Western leadership. Countering this apparatus will require significant defensive efforts from government, business, academia, and private citizens to protect against disinformation.