False Mirrors: The Weaponization of Social Media in Russia’s Operation to Annex Crimea

ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

Contents

Foreword

Abstract

Introduction

1. Background

1.1. Articles, News Items, Blogs

1.2. Western Studies

1.3. Ukrainian Studies

1.4. The “Ideological Problem” of Russian Historiography

2. The Crimean Internet in Figures: 2011-2014

3. The Russian “Information Warfare Machine” The Main Actors

4. Russia’s Activity The Channels of Information Influence (October–December 2013)

4.1. Internet Forums

4.2. The GRU and Facebook

4.3. The Twitter of “Crimean Events”

4.4. The Blocking of Facebook

4.5. The Nationwide Anti-Ukrainian Campaign in Russia: The Crimean Dimension

5. The Ukrainian Response Countermeasures Against Foreign Information Influence

Conclusions

References

Appendix

Short Biography of the Author

Foreword

The attempt to annex Crimea and Russia’s military invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 have become an unprecedented challenge to the global security system, an act of open aggression against a sovereign state. Being the result of the implementation of aggressive foreign policy strategies by the leadership of the Russian Federation, these events were certain to attract the close attention of scientists and researchers in various fields. For the first time since the end of World War II, the leadership of one of the countries in Europe has planned and conducted a full-scale military operation based on modern principles of warfare.

As the use of nuclear weapons is becoming increasingly problematic, the confrontation will gradually but steadily focus on information and cyberspace, space and biotechnology. The techniques for information and psychological influence as part of a new type of hybrid warfare pose a particular danger, which has been clearly demonstrated in Crimea and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Modern challenges require an adequate response. The research of the author of “The False Mirror” on the role of social media in the Russian operation to attempt the annexation of Crimea will help to devise such countermeasures. The value of this study lies in the author’s focus on analysing real facts and reconstructing the sequence of events, which are looked at in the context of information warfare, one of the important elements of which is the use of social media.

The book examines the specific techniques and methods of using popular social media by Russian intelligence agencies before, during, and after the temporary occupation of Crimea. Using modern channels of communication, Russian special services distorted the events, falsified information, and created a favourable information environment for the military operation.

The study highlights the danger of the information component of warfare and emphasises the obligation of the state to be prepared, both technologically and organisationally, to resist hostile information influence. The materials collected and analysed by the author have not only historical value: the book contains practical recommendations for countering information and influence operations, which can be used in government decision-making.

Oleksiy Danilov

Secretary of the National Security

and Defence Council of Ukraine

Kyiv, April 2021

Abstract

The thesis about the importance of the information component as one of the key elements of the so-called new-type warfare became generally accepted after the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of the parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by the Russian Federation in 2014. At the same time, studies in this field often rely on rather limited sources, tend to use overly theoretical approaches, and repeat the same facts and conclusions. Consequently, a wide range of practical techniques and methods of Russian information influence have not received sufficient attention.

This study investigates the techniques of using social media to fulfil aggressive foreign policy tasks, as exemplified by the Russian Federation’s operation to annex the AR of Crimea in 2014.

Analysing the level of information effectiveness of the “Crimean operation,” it is worth noting the synergy effect produced by combining the use of social media with the broader Russian anti-Ukrainian propaganda campaign. In this case, social media, which were trusted, and where the information received from other sources (primarily television) was verified, have played the role of a “false mirror,” which falsified the information. That, in turn, has produced the effect of double manipulation, via television and social media, thus creating the environment of lies.

Based on the analysis of the techniques for Russia’s information influence, this study offers effective countermeasures, which may be taken into consideration when formulating the national information policy in Ukraine and other states.

Keywords: the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the AR of Crimea, annexation, social media, the Russian Federation, hybrid warfare, new-type warfare, information operations, information influence, fakeaccounts.

Introduction

The annexation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (AR of Crimea) by the Russian Federation (RF) in 2014 has posed an enormous challenge to the world not only in terms of political-military affairs but also in terms of scientific research. The issues of new-type warfare, the so-called hybrid warfare or nonlinear warfare (see Smola, 2016, pp. 68-71, for more detail), which have been discussed in the scientific community for a long time, have become a reality in Ukraine.

The cyberattacks on Estonia in 2007 and the information and military operations in Georgia in 2008 were, inter alia, the demonstration of the RF’s hybrid/nonlinear capabilities. The phenomenon of new-type warfare, which has manifested itself on a large scale during the Russian aggression against Ukraine, requires consideration and systematic analysis.

In this context, one should remember the so-called “Gerasimov Doctrine” when the article by the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the RF, First Deputy Defence Minister, Valery Gerasimov, published in February 2013 with the title “The Value of Science Is in Prediction,” in which he presented the concept of “new-generation war,” was interpreted as a revolutionary military theory (Adamsky, 2015). In fact, it was the British political analyst Mark Galeotti who coined the term “Gerasimov Doctrine” as a title for his blog post, in which he published the article by the Russian top military officer. However, later Galeotti (2018) was genuinely surprised that people believed that the tough Chief of the General Staff rather than a theoretician had managed to conceive the doctrine and regretted that his “marketing stunt” had such unintended consequences.

By contrast, the American military expert Michael Kofman (2018) believes that the “Gerasimov Doctrine” is nothing but a myth and that no doctrine exists. In Kofman’s opinion, the article by Gerasimov “offers the interpretation of the American approach to political and military confrontation, which was perceived as formulating a new Russian doctrine of fighting the West.” Such reaction is quite typical of those politicians and members of the military who are looking for simple answers and noticeable details to explain what is going on, the researcher concludes.

The Deputy Director of the Polish Center for Eastern Studies, Jolanta Darczewska (2014), holds the same opinion, making a point that the Russian theory of information warfare has been developed in opposition to the existing concepts of new-generation warfare as a response to the activities against Russia.

This view is supported by the Information Security Doctrine of the Russian Federation, which mentions “the elaboration by a number of states of the concepts of information wars that envisage the creation of means of dangerous influence on the information spheres of other countries of the world” among other threats to the national security in the information sphere (Institute of Contemporary Development, 2016).

However, the discussion around the article by the Russian general is illustrative of both the relevance of the very phenomenon of new-type warfare and the range of terminological, legal, methodological, and other problems arising out of it. The advent of the information technology age, which has created unprecedented opportunities but, at the same time, caused unforeseen problems, has further complicated the situation. For example, historians have to adopt old research methods while being in entirely new conditions, such as working with sources that are continuously updated and under the ever-present threat of their immediate deletion. Therefore, on the one hand, scholars have to advance their research carefully, scrupulously gathering facts and developing new methods, but on the other hand, they have to adapt to new circumstances quickly. As the famous futurologist Bruce Sterling wittily put it, “by the time you legally define what a “browser” is, the “browser war” is all over.”

One of the least researched but the most popular in the entire range of new-type warfare issues is the role and place of the information component. Specifically, the problem of the use of social media by Russia in its war against Ukraine has been insufficiently studied, although the research into a local event makes it possible to reconstruct a comprehensive system of new techniques for information influence. From this perspective, the operation to annex the AR of Crimea is historically unprecedented. Moreover, the importance of new information and communication technologies is enshrined at the doctrinal level in the RF, and they are considered to be one of the basic “types of weapons,” independent and highly effective.

The updated National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020 (Kremlin, 2009), the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (Kremlin, 2014), and the document entitled Conceptual Views on the Activities of the Russian Armed Forces in the Information Space (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, 2011) place emphasis on information confrontation capabilities for military-political purposes. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the Minister of Defence of the RF, Sergey Shoygu, called information another armed service while speaking to Russian journalists in 2015 (TV Centre, 2015). Similarly, the Swedish researcher on Russian propaganda war Ulrik Franke (2015) has acknowledged that Russia’s pattern of action during the illegal annexation of the AR of Crimea adhered quite closely to “the official characterisations of information warfare.”

Overall, a significant number of publications by Russian and Western authors are devoted to the main principles of information warfare and Russia’s approaches to it, the adoption of new technologies, and the expansion of the existing arsenal of information confrontation capabilities by the RF (Blank, 2016; Bratersky, 2014; Gerasimov, 2016; Holloway, 2017; Jones, 2014; Kapto, 2013; Kuralenko, 2012; Mandro & Gieber, 2017; Murphy, 2016; Naletov, 2012; Panarin, 2008; Patrushev, 2017; Turovskiy, 2016).

Perhaps for the first time, researchers have been given the opportunity to study the practical aspects of modern warfare comprehensively, which raises a whole series of questions about the definition of terms, the methodology of research, and conceptual approaches. For example, one of the least researched and the most difficult for studying is the issue of using information and communication technologies as one of the key elements in implementing the RF’s plans of external aggression. The magnitude of danger and the effectiveness of the information component of hybrid/nonlinear warfare have been demonstrated during the annexation of the AR of Crimea and the armed aggression in eastern Ukraine.

Almost all researchers recognise the role of social media as a crucial and state-of-the-art “type of weapons,” although it remains the least studied. The situation is complicated by the absence of methodologies for assessing the effectiveness of information influence, which hinders the objective analysis of the role and significance of social media in the Crimean events of 2014. At the same time, the recognition of the information component’s importance has become an indisputable imperative for a wide range of scientific studies. Considering the above, the research into the use of social media by the military-political leadership of the RF in the operation to annex the AR of Crimea is extremely relevant.

The main problem of the existing research on the topic done by national and foreign scholars is that these studies are too theoretical, rely on rather limited sources, tend to use overly general approaches and definitions, and repeat the same facts and conclusions. Consequently, a wide range of practical techniques and methods of Russian information influence have not received sufficient attention.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting the meticulous analysis of the theoretical foundations of the RF’s information warfare, as exemplified by its most revealing Crimean operation: the analysis of goals and objectives, the audience, channels, key themes, methods and techniques, psychological and manipulative techniques applied, the examples of falsification, and historical narratives used. All of this has made a significant contribution to history, psychology, sociology, public relations, information security, and military science.

However, in terms of applying information and communication technologies, the very techniques of their implementation are not elaborated upon: where, by whom, how, when, and in what way they were employed. As a rule, widely made assertions that Russia used social media extensively during the annexation of the AR of Crimea are insufficiently supported by facts. The real mechanism of the functioning of the Russian “information warfare machine” remains unstudied. Thus, the crimes of the Russian information aggression committed during the annexation of the AR of Crimea are not associated with any names and surnames, dates and places, conditions and reasons, which is important not only for the objectivity of scientific understanding of the problem but also for devising effective countermeasures and enabling Ukraine to file cases in international judicial and law enforcement institutions.

While agreeing with Yu. Fedorov (2016) who warns against excessive theorising and deflecting attention away from analysing Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the operation in eastern Ukraine, it’s worth noting that the difficulty of examining the information component of hybrid warfare is largely related to the novelty of the phenomenon. New situations put new issues on the agenda, which have not arisen before; therefore, there is no experience of solving these problems. A notable example is the emergence of a phenomenon that can be called an online mirage, i.e. the illusion of an unlimited amount of factual material under the conditions of its ultrafast self-destruction or deliberate deletion. The world of modern communication technologies is shaping an entirely new information reality—the opportunity to instantly create and permanently delete content that may constitute an important historical source. For example, groups and communities created or functioning under surveillance by Russian intelligence agencies, which had intentionally engaged in anti-Ukrainian activity, were “mopped up.” Therefore, scholars do not have access to the materials in question.

Moreover, some part of research needs to be conducted at the time when events unfold, in particular, monitoring the mass media space to identify the technical aspects of waging information campaigns by Russian intelligence agencies, such as key messages, sources, publishing frequency, speakers, semantic relations, and links between groups/communities and accounts. In this case, the factor of time is crucial to making a correct and accurate assessment, since information is being destroyed, or it is becoming difficult to access under the layers of “junk information.” As to studies by Russian scholars, despite being actively involved in meticulous research work in the field of information security and cybersecurity, there is a conspiracy of silence about the “Crimean events”—propaganda or nothing.

This research does not aim to cover all the aspects of Russian information warfare in the operation to annex the AR of Crimea in 2014. It attempts to reconstruct the facts and events related to the techniques of using social media for fulfilling aggressive foreign policy tasks by the leadership of the RF. The study investigates one of the tools of new-type warfare, which can lay a foundation for further comprehensive analysis. Performing systematic and structural-functional analysis makes it possible to study the mechanism and principles of the Russian information machine’s functioning in depth and suggest adequate countermeasures, which will contribute to strengthening the national security of Ukraine. This objective is especially relevant against the backdrop of the increasing influence of social media on every sphere of life and the ongoing aggressive policy of the Kremlin towards Ukraine, which requires continuous analysis and an appropriate response. The results of this research can also be used by the authorities in Ukraine and NATO member states and by international institutions for devising strategies, doctrines, instructions, and methods for countering Russian information expansion.

1. Background

From the very beginning, scholars in Ukraine, Europe, and the USA have been paying special attention to the events of the annexation of the AR of Crimea in 2014: their causes, effects, and the outlook. The Russian perspective in this respect is somewhat peculiar, as will be discussed below. As a rule, the issue of the information component of the Ukrainian-Russian confrontation is integral to such studies. However, in most cases, only fragmentary research has been conducted into the use of social media in the RF’s military operation to annex the AR of Crimea, which has not revealed any specific details and has been confined to general assertions.

1.1. Articles, News Items, Blogs

Although seven years have passed since the annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula by the RF, the range of available sources remains rather limited, and the materials of intelligence agencies will be inaccessible for an indefinite period of time. Considering this fact, non-academic sources, among others, are growing in importance: articles, news items, and blogs, which have become a prompt response to the events of the time, although they undoubtedly require a cautious and critical approach.

Investigative journalists were the first to reveal the existence of the covert system for manipulating public opinion on the Internet in general and on social media in particular, which was sponsored by the Russian authorities. Russian, American, and Ukrainian journalists were the first to gather facts and evidence that strongly suggested the existence of the system for political moderation of the Internet and social media content in Russia and abroad, which was later used in the operation to invade Crimea. Due to the work of A. Garmazhapova (2013a, 2013b), D. Khachatryan (2015) of the Novaya Gazeta publication, P. Rusyayeva and A. Zakharov (2017) of RBC, Adrian Chen (2015) of The New York Times Magazine, the international group Vsquare.org (2017), and many others (Hnap, 2015; Lawrence, 2015a; Rezunkov, 2015; Seddon, 2014; Soshnikov, 2015; Volchek, 2015), the activities of the Internet Research Agency LLC (Agency) created by Ye. Prigozhin, a businessman with ties to the Russian President, were revealed (“Agentstvo internet-issledovaniy,” n.d.). It was the Agency that first implemented the system for manipulating public opinion to promote the interests of the Russian authorities, for which purpose it used fake accounts (bots) created on popular social media sites. The words “troll farm,” “Kremlinbot,” and “troll from Olgino” have become international Internet memes (a set phrase, usually ironic, that is spread quickly on social media sites, Internet forums, blogs, and messengers).

According to the journalistic investigations, the Agency and other similar organisations were involved in the “Crimean events,” having left their “digital traces” in the RF’s influence operations against Ukraine.

Although, as a rule, it is quite difficult to check the veracity of the facts stated in publications, when combined with other materials, they play an important role.