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| Now, a discussion on the strategy of the Russian military amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine from the Institute of World Politics. | ||
| This runs about 55 minutes. | ||
| Today we'll be hearing from Dr. Ivana Stradner of the Foundation of Defense of Democracies in a very timely lecture entitled Russian Hybrid Warfare in Central Europe. | ||
| Today's lecture is part of the Intermerium Lecture Series and the Koszuszko Chair of Polish Studies. | ||
| With that, I'd like to introduce Mr. Philip Stoczynski, our Director of Operations at IWP's Center for Intermarium Studies. | ||
| Thank you, Dr. Robbins. | ||
| In a world where covert threats from Russia and its proxies silently undermine the West's security, it is my privilege to introduce Dr. Ivana Stradner, an expert I've known for years who exposes these dangers with unmatched clarity. | ||
| When I worked in Poland to share Central and Eastern European perspectives with English-speaking audiences, Dr. Stradner was one of my first allies. | ||
| Her deep insights into Russia's strategies and her commitment to transatlantic gualience were invaluable. | ||
| In her lecture, she will unveil the stark reality of hybrid warfare. | ||
| Dr. Stradner serves as a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Barish Center for Media Integrity, where she studies Russia's security strategies, military doctrines, and information operations, exploring both their psychological and technical dimensions. | ||
| Her work also examines Russian influence in international organizations with a focus on the UN Cybercrime Treaty and efforts to regulate information security. | ||
| She has testified before the European Parliament, briefed government officials, and serves as a special correspondent for Kiev Post. | ||
| Additionally, Dr. Stradner is a senior adjunct lecturer at Johns Hopkins University and has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law, and a Jan Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. | ||
| Her writings appear in outlets like the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs Politico, and others. | ||
| When we planned this lecture, we chose hybrid warfare, a critical yet often misunderstood topic. | ||
| What are its tactics, its risks, and how should the West respond? | ||
| Last year, a Polish-NATO soldier died on the Polish-Belarusian border, stopped by a migrant with a makeshift weapon. | ||
| We now know many of these migrants are trained by Belarusian and Russian special forces. | ||
| A clear case of hybrid tactics. | ||
| Dr. Stradner is here to shed light on these critical issues. | ||
| Please join me in warmly welcoming Dr. Ivana Stradner. | ||
| Thank you, Dr. Robbins, for inviting me. | ||
| And thank you, Philip, for your kind remarks. | ||
| And indeed, when you were at TVP World, we worked together on countering Russian influence operations. | ||
| And thank you for all your outstanding work to protect the information space in Poland, but also to spread the truth about Russian lies in Eastern and Central Europe. | ||
| So when I discussed this topic with Philip actually a few months ago, because we had to postpone our lecture due to a false forecast about the weather, which was a pure propaganda, so we apologize for that. | ||
| But there is actually, I told earlier today, Philip, that there is a very long disinformation campaign coming actually from Moscow, how the United States is controlling the weather through HARP. | ||
| So if you grew up in Eastern and Central Europe, I'm quite certain that you learned about that. | ||
| Because every time when I mentioned that to my American friends, they have no idea what it is. | ||
| So clearly, that's a propaganda because otherwise we would have had that event several weeks ago. | ||
| But today I would like to discuss how Russia is operating in hybrid war. | ||
| And I'll start with the ugly truth, which is that we are in a hybrid war with Russia. | ||
| Even though the US policymakers do not want to oftentimes publicly state that, the Russian military intelligence do not shy away from openly discussing their hybrid warfare techniques. | ||
| So NATO just announced that Russia is already playing with sub-sea cables. | ||
| And if you are following the Baltic states, they have been warning about that for a very, very long time. | ||
| Why? | ||
| Because Russia doesn't need to send tanks and jets in any of those countries, including in Washington, DC, or Brussels, because they can use a plausible ability and right below the threshold of war to make sure that we do not respond. | ||
| But that doesn't really stop there because several weeks ago, the UK also exposed the spy ring made up of Bulgarian nationalists who plotted different kidnaps, disinformation campaigns, surveillance against Ukrainian troops and secret weapon trades with China. | ||
| And that was all recently written by a lot of experts in the UK where they exposed their activities. | ||
| Of course, Russia denied any involvement. | ||
| But if you again follow Russia's activities for a long time, you have probably realized that Russia has used assassinations on the Western soil, spread disinformation campaigns, used different cyber attacks against the West. | ||
| There were numerous arson activities in Eastern and Central Europe. | ||
| And as I mentioned, That's really that doesn't come as a surprise to anyone who is working on Russia because strategic deception is how Moscow actually thinks about wars, what I like to call a new generation war. | ||
| In the information space, what they love to do these days, they launched, relaunched, I would say, a new nuclear threat. | ||
| And again, they went on a full offensive, not only in the West, but also in the global south, to discuss how the United States has developed biological weapons, specifically from Ukraine, to target the Russians. | ||
| If you follow, and Philip just generously showed me the library here, you can find so many wonderful books on the Cold War. | ||
| This really doesn't come as a surprise because there was a very famous operation called Denver, where the KGB accused the CIA of developing HIV and that disinformation campaign was all over Africa. | ||
| They started with India that actually reached massive populations that unfortunately even nowadays people across the globe believe in this disinformation campaign. | ||
| The only thing that is different nowadays is that we have social media so such influence operations are much easier to be spread all over the globe. | ||
| And in a moment I will discuss this in more details. | ||
| But I always like to say as someone who grew up in Eastern Europe, there is part of me who really understands how the Kremlin thinks, but there is also the part of me who understands how the West thinks. | ||
| And it's oftentimes not really on the same page because the way that Russia understands strategic deception, it is very different from the way that we understand our wars. | ||
| So as the United States is negotiating with Russia, I think this is really worth mentioning. | ||
| But before I proceed, I want to also tell you an old Russian joke. | ||
| So there was a peasant who was surrounded by two houses and two neighbors. | ||
| And both neighbors also had cows. | ||
| And that peasant, he was really, really sad about that. | ||
| He was praying every day. | ||
| So God asked him, How can I make your life better? | ||
| Can I also give you a cow? | ||
| And he said, no, I want you to kill the cows of my neighbors. | ||
| So that really, when you think about Peace through trade and cooperation, how the West is thinking, it's very different how Moscow is thinking, oftentimes in zero-sum terms. | ||
| And someone even told me it's not even zero-sum, it's lose-lose is oftentimes the best outcome for Putin. | ||
| So it's not really that Russia is so strong that Russia can deceive us. | ||
| I actually think that oftentimes we deceive ourselves because we like to think that the world revolves around Washington, Brussels, or London when we do decision-making processes of our adversaries. | ||
| And active measures that were very, very prominent during the Cold War, this particular word became again popular for the past few years. | ||
| But there is really nothing new because the agents of influence, disinformation, cover press placement. | ||
| This was already happening on a daily basis back during the Cold War. | ||
| And I'm so glad that Philip asked me to discuss this issue outside of the election cycle because during the elections, whether it's like our midterms or our presidential elections, I'm very busy around that time because people really pay attention to Russian influence operations around the elections. | ||
| But that's very problematic because Russia cares about U.S. elections as long as they can polarize our society, as long as they can solve divisions. | ||
| But they're doing that 24-7 around different messaging. | ||
| So, for example, recently I was following Russian influence operations campaign related to a secessionist movement of California. | ||
| Last year, they launched an influence operation about Texas' secessionist movement. | ||
| They were on a daily basis influence operations around bioweapons, about nuclear threats, about potential World War III. | ||
| I can go on and on. | ||
| Any question that can divide our society is a dream come true for Russia. | ||
| And the most beautiful thing about working on Russia is that they actually don't even hide their plans. | ||
| I don't know if you read just recently Putin's speech related to the Arctic. | ||
| If you haven't done that, please read that because in 2007, people didn't believe Putin when he disclosed his plans during the Munich conference. | ||
| A few weeks ago, he discussed in details his plan related to the Arctic for the next few years. | ||
| The reason why I'm telling you this, the Ministry of Defense of Russia openly claimed they established something what they called information operation forces, and they claim that propaganda should be smart, competent, and effective. | ||
| And they talk in detail how they value non-military to military efforts 4 to 1, which really tells you all you need to know why Russia doesn't need to roll on tanks and jets in any of the Western capitals, because Putin can accomplish a lot of his objectives without a single bullet. | ||
| And if you really go back to Russia's invasion in Ukraine in 2014, you can actually really see the hybrid war in action, how without a single bullet, Putin was able to accomplish a lot of his objectives. | ||
| So now the question is, the big question is, what does really Russia want? | ||
| So there are a couple of things. | ||
| Number one is to attack our center of gravity. | ||
| which is alliances. | ||
| And I will in a moment discuss in detail how Russia is operating in Central and Eastern Europe and why we should care about that. | ||
| Second thing is, I know that every time when I mention BRICS, people laugh in the West. | ||
| They claim who cares. | ||
| But for Russia, China, they perceive BRICS as an ideological institution, as a place where they can push for their new agenda, something that is called what I like to call a multipolar world. | ||
| And I'm not saying that Russia can achieve its objective to establish a new world order, but what I'm saying is that this war is a war about perception and who has information superiority is going to win this war. | ||
| And that is precisely, if you think about NATO and the establishment of NATO several decades ago, it was created first in a perception. | ||
| And that's exactly how I see how Russia with its allies are operating through BRICS to establish a new world order in the global south. | ||
| The second, the third thing that I want to emphasize is chaos. | ||
| And this is really nothing new because we already saw what has happened here in the US for the past 10 years in terms of the elections, in terms of influence operations, but also elsewhere in Western Europe, but also Eastern and Central Europe. | ||
| One of the key pillars for Russia is to show that the European Union and NATO are paper tigers. | ||
| And as I mentioned, they do not need to roll on tanks and jets in the Baltic states, I worry, that another hybrid operation might happen in one of those countries where Putin can just send peacekeepers and to make sure that we do not respond. | ||
| The same is true with the EU enlargement that is happening right now and how Russia is already targeting places such as Moldova, places such as Georgia and the Western Balkans, because Putin fears democracy and freedom more than he fears our nukes. | ||
| I know this is a bold statement, but I will explain in a moment why I firmly stand behind this statement. | ||
| Speaking of Russia's plans, this is directly from Russia's Ministry of Defense, how they define information wars. | ||
| If you do not believe me for the past few minutes what I told you, you're more than welcome to read a direct quote from the Russian Ministry of Defense about their plans to destabilize society and the government. | ||
| And they openly claim Russian strategies that in the ongoing revolution in information technologies, information and psychological warfare will largely lay the groundwork for a victory. | ||
| So how does Russia really operate? | ||
| They plan to target decision-making processes of their enemies. | ||
| Not to sound like a boring academic, but I really have to this time, because this is the cornerstone of Russian information operations. | ||
| Usually, you know, in the West when we discuss influence operations, we talk about, you know, some random bots and trolls targeting the audience, but this is not some hodgepodge, you know, on social media. | ||
| There is actually a doctrine called reflexive control, which is a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to incline him to voluntarily make predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action. | ||
| To translate in a plain English, I'm going to feed my opponent with certain information that he or she believes will benefit him or her, but will actually benefit me. | ||
| And one thing that Russia is really, really good at, because they had to be good at this, to understand how their enemies think. | ||
| So back during the Cold War, there was a psychologist and mathematician called Vladimir Lefebvre, who was, if I may call it, the founding father of reflexive control. | ||
| But the way that he developed this model, he decided to study American ethics. | ||
| So he developed a very detailed understanding how the United States, how our ethical system here operates versus how Russian ethical system operates. | ||
| And then he decided to make this game. | ||
| So if you ever took, if you're a graduate student and had to take a game theory class, there is also a Russian version of a nuclear deterrence, game theory nuclear deterrence. | ||
| So basically the game goes as a three model. | ||
| One is your decisions. | ||
| The second one is your adversary's decision. | ||
| And the third one is a decision-making unit. | ||
| So this is how Russia even nowadays is operating in the information space. | ||
| And downstairs in your library, I went through some old Russian propaganda. | ||
| There was like a hard copy version of it. | ||
| The only thing that is different nowadays is new technologies. | ||
| But Russia has also adapted its influence operations. | ||
| So it's not any more about bots and trolls on social media. | ||
| They, for example, now use social media influencers. | ||
| They love to invite very popular social media influencers to Russia, those social media influencers like in fashion, in music, in sports, to give them what I like to call like a media training. | ||
| So those influence operations then look like a grassroots movement. | ||
| They have also learned, you know, how to establish like a fake website that can mirror regular websites. | ||
| So I can go on and on explaining in details. | ||
| But I want to put everything that I explained earlier today in a context of how Russia is operating in Central and Eastern Europe. | ||
| Russia understands very, very well that Central and Eastern Europe are important for the EU, for the United States, as their sphere also of influence. | ||
| And everything what I explained earlier today, whether it is about Biological weapons, again accusing the United States for operating biological weapons in Ukraine. | ||
| I remember I was observing what Russia was doing in places such as Georgia, Moldova, and the Western Balkans. | ||
| So there was at the same time a very interesting influence operations: how apparently the United States was taking DNA swabs during the COVID, and the United States developed an ethnical bioweapon targeting what they like to call specifically the Slavic nation. | ||
| Then there was another one where they accused, and of course it makes sense because such an influence operations would resonate in a lot of countries in Central and Eastern Europe. | ||
| There was another one where allegedly we train migratory birds to fly from Ukraine specifically to deliver bioweapons targeting the Russians. | ||
| But my logical, I'm not really an expert on bioweapons, but I have enough logic to ask this question. | ||
| If we were training migratory birds to deliver weapons to target the Russians, eventually those migratory birds have to come back. | ||
| So why would we allow infected migratory birds to come back? | ||
| Then the UNO also accused us of developing bioweapons and delivering weapons through drones. | ||
| And all those things have been all over the information space in Eastern and Central Europe. | ||
| There was another really interesting one, which is how Russia is a pillar of traditional Moran spiritual values. | ||
| And if you read carefully Russian national security documents, including national security strategy, including their foreign policy concept, including Russia's first information security strategy that was right after Putin came to power, they discuss how Russia is a pillar of traditional and warrior and spiritual values. | ||
| And think about this. | ||
| It resonates with a lot of people because in a very polarized society where Russia was targeting both the far right and the far left, it absolutely makes sense that they can trigger those narratives on both sides. | ||
| But there is, you know, also another ugly truth about Russian traditional and moral and spiritual values, which is you have the Russian Orthodox Church that has always had very close ties to the Russian intelligence and the military. | ||
| Russia has one of the highest abortion rates in Europe. | ||
| Russia has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe. | ||
| And I can go on and on giving you like multiple examples how it's quite ironic that Russia is spreading those narratives, but it actually works. | ||
| And I'll give you one more example. | ||
| In 2022, I woke up one day and I saw on Twitter hashtags monkeypox. | ||
| I'm again, you know, not an expert on bioweapons, but I was like, let me just Google to see what this is. | ||
| So I immediately checked, like on Russian news and the Russian Ministry of Defense, where they basically claim how the U.S. just developed a new biological weapon called monkeypox. | ||
| I think nowadays you can only call it MPOX. | ||
| So, but nevertheless, and this is how Russia operates in that space. | ||
| They claimed that there was a tabletop game during the Munich conference a few months earlier where they were discussing monkeypox. | ||
| And apparently, the fake scenario was that X number of people will die. | ||
| So they were basically just practicing after COVID what might happen with the new pandemic. | ||
| Completely just, it was just a tabletop game. | ||
| Surprise, surprise, exactly on that month, MPOC really happened. | ||
| And Russia immediately launched a full influence operations campaign targeting specifically LGBTQ communities, stating that ampox only attracts young people, LGBTQ communities. | ||
| So it was really interesting also to observe how that influence operations was spread all over Eastern Europe. | ||
| And then, on top of that, Russia launched again a new campaign claiming, but we do not have a problem with MPOCs because we are a pillar of traditional moral and spiritual values. | ||
| And that campaign was specifically designed for TikTok. | ||
| So Philip briefly mentioned the situation in Poland. | ||
| And indeed, Russia has been weaponizing the migration crisis for a very long time. | ||
| And this is not a conspiracy theory. | ||
| It's rather truly how Russia is operating with the help of Belarus to push all those migrants through Poland all the way to Western Europe and then to launch additional influence operations claiming, targeting specifically the right groups, claiming that there is a migration crisis in Europe, and you can only imagine all those narratives that are happening. | ||
| So this is a real thing, and my concern is that very soon we might actually see a similar campaign in Europe. | ||
| My favorite influence operations campaign is related to nuclear weapons. | ||
| And the reason for that is because, unfortunately, it worked. | ||
| And it's so ridiculous, that's why it's my favorite. | ||
| But unfortunately, it works with a lot of people. | ||
| So as soon as Russia launched its full-scale operation and war in Ukraine, Russia immediately stated that nukes were on alert. | ||
| And the Biden administration was reluctant to send weapons out of fear of escalation. | ||
| And this escalation management, it's not a part of my discussion. | ||
| It requires a separate talk. | ||
| But if you, for example, see every time we're about to deliver a weapon, a new weapons to Ukraine, Russia would launch a similar campaign. | ||
| The problem with this is that this is an old Russian campaign because they understand exactly mirror imaging. | ||
| They understand exactly how policymakers would not like to see what I like to call an Amergedins scenario. | ||
| And the whole idea about Russian influence operations during the Cold War and those games that I explained, they were made around nuclear weapons. | ||
| And in Eastern and Central Europe, while I can name multiple policymakers across the West here in the US, but also in Western Europe, policymakers also in Eastern and Central Europe welcome this disinformation campaign. | ||
| So you have Hungary, Slovakia, and Serbia. | ||
| All three leaders immediately stated that there might be a new nuclear war and the World War III scenario if we continue to help Ukraine. | ||
| And this is really important because one thing that Russia understands is really how mirror imaging works. | ||
| So that's something that they're really good at. | ||
| Another topic that I would love to discuss is Russia's obsession with color revolutions. | ||
| And if you follow what's happening in Georgia right now and in Serbia with massive protests and earlier what was happening in Armenia, there were a lot of other protests, including in Slovakia before, and I can go on and on for the past years. | ||
| There is always a scenario that Russia is pushing in the information space how the US is behind color revolutions. | ||
| And every time when I talk about this topic with my colleagues from Moldova and Georgia, we always make jokes that we can literally just change the name of the country and it's the same narrative, the same outlets, the same people, the same language. | ||
| So they don't really have to even spend a lot of time and effort to develop new narratives because apparently it's always the same. | ||
| And my concern is also with the latest foreign agent law that is happening right now in places such as Georgia, | ||
| but there are other countries in Eastern and Central Europe that are considering to adopt a similar law, that that's another part of Russian truly hybrid war against the West to make sure that they have a sphere of influence that they are impactful and that we will not respond. | ||
| And there are always narratives about the CAA being behind it. | ||
| There is SORS behind that. | ||
| There is the USAID behind that. | ||
| Every time there is a similar scenario. |