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Global Engagement Center

GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatches #11

August 23, 2021

The Goals and Main Tactics of Russia’s Disinformation

The Goals of Russian Influence Operations

The overall goals of Russia’s influence operations are simple and straightforward:

  • manipulate others in a way that benefits Russia’s position
  • weaken the Kremlin’s perceived adversaries.

According to an authoritative KGB dictionary of intelligence terms edited by former KGB foreign intelligence chief archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, the goals of Soviet active measures (the KGB term for covert influence operations) were to 1) "exert influence on the adversary" and 2) "weaken his political, economic, scientific, and technical and military positions."

There is little reason to believe today’s Kremlin leaders, with their KGB backgrounds, have not instructed Russia’s intelligence services to use the same techniques in current operations. Examining these tactics can help understand and counter today’s disinformation operations.

 

Exerting Influence on Adversaries

Photo of Sergey Kondrashev

KGB manipulative efforts to exert influence on adversaries were the “most important” but “least visible” type of Soviet active measures, according to an authoritative 1982 U.S. interagency intelligence study.  The KGB used “agents of influence” (foreigners secretly working under KGB direction), “unwitting contacts,” and “the manipulation of private channels of communication” to influence others.  Such operations were conducted both clandestinely and openly. Clandestine efforts to manipulate others in ways that benefit Russia are examined in GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatches #9: Clandestine Disinformation and Agents of Influence.

The KGB’s disinformation department was set up in 1959 in large part to better coordinate clandestine KGB “agents of influence,” according to Sergey Kondrashev, the second person to head this department (pictured above; credit: Russian Foreign Intelligence Service). 

Kondrashev explained:

People in each geographical department of the KGB’s foreign intelligence directorate (FCD) continued to propose active measures (some foolishly ill-conceived, Kondrashev remarked), while KGB residencies abroad, too, were independently thinking up and carrying out ploys to serve their local purposes.

It was to concentrate these activities in a coordinated worldwide program with clear focus, and to better exploit the “influence” potential of the KGB’s secret sources inside Western governments, that [then-KGB Chief Alexander] Shelepin and [senior KGB officer Ivan] Agayants set up the new Department D in 1959.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, from 2000 to 2006, Tennett Bagley, a retired senior CIA officer, held dozens of lengthy, in-depth conversations with Kondrashev, who was retired from the KGB.  After Kondrashev died, Bagley recounted many of the observations he had made, such as the one above, in the 2013 book Spymaster: Startling Cold War Revelations of a Soviet KGB Chief.

One of the classic Soviet disinformation themes designed to manipulate others was the phony claim that the Soviet leadership was allegedly split between “hawks and doves” – “hardliners” and “liberals” – and the United States and other countries needed to make concessions so that the “doves” would have the upper hand.  Otherwise, the supposedly hardline “hawks” would pursue confrontational policies. Kondrashev admitted to Bagley that “his people had pushed this misconception, so beloved of Western commentators and analysts” as a way to try to trick other countries into making concessions to the USSR.  

Misconceptions like this made their way to the highest circles of the U.S. government. Charles “Chip” Bohlen, who had been an interpreter for President Franklin Roosevelt in his exchanges with Stalin at the Yalta conference in 1945, wrote about endorsing a similar mistaken impression in his memoir, Witness to History.  He said in 1945 he advised President Truman:

All of us who had been at Yalta “felt that the Soviet failure to carry out the agreement reached there had been due in large part to opposition inside the Soviet government which Stalin encountered on his return.” This is a view that was popular in Washington at the time; in the wartime atmosphere, I went along with it.

In his memoir, Bohlen said he was “amazed” he had made such a statement, adding, “there has never been any evidence that [Stalin] was overruled by other members of the Politburo.”  Nevertheless, such misconceptions influenced policy advice.  The KGB naturally encouraged such beliefs.

 

Four Main Tactics Used to Weaken Others

The second goal of Russian influence operations is to weaken their perceived adversaries’ political, economic, scientific, and technical and military positions. To do this, Russia’s influence operations use four main tactics or techniques:

  • Discredit
  • Divide
  • Disarm
  • Demoralize.

Russia tries to discredit adversaries to minimize their influence, divide targeted countries or groups to weaken them, disarm opponents and prevent them from mobilizing by downplaying the threat from Russia, and demoralize adversaries.

“The ideology of our active measures during the Cold War was simple — to inflict maximum political and moral damage on our opponents,” said Leonid Shebarshin, who headed KGB foreign intelligence from 1989 to 1991.

 

Discredit

Picture of Ladislav Bittman testifying to the U.S. Congress

Trying to discredit adversaries was daily, constant work for disinformation professionals in the KGB and Soviet-bloc intelligence agencies  In his 1972 book The Deception Game, Ladislav Bittman (at right; credit: The New York Times), deputy chief of the Czechoslovak intelligence service’s disinformation department from 1964 to 1966, compared the routine in the “disinformation factory” to what an “evil doctor” might do:

Our main objective was to note and dissect all the enemy’s weaknesses and sensitive or vulnerable spots and to analyze his failures and mistakes in order to exploit them.  The formulation of special operations might remind one of a doctor who, in treating the patient entrusted to his care, prolongs his illness and speeds him to an early grave instead of curing him.  (p. 124)

Today’s Russian propagandists, like their Soviet predecessors, report enthusiastically and at length on every misstep or imperfection in targeted countries.  Disinformation is also constant, and in many cases, the same type of false claims appear decade after decade.  For example, in the 1980s, the Soviets falsely accused the United States of creating the virus that causes AIDS.  Similarly, in 2020, Russia’s disinformation apparatus spread false claims accusing the United States of creating the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, as described in GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatch #5.  Smears, fabrications, hack-and-leak operations to uncover and reveal embarrassing information, and disinformation of all sorts are everyday tools to discredit others.

 

Divide

Photo of Oleg Gordievsky

Today, as before, the Kremlin seeks to weaken others by exacerbating divisions within international organizations like NATO or the EU, while seeking to weaken individual countries by fomenting conflicts within them.  

Ladislav Bittman said one of the main goals of Soviet Bloc active measures was that: 

The United States was to be divested of its allies in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Africa; it was to be isolated morally and politically; the withdrawal of American military strength from Europe was to be promoted.  (The Deception Game, p. 88)

He further explained:

Moscow envisages the moral and political isolation of the United States as preliminary to its military isolation, which would insure the withdrawal of American units from Europe.  Soviet planners calculate that individual West European states, even if highly developed economically, would not, singly or collectively, be capable of resisting Soviet armed forces without direct American assistance.  (The Deception Game, p. 89)

Twenty years later, Oleg Gordievsky (pictured above; credit Alamy), who defected to the United Kingdom after serving as the senior KGB intelligence officer in London, described Soviet goals in much the same terms.  The top secret KGB work plan for 1984 included in his book Instructions From the Centre: Top Secret Files on KGB Foreign Operations 1975-1985 included the following goals for active measures (pp. 19-20):

  • deepening disagreements inside NATO over its approach to implementing specific aspects of the bloc’s military policy; exacerbating contradictions between the USA, Western Europe, and Japan on other matters of principle;
  • … stimulating further development of the anti-war and anti-missile movements in the West …
  • assisting in consolidating and stepping up the activity of anti-imperialist forces in Asian, African, and Latin American countries and deepening contradictions between these countries and the developed capitalist states ….

In July 2021, a reported 1984 Czechoslovak disinformation operation to divide the Western alliance came to light.  According to the investigations editor for the UK Daily Mail:

Codenamed Operation Mount, it aimed to wreck the UK's special relationship with the US … by suggesting American operatives, rather than IRA terrorists, had blown up Prince Charles's beloved great-uncle [Louis Mountbatten] on his fishing boat in Ireland in 1979.

… The conspiracy has emerged in declassified files from the Czech security service archives dated January 1984 and marked 'Top Secret!'

Examining Russian influence operations today, when information can be shared instantaneously through the Internet and social media, there are unprecedented opportunities for hostile powers to exacerbate divisions in targeted societies.  One of the clearest examples was how Russia used phony social media personas to try to worsen political divisions in U.S. society during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) “conducted social media operations targeted at large U.S. audiences with the goal of sowing discord in the U.S. political system,” the Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election concluded. (p. 14)

In 2017, Facebook, Twitter, and Google (YouTube) gave the U.S. Congress tweets, images, and other content they had determined were linked to Russia’s IRA.  They were analyzed in the New Knowledge (now Yonder) report, The Tactics & Tropes of the Internet Research Agency, which found Russia focused on a broad range of “hot button” issues, including: 

  • Black culture/community issues
  • Police brutality/Black Lives Matter
  • Pro-police/Blue Lives Matter
  • Anti-refugee/immigration & border issues
  • Texas culture
  • Southern culture (Confederate history)
  • Separatist movements
  • Muslim issues
  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) issues
  • Gun rights/U.S. Second Amendment
  • Patriotism
  • Religious rights
  • Native American issues
  • Veterans issues.

Perhaps the clearest example of Russia’s attempts to create conflicts in the United States occurred when two IRA-driven Facebook groups organized rival rallies in Houston, Texas at the same time and place on May 21, 2016.  One group, “Heart of Texas” announced a rally to “Stop Islamification of Texas” in front of the Islamic Da’wah Center.  Meanwhile, a separate IRA-organized group, “United Muslims of America,” advertised a rally to “Save Islamic Knowledge” at the same location and time.  The apparent goal was to create conflict between the two groups.  “Interactions between the two groups eventually escalated into confrontation and verbal attacks,” the Texas Tribune newspaper reported, but there was no physical violence.  

At a Senate hearing that released samples of 3,000 Facebook ads purchased by the IRA during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Chairman Richard Burr said, “From a computer in St. Petersburg, Russia, these operators can create and promote events anywhere in the United States in attempt to tear apart our society.”

 

Disarm

Trying to “disarm” adversaries and prevent them from taking forceful actions against the Soviet Union was the primary thrust of Soviet disinformation efforts at two times: in the early 1920s, after the new Bolshevik regime had gained a decisive upper hand in the Russian civil war, and in the late 1980s just before the Soviet Union collapsed.  It is still a regular Russian disinformation theme.

In the early 1920s, the new Bolshevik regime’s disinformation messages portrayed it as being on the brink of collapse.  In the late 1980s, Soviet leaders tried to make it appear as if they no longer posed a threat to other countries.  In 1989, a senior Soviet official said their “secret weapon” was their determined effort to “deprive America of the enemy.”

 

The 1920s: The Trust

Photo of Felix Dzerzhinsky

In the early 1920s, the main adversaries of the Bolshevik regime were:

  • Russian émigré military organizations opposed to the Bolshevik “Reds,” known as “White Russians”
  • Foreign governments hostile to the new, revolutionary regime.

The first major disinformation operation, the “Trust,” sought to convince these adversaries that the Bolshevik regime did not have to be actively challenged because it was so weak it was about to collapse.  The goal of this disinformation was to prevent hostile émigré groups and foreign governments from taking aggressive, armed action against it.  

A newly created intelligence agency, informally known as the Cheka, penetrated the top ranks of a Russian anti-Bolshevik organization and put one of its senior members under its control. (Photo of Cheka head Felix Dzerzhinsky above; credit: Russia Beyond) The agent was used to spread false themes to émigré leaders and foreign governments, including:

  • Russia was beginning to awaken from a horrible revolutionary nightmare; anti-communist elements were gaining control of the system
  • The emigre groups should forego all activity inside Russia and dissuade foreign powers from aggressive acts
  • Work inside Russia would be performed by the anti-Bolshevik group and their efforts would be jeopardized by outside interference
  • Don’t make war against the USSR or execute acts of terror, because great changes are taking place and Russia soon again will become a respectable member of the community of nations.

Not everyone was fooled by these false themes, but many believed them.

For more information, see The Trust published by The Center for Intelligence Studies.

 

The 1980s: New Political Thinking

Former Soviet Foreign Minister on the cover of his book "The Future Belongs to Freedom"

In late 1980s, Soviet leaders realized they had lost the “Cold War,” their decades-long effort to convert military power into decisive political influence in Europe and elsewhere.  President Reagan’s military buildup, the Strategic Defense Initiative, and other U.S. policies caused them to conclude they needed to abandon confrontational policies that had roused the West after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

Soviet leaders made the desperate but audacious decision to try to achieve their goals by conciliatory, political means rather than predominately military-based, confrontational methods.  They designed an international strategy based, as then-Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (at right) put it, on “the primacy of the force of politics over the politics of force.”

They created 20-25 conciliatory themes designed to “eliminate the enemy image” and thereby cause the United States to abandon its steadfast policies.  The then-head of the USA and Canada Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences Georgi Arbatov said, “our major secret weapon is to deprive you of an enemy.”  This effort to disarm adversaries was very similar to what the Trust had tried to achieve 65 years earlier.

Not surprisingly, themes intended to disarm other countries remain a regular Russian disinformation technique today.  A February report by DebunkEU.org about Russian disinformation regarding Lithuania in January 2021 noted 23 mentions of the theme “The ‘Russia threat’ is a phony myth” as well as six mentions of the related theme “Lithuanian defense spending is motivated by an irrational fear of Russia.”  See GEC Counter-Disinformation Dispatch #10 for details.

 

Demoralize

Russian efforts to demoralize other nations target their self-confidence, denigrating them.  The classic example is the longtime Russian theme: “Ukraine is a failed state,” “Latvia is a failed state,” “Lithuania is a failed state,” and so on.

In February 2021, an analyst for DebunkEU.org in Lithuania noted that there had been a “noticeable growth of disinformation in January as Lithuania is portrayed as politically failed state.”  The report found 513 articles in Russian media in January 2021 containing 672 instances of disinformation about Lithuania.  Some 150 (22% of the total) falsely claimed that Lithuania is a “failed state” while another 52 (8%) falsely claimed “Lithuania could not survive without cooperating with Russia or the USSR.

 

Evaluating Effectiveness

Romanian defector Ion Mihai Pacepa

In Russia’s view, effectiveness in active measures and disinformation operations results from the cumulative effects of decades-long efforts.  The head of KGB foreign intelligence from 1955 to 1970, General Aleksandr Sakharovsky, emphasized, “A drop makes a hole in a stone not by force, but by constant dripping.”

Sakharovsky’s comment was recounted by Ion Mihai Pacepa(above; credit: The New York Times), who was acting director of Romania’s foreign intelligence agency when he defected in 1978, in his book Disinformation.  Pacepa said, “This was how disinformation worked: drop by drop by drop.”  

Ladislav Bittman voiced similar views.  He wrote, “disinformation specialists realize that a single operation, however competently conceived and executed, cannot significantly tip the existing power balance” and therefore “concentrate on the mass production of disinformation operations, hoping that over a period of several years there will be cumulative benefit ….”  (The Deception Game, p. 87)

Russian state disinformation has existed for 100 years, as the Bolsheviks, Soviet Union, and today’s Russian Federation have used many of the same techniques and tactics.  The goals have remained constant: to manipulate others in ways that benefit Russia’s position and to weaken the Kremlin’s perceived adversaries. Exposing the hostile, unscrupulous methods they use helps build opposition and resistance to them.

 

For more, see:

Next issue: “Spinning Nemtsov’s Murder and Other Murder Attempts"

Past issues: (also available in Russian, Spanish, French, and Arabic)

To contact us, email: GECDisinfoDispatches@state.gov