Russia is a “mafia state” that is trying to expand into a “mafia empire”Foreign Secretary David Lammy told the UN, highlighting the dual nature of Vladimir Putin’s political model. On the one hand, Russia represents something very old: a world of bullying empires that invade smaller countries, seize their resources, and indoctrinate their people into believing they are inferior. But it is also something very new: weaponizing corruption, criminal networks, assassinations and technology-driven psychological operations to subvert open societies. And if democracies do not act to stop it, this evil model will be imitated around the world.
Ukraine resists ancient zombie imperialism on the battlefield every day, and democracies will have to arm Ukraine and ourselves to adequately limit Russia. But how should we fight the more contemporary tools of political warfare pioneered by Russia? These are becoming more frequent. Globalization was meant to integrate us all in such a way that the risk of wars would decrease. Instead, the free flow of information, money, and people across borders also made subversion easier than ever. At the Labor Party conference, Lammy indicated that Democracies need to work together to stop Russia: “Expose its agents, develop joint capabilities and work with the global south to confront Putin’s lies.”
We have certainly improved on the exhibition part. This month, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada revealed that RT is more than just a state media that spews conspiracies; He works with the Russian intelligence and security services and participates in money laundering. Cyber “incidents” against Canadian infrastructure and gun fundraising. Because the prosecution focused on clear criminality, rather than legally opaque ideas like “disinformation,” justice departments could take concrete steps to disrupt the entire system of operations.
But that legal action is only one element of what a “joint capability” must achieve. The audiences targeted by Russian covert operations are still susceptible to the Kremlin’s messaging. Tenet Media, the Maga-media company where the Russians were secretly pay popular YouTubers $100,000 per video to defame Ukraine, reached 16 million views. Their hosts claim they had no idea who was paying them, and their audience doesn’t seem to care. Operations in Russia exploit audiences around the world, tapping into historically resonant anti-Western and anti-colonial sentiment in Africa and acting as what Lammy has called a “ringleader of a new fascism” that promotes racism in Europe. In Moldova spends 100 million dollars to subvert this year’s elections and referendum on EU entry, fielding fictitious candidates to confuse voters and spreading fears that joining the EU will lead to war. All of these narratives, from right to left to playing with fear, work.
Democracies will also need to communicate better than the Russians. That means deciding together which issues to focus on, to whom, and how.
Let’s think about Odessa, in Ukraine. Russia constantly launches missiles against the city, as well as propaganda to undermine its sovereignty. like him Decolonization of Odessa As the research project (to which I contributed) shows, Russia has spent years publishing films and television shows, maps and speeches that reiterate how Odessa belongs to the “Russian world.” The goal is to weaken the connection between Odessa and Ukraine and thus make Russia’s takeover easier in the eyes of the world.
A concerted effort to fight back would first decide which audiences are important to engage with and how to talk to them.
For those who care less about Ukraine’s sovereignty and more about food prices, it should be explained that Odessa is the center of the grain corridor that keeps supplies flowing to the world, especially the Middle East and Africa, while which helps keep food prices below expected levels. control in the US. If Russia captured Odessa, it could blackmail the world and control prices. Do we really want a gangster like Putin to manipulate the flow of grain at will?
Then you have to decide who should communicate this message. What can each ally do more at home? Which coalition nation can best reach a specific global audience? You will need to employ statesmen, current and past, and cultural figures who resonate with that audience; Organize cultural events, speak in churches and participate in television shows, and each country will bring its strengths to the effort. The goal is to ensure what Professor Nick Cull of the University of Southern California calls “reputational security”: ensuring that the representation of a place is well-known enough to help resist aggression. We do not need to adopt the same tactics as the Russians. Where they make troll farms, we can hold town hall meetings online. But you have to focus and scale.
But joint capability also has to be more about nation states coordinating strategic communication. We need to alter the Russian war machine much more intensely. And states are not the only important actors.
One of the big revelations of this war is how independent researchers examining customs records and other open source data can map networks and, unlike the secret services, make the evidence public. Take as an example the Economic Security Council of Ukraine (ESCU), a small team of researchers in Kyivwho managed to show the United States Congress how Russia acquires CNC tools, the complex machines that make weapons. Mapping supply chains is the first step to effective action to weaken Russia’s war machine: not just the dubious companies that help move equipment to Russia, but the origin of unique spare parts, raw materials, the mining equipment that extracts those materials, the lubricants used and so on. It’s a huge job, but open source researchers can map it surprisingly quickly.
Vulnerabilities emerge from the mapping: where are Russia’s critical supply chains particularly exposed to disruption? And from vulnerabilities emerge options for disruptive actions. Anti-corruption activists can uncover bad actors in the media. With the right data, companies can stop doing business with shady intermediaries. The United States and European states can create more surgical sanctions. Ukraine can take more direct measures.
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The Russian war machine is served by a vast criminal network. We have to build our own networks, merging the flexibility of open source researchers, anti-corruption activists, media, businesses, treasury departments and frontline state special forces.
Democracies have a much richer group of partners to draw on than dictatorships, which by definition operate in a more closed and dirigiste manner. The trick will be to get the democratic swarm to concentrate its forces together, something that dictatorships are better at. There is no time to waste. Dictatorships are beginning to coordinate more closely. Hacking networks aligned with Russia and Iran are hitting American utilities and British hospitals. Russian and Chinese companies are evading sanctions on military supplies. Their networks of troll farms, hackers, mercenaries and criminal gangs work faster and faster. Can we activate a democratic network to compete?
Peter Pomerantsev is the author. that nothing is true and everything is possible: adventures in modern Russia
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