Russian Active Measures. Группа авторов

ideas, regardless of political boundaries, to read this important book.

       Dr. Jan Goldman

      Professor of Intelligence and Security Studies

      The Citadel, Charleston, South Carolina

Introduction

      A Blind Spot of Active Measures

      Olga Bertelsen

Thousands of books have examined the traditions, methods, and special operations employed by the Soviet/Russian secret police against Soviet/Russian citizens, the West, and the Third World. They have been published since the 1920s, including detailed narratives by intelligence officers, their victims, observers, and scholars who described, analyzed, and guessed the degrees of violence and sophistication of overt and covert operations employed by the chekists.1 Thanks to these accounts and historical analyses, the international community learned a great deal about Soviet/Russian intelligence operations designed to suppress internal and external enemies. The KGB, FSB, and GRU have become internationally recognized agencies, associated with disinformation, assassinations, and special operations—activities broadly known as Russian active measures or aktivnye meropriiatiia.2

Today our knowledge about the nature and mechanisms of active measures is deeper and more nuanced. Yet there is a blind spot that should be constantly observed, analyzed, and discussed—the supreme imperative and rationale of Russian active measures shaped by Russia’s cultural traditions and history, and its civilizational choice to extend Russian influence in support of the Russian World.3 An analysis of Russia’s cultural traditions and its history might help us answer many questions about its geopolitical and foreign policy strategies and tactics, and the persistence of Russia’s active measures against its neighboring states and the West that puzzle the world intelligence community, politicians, and ordinary people. Many want to understand the mechanisms of and connections among Kremlin officials, Russian disinformation, and assassinations of politicians and journalists in Russia and beyond. Some are curious about Russian cultural centers that mushroomed abroad, such as Rossutrudnichestvo (translated as Russian Cooperation), becoming extremely active since 2010 in recruiting Western youth as Russian intelligence assets.4 More recent events and a crisis in Russian-Czech diplomatic relations invite questions about why a Russian diplomat affiliated with Rossutrudnichestvo arrived in Prague in late April of 2020, allegedly carrying ricin. And many are intrigued by a planned assassination of a Georgian journalist who on television insulted President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Was this operation motivated by Putin’s personal vendetta, or did Basambek Bokov, a Russian citizen arrested by the Georgian security services on 16 June 2020, prepare this assassination with much broader goals in mind?5 Randomly selected, these questions touch on an extremely complex topic, Russian active measures, and their scope and geography that have been expanded under Putin’s regime. What are their roots and the philosophy behind them?

      The essays of this collection demonstrate that, like Soviet narratives, Russian narratives of world history, international relations, and global politics attempt to camouflage contemporary Russia’s violence and subversive activities. These narratives help sustain Putin’s regime in the Russian Federation and enhance Russia’s role in managing the balance of global power. One of the central objectives of Soviet/Russian active measures is to control these narratives in political, economic, and cultural realms. These narratives have been created by the Russians to benefit themselves and to besmirch other states and ethnic groups. The task of the Russian intelligence services is to preempt or coopt anything that contradicts Russian narratives. They do so by using at least two primary strategies. First, they cast challenges to their narratives and alternative narratives as actions on the “extreme end of the Cold War spectrum.” Second, any critique of Russian foreign policy or Russia’s encroachments into other states’ political or cultural spheres are identified as nationalistic manifestations of ultra-right neo-fascist governments or groups that have an ax to grind with Russia. A response from the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C. to the FBI investigation of Yurii Zaitsev, a Russian Foreign Intelligence officer and a professional spy acting as the Director of the Russian Cultural Center in Washington, D.C. Rossutrudnichestvo, provides an example of these strategies:

All such “scaring information” very much resembles [the] Cold War era. A blunt tentative is made to distort and to blacken activities of the Russian Cultural Center in DC, which are aimed at developing mutual trust and cooperation between our peoples and countries. As a matter of fact, somebody intends to torpedo the guidelines of the Russian and U.S. Presidents, whose Joint Statement in Lough Erne emphasizes the importance of “expanding direct contracts between Americans and Russians that will serve to strengthen mutual understanding and trust and make it possible to raise U.S.-Russian relations to a qualitatively new level.”6

Ironically, even some scholars who study active measures adopted this rhetoric without realizing the Russian influence on them, the influence of those whom they study. As one scholar has stated, “I am not a Cold War warrior. I am a scholar. The Russians do not deserve to be treated this way.”7

      This strategy seems to be extremely effective. Silencing the opposition this way, Russian propagandists exempt the Russian political leadership from criticism, and those critics who choose a path of persistence often find themselves in isolation, oblivion, or being physically eliminated. Through active measures, Russian “subverters” have been skillfully manipulating the argument of balance and moderation, identifying their critics as individuals of unbalanced and one-sided views. This tactic works each time, obscuring the truth and promoting the Russian version of events, be it in politics or the social sphere. Russian threats and accusations of being radical and aggressive, and of spreading “scaring information” (quoting a clerk at the Russian Embassy who, it should be acknowledged, is likely a well-trained intelligence officer pretending to be a diplomat) end up covering dangers of a much more serious magnitude, such as the suppression, deletion, misrepresentation, and trivialization of information inconvenient for the aggressor, as well as the promotion of one view that should dominate the discourse. The augmentation of Russian power and narrative occurs precisely through these measures, through the deletion of pluralism of opinions.

In his new book Active Measures, Thomas Rid has noted that “[r]ecognizing an active measure can be difficult.”8 Recognizing the goal behind it might be even more challenging. What complicates this recognition is chaos. Spreading anarchy and chaos and disrupting order have long been a strategy embedded in active measures.9 Pulled to the right or to the left, confused, manipulated, and bluntly deceived, the general public, let alone disinformation professionals, lose their analytical perspective and defensive power. The cleverest of the cleverest get persuaded by nonsensical theories and explanations, embodying a living example of an erosion of cognitive abilities and common sense. It is not the power of disinformation itself that is magic and overarching but rather a combination of various tactics that makes people embrace a narrative which is structured and crystallized as a single message, gaining a strong foothold in their consciousness. Under the right circumstances, a single message, nicely packaged and to a degree intellectualized, is capable of shaping people’s strong beliefs and convictions. Beyond being effective, it is also contagious, if persistently repeated and circulated. Subscribing to a persuasive narrative helps people rid of confusions, insecurities, and vulnerabilities.

Most importantly, active measures erode democratic and social institutions, the pillars of democratic society, something that fascinated Alexis de Tocqueville upon his trip to the United States.