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Thread: Ukraine: Russo-Ukr War (June-December 2015)

  1. #1901
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    Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
    An update to Post 1833 from RT of all places.

    A reminder first: 2k Russian dead and 3.2k invalids Whoops:
    RT maintains the story is a fabrication and points the "finger" at Kiev.

    Link:http://www.rt.com/news/313653-russia...s-fake-forbes/
    Be careful with this article as it is interesting that the actual document was first released--archived though by social media--then suddenly withdrawn and released in a redacted fashion--all within say a timeframe of 20 minutes.

    If in theory I am working disinformation then why would I first place the article then withdraw it and then rerelease a redacted version? Just place it into play and move on. Yes in theory if one wants a quick attention getter then withdraw and redact---but releasing the figures in the first place was a direct violation of the new Russian law on the reporting of military loses even in so called peace time.

    The original and redacted versions have been released by social media in order to do a side by side comparison of the changes.

    WHAT the FSB did not anticipate as it was their pressure to redact under the new Russian law concerning the non reporting of Russian war loss figures was the speed by which social media caught it in Russian and that social media has learned with their own info war abilities to archive everything and some of the social media has the ability to store terabytes of archived media for later review.

    NOW comes the interesting info war game--in some ways the released figures really do parallel a large number of social media reports since August 2014 and if the imagery work done by them is accurate and it usually has been lately --alone in the Rostov an Don region there have been 1200 new grave sites dug and filled in since August 2014 with a large number of those graves being dug in the last six months.

    Alone on grave site confirmations ---1.2K have been killed--the problem is are they all Russian mercenaries or is there a mixture???--some sources have been quoted as stating those are just the unidentified that could not be sent back to their own towns for burial there.

    That imagery has been geo tagged, dated and released into social media for further verification--western mainstream media response to this reporting--a big fat ZERO.

    REMEMBER in the month of late July 2015 through to mid August 2015 the OSCE SMM in the Ukraine reported 21 semi trailer trucks carrying +200 cargo--200 refers to Russian KIAs. Russia has been shipping only the bodies back in body bags to Rostov where they are then placed into coffins and a death certificate is issued. If we take conservative figure of just 20 per truck then that alone is 420 KIAs if as usual we take the normal load of 40-50 in each truck then that conservative figure is say 800-1050--again the problem is what is the mixture of mercenary to regular army dead.

    Western mainstream media reporting of this--a big fat ZERO.

    NOW the info war game begins---the initial denial and statements that the story was a fake came from TASS--total Russian controlled media and then Russia Today started their drumbeat--remember RT also totally Russian controlled and in over 126 countries has a far larger target audience than does TASS--Russian info warriors had noticed little to no take up with the TASS PR so they moved their efforts on to RT.

    NOW it gets interesting after Forbes released they article--I watched this all day and into last night--then a number of somewhat reliable western journalists started to repeat what RT had stated and openly doubted the initial report of the KIA numbers, then a few other western media outlets started carrying the RT report as well. Something to remember is normally social media is quick to state fake or real---noticed that social media stayed on the sidelines after releasing it and still are---they are accepting as real and feel no further need to jump in--Ukrainian media is also quiet as they are assuming the figures are real as well.

    THEN last night a Russia troll under guise as a reliable commenter stated at he had compared the document and found similar wording of the first report on an old archived document from a few years ago alluding that the first report was a blatant fake.

    NOTICE that in all of this info war fight not a single western journalist and or western mainstream media has picked up the OSCE +200 movement reporting and or the verified and geo tagged imagery of the 1200 graves-that cannot be replicated and faked.

    INTERESTING question--just why does all and I mean all of the so called independent western media ignor anything coming out of the Ukraine and why are they so lax in their fact checking????

    I can count at least six major articles released by western media since the Russian invasion that have been based on Russian faked information and yet when called out by social media requesting retractions--silence is their response.
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 07:18 AM.

  2. #1902
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    Informational warfare and cyber warfare/cyber crime are the two key elements in the so called Russian non linear warfare or what many are calling hybrid warfare but really it is nothing more than a strategic UW strategy designed to win without a massive conventional confrontation. BTW it fits the IS, Iran and China as well.

    One will notice that even from Russian governmental and military sourced materials on information warfare—Russia is in clear violation of their own doctrine towards the Ukraine—again the timeframe of 2008-2011 is in fact interesting since Russian non linear warfare and or the term New Generational Warfare ---is basically a Russian strategic UW strategy-- was also evolving during the same timeframe.

    And if coupled with

    National Defence Academy of Latvia
    Center for Security and Strategic Research
    RUSSIA’S NEW GENERATION WARFARE IN UKRAINE:
    IMPLICATIONS FOR LATVIAN DEFENSE POLICY
    FOI-R--4065--SE

    Russian Information Warfare----taken from page 14----

    The conceptual views also offer a number of important definitions, some of which are worth quoting in extenso (Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation, 2011) (all from § 1):
    Military conflict in the information space [voennyi konflikt v informatsionnom prostranstve] is a way to resolve conflicts between or within states by the use of information weapons. An information weapon [informatsionnoe oruzhie] is information technology, means and methods that are used in order to wage information war.

    Information war [informatsionnaia voina] is a struggle between two or more states in the information space with the goal to damage information systems, processes or resources, critical or other infrastructure, to undermine political, economic and social systems, to destabilize a society and a state by massive psychological influence on the population, and also putting pressure on a state to make decisions that are in the interest of the opponent.

    The information space [informatsionnoe prostranstvo] is the sphere of activity related to forming, creating, converting, transmitting, using and storing information to influence both individuals and society, information infrastructure, and information itself.

    Both designed to support but not only-----deception on the operational level [operativnaia maskirovka].

    Concerning the influence aspects of information war, it is thus worth looking at some wordings in the “Concept for the security of the society of the Russian Federation”, published in 2013 (Government of Russia, 2013):
    One of the main sources of threats to the security of society is the extremist activities of nationalist, religious, ethnic and other organizations and structures aiming to ruin the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, and to destabilize the domestic political and social situation in the country. The spread of extremist sentiments among the youth is of particular concern. Members of extremist organizations actively employ modern technologies, including the information and telecommunications network the Internet, to spread extremist material, to attract new members into their ranks, and to coordinate illegal activity (§ 11).

    It is noteworthy that these wordings appeared after the events of the Russian 2011–2012 election cycle, with its large-scale popular protests against the rigging of elections and the corruption of those in power, and the corresponding government crackdown against the opposition after Putin was reinstated as president. For a further analysis of these events, see Franke and Vendil Pallin (2012).
    Taken from page 19—

    Since 1998, Russia has sponsored a series of resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly, called “Developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international
    security” (UN GA, 2014). The fact that Russia has chosen the United Nations General Assembly First Committee, which deals with disarmament, as the forum in which to push these questions is interesting.

    As part of this work, a draft “Convention on international information security”, intended for widespread adoption by the countries of the world, is being promoted by the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, a). The Russian-language version is available on the website of the Russian Federation National Security Council (Ministry of
    Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, b). This draft convention was originally made public in Yekaterinburg in September 2011.

    In the context of information operations, it is instructive to consider “the main threats in the information space that could damage international peace and stability” enumerated in the draft convention (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, a) (all from article 4):

    1) the use of information technology and means of storing and transferring
    information to engage in hostile activity and acts of aggression;

    2) purposefully destructive behaviour in the information space aimed against critically important structures of the government of another State;

    3) the illegal use of the information resources of another government without the permission of that government, in the information space where those resources are located;

    4) actions in the information space aimed at undermining the political, economic, and social system of another government, and psychological campaigns carried out against the population of a State with the intent of destabilizing society;

    5) the use of the international information space by governmental and non-governmental structures, organizations, groups, and individuals for terrorist, extremist, or other criminal purposes;

    6) the dissemination of information across national borders, in a manner opposed to the principles and norms of international law, as well as the national legislation of the government involved;

    7) the use of an information infrastructure to disseminate information intended to inflame national, ethnic, or religious conflict, racist and xenophobic written materials, images or any other type of presenting ideas or theories that promote, enable, or incite hatred, discrimination, or violence against any individual or group, if the supporting reasons are based on race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, or religion;

    8) the manipulation of the flow of information in the information space of other governments, disinformation or the concealment of information with the goal of adversely affecting the psychological or spiritual state of society, or eroding traditional cultural, moral, ethical, and aesthetic values;

    9) the use, carried out in the information space, of information and communication technology and means to the detriment of fundamental human rights and freedoms;

    10) the denial of access to new information and communication technologies, the creation of a state of technological dependence in the sphere of informatization [informatizatsiia], to the detriment of another State;

    11) information expansion, gaining control over the national information resources of another State.
    Eve Hunter with Piret Pernik
    April 2015
    The Challenges of Hybrid Warfare
    ISSN 2228-2076

    Taken from page 4:

    Tactical Convergence: Information Warfare

    Information Warfare takes on a different meaning in the Russian Federation. While in the West there is an emphasis on information “operations” as distinct from concrete acts of war, Russian doctrine specifically talks about war. Information war is defined as follows:

    “Confrontation between two or more states in the information space to damage the information systems, processes and resources, which are of critical importance, and other structures, to undermine the political, economic and social system, and effect massive brainwashing of the population for destabilizing the society and the state, and also forcing the state to make decisions in the interests of the confronting party.”
    Interestingly enough, Russian infiltration of Ukrainian social media and networks would, under this definition, constitute information warfare.
    BLUF----if one really intensively studies the Russian open sources Russia is actually following now the concept of a "permanent war" even in peace time --thus if there is a "permanent war one needs a permanent enemy".

    This is a major difference from the Soviet Union foreign policies of the Cold War.

    That enemy in the eyes of Russia as seen through the lens of Putin is the US and it blames literally ALL the ails of the world front and center on the US with it's evil driving force "neo-liberalism".

    Neo-liberalism as Russian translated means rule of law, good governance and transparency---and Putin is correct--these three things are the death of the current Putin regime and he fears them as a vampire fears the sunlight.

    Translated this means he is in total fear of a Maidan occurring in Moscow.

    The massive series of security law changes, the total control now placed over the media and internet are strictly designed to shut down the flow of information to the Russian civil society in order to prevent a Maidan--ALL done not before the Ukrainian Maidan events but started one month after Crimea.
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-29-2015 at 09:26 AM. Reason: remove underling for passage in bold.

  3. #1903
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    All I can say is amen.....to this article--I have been stating over and over that Obama has absolutely no strategic strategy for dealing with Putin other than he being worried about his legacy and legacies do not make strategy.

    Obama has in some ways shifted his foreign policy to that US form of isolationism of the 1920s just after WW1 and it cost the US dearly when it had to come out of that isolationist phase and rejoined the rest of the world.

    Really well worth the reading of this article as it sums up a number of areas that I have been commenting on since the Crimea annexation.

    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...ama-and-europe

    Obama and Europe
    Missed Signals, Renewed Commitments


    By Anne Applebaum

    Even now, gazing back through the jaundiced lens of subsequent experience, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign speech in Berlin still seems an extraordinary occasion. Tens of thousands of mostly young Germans gathered in the center of the city to listen to the American presidential candidate, in an atmosphere The Guardian described as “a pop festival, a summer gathering of peace, love—and loathing of George Bush.” Streets were closed for the occasion. Bands played to warm up the crowd.

    When he spoke, Obama said just what the Germans, and so many other Europeans, wanted to hear. He reaffirmed the United States’ commitment to Europe, evoking the Berlin airlift and the fall of the Berlin Wall. He praised the virtues of “allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.” He listed a series of global problems and declared that “no one nation, no matter how large or how powerful, can defeat such challenges alone.” That one phrase—again, according to The Guardian’s gushing account—prompted long and hearty cheers.

    Germany was not alone in its rapture. Soon after he was elected president, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—simply, it seems, for the fact that he was not George W. Bush. With those kinds of absurd expectations surrounding his presidency, it was clearly impossible for Obama to avoid disappointing the Europeans. What is only surprising, in retrospect, is the speed with which he did so—and with which the Europeans disappointed him.

    A TELLING 2009

    Three early incidents illustrate the nature of the problem. The first was the so-called reset with Russia. In March 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with her Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and presented him with a gift: a giant red “reset button,” made especially for the occasion. Despite an unfortunate mistranslation (the Russian word printed on the gift actually meant “overcharge,” not “reset”), they smiled and pressed the button together for the cameras. The implication of the stunt was clear: U.S.-Russian relations, inexplicably damaged by the Bush administration, could now begin afresh. Surely, there were no fundamental differences or important divides that could not be bridged with dialogue.

    The second important event was the NATO summit of April 2009, which also happened to mark the 60th anniversary of the alliance. Like so many NATO events, this one seemed designed to bore. Each of the members had sent its head of state, and all of them felt they had the right to make a long speech, with the usual words about commitment, significance, and so on. Nothing important was said or decided at the event. An American request for more troops in Afghanistan met with almost no response.

    The third was the Obama administration’s decision, in September 2009, to cancel the eastern European missile defense program, which had been proposed by Bush and which would have required the placement of hardware in the Czech Republic and Poland. The decision was not altogether surprising: Obama had expressed perfectly reasonable doubts about the value and feasibility of the expensive program earlier. But the manner of the announcement caused some distress. Apparently reacting to what they thought was a leak, White House officials roused the Czech prime minister in the middle of the night to tell him about the decision; the Polish prime minister refused to take a similar call. Both governments had invested a large amount of political capital in the program, not for its own sake but because both wanted a U.S. military presence on their soil for their security. Both were unprepared for the decision and embarrassed by it.

    Looking back at 2009, in other words, the patterns that would determine the shape of relations among the United States, Europe, and Russia over the next five years were already visible. At least until nearly the second half of Obama’s second term, neither the president nor anyone on his foreign policy team took European security seriously. The continent was considered safe and dull, a place for photo opportunities rather than real debate. NATO, which even then was desperately in need of radical institutional change, was thought too uninteresting to bother reforming. Europe’s refusal to contribute more troops to Afghanistan created not concern but a kind of disgust. The security fears of central Europe and the Baltic states were an afterthought, not even worth any extra diplomatic effort. Although the EU was slowly developing a deeper relationship with Kiev, Ukraine scarcely figured in U.S. thinking at that time. Despite the support that Europeans had given him during his election campaign, the president seems to have quickly concluded that his real efforts should lie elsewhere.

    The patterns that would determine the shape of relations among the United States, Europe, and Russia over the next five years were already visible in 2009.

    As for Russia, the analysis was straightforward: all the problems in U.S.-Russian relations were the fault of the previous president, with his bellicose rhetoric and his missile defense shield. Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia was quietly blamed on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president. The profound differences in psychology, philosophy, and policy that had actually been the central sources of friction between the U.S. and Russian governments for the previous decade were dismissed or downplayed.

    Yet even in early 2009, those differences were growing sharper. Given what came later, it is worth looking at remarks that Lavrov made at the German Marshall Fund’s March 2009 forum in Brussels. Speaking to past and present policymakers—several of whom had helped dismember the Warsaw Pact and expand NATO in the 1990s—Lavrov suggested that the West had lied to Russia, that NATO remained a threat to Russia, that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should replace NATO as the primary Western security organization, and that Russia would have plenty of potential clients for its gas in East Asia should its Western customers ever become problematic.

    MISSED SIGNALS

    None of that sounded like the rhetoric of a country ready for a reset, and Russia’s evolving military strategy wasn’t any more comforting. During Zapad 2009, major military exercises that Russia held in 2009, the Russian army practiced a particularly aggressive scenario: the defense of a Baltic invasion of Belarus and a war with NATO-like forces, culminating in a first-use nuclear attack on Warsaw. Alarmed by this, Poland and the Baltic states stepped up their lobbying for a greater NATO presence in the region. In private, many officials worried that Russia would, sooner or later, do what its military had exercised. That was certainly what had happened in Georgia. But neither NATO nor the Obama administration was yet inclined to take such extreme scenarios seriously. The idea that Russia might again pose a real military threat to Europe still seemed absurd.

    Continued......

    Moscow used the good relations of the reset era to rebuild Russia’s military and strengthen its internal repression.

    Continued.....

    Russian efforts to undermine Ukraine continue; financial catastrophe, as well as more fighting, may follow. In the current atmosphere, Russia doesn’t need to invent Europe’s problems; it just needs to exacerbate them.
    Continued.........

  4. #1904
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    More and more evidence the so called Russian “humanitarian aid convoys” now at 37 are nothing more that blatant military resupply missions—and in full violation of Ukrainian law and international law by not allowing Red Cross inspections and Ukrainian border controls YET Obama and his NSC absolutely say nothing.

    EXCEPT he urges Russia to adhere to Minsk---just what the heck in diplomatic terms does the word “urges” even means?????????

    Russian army in DPR receives new range-finder instruments (VIDEO) 27 Aug https://vk.com/svdonbass?w=wall-76371964_1686 … pic.twitter.com/0HZlDx8HmT

    Funny this humanitarian aid sent to Donbass from Russia. https://twitter.com/GorseFires/statu...90226810380288 … pic.twitter.com/m95PomUPQa

    Russian Spetsnaz attempted another breakthrough and was pushed back.
    Militant subversive group of 10 w/ IFV tried to outflank Ukr positions in Bohdanivka near #Mariupol, were repelled
    https://www.facebook.com/ato.news/po...56386381038834

  5. #1905
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    Russia's proxies decreased the number of attacks, fired 74 times upon Ukrainian forces on 28 Aug https://www.facebook.com/ato.news/po...56386381038834

    In Krymske, #Luhansk region 2 servicemen got wounded having tripped a mine. Are natives of Volyn region, #Crimea http://loga.gov.ua/oda/press/news/20...ews_67709.html

    UAV video evidence for "the Hague Tribunal"
    GIVI's #Donetsk base. Surrounding airport area.
    ->https://youtu.be/WkhjjehKUJc pic.twitter.com/waaaPxsWcM

    During the past day, 2 Ukrainian soldiers were wounded after hitting a mine near Krymske - Tuka
    http://112.ua/ato/v-krymskom-dvoe-uk...ke-254909.html

    WHY do we hear this from Biden and the US Ambassador to the Ukraine BUT not from Obama, Hollande and Merkel?????? What the heck—we did have a President named Obama the last time I checked Google.

    Geoffrey Pyatt ✔ @GeoffPyatt
    .@VP strongly criticized stmt by separatist leaders planning to take additional territory & hold local elections outside Ukr legal framework

    Rebels in Ukraine's Donetsk plan referendum on joining Russia: media - Xinhua | http://English.news.cn http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20..._134535215.htm

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    Professional Russian Army in Ukraine. Database and Visualisation via @en_informnapalm pic.twitter.com/tz1CERIZpu http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/28-augu...e-database-and

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    This individual is a close friend of Putin who he used to get him into the EU as he was under travel sanctions and then he demands this...........

    Sanctioned MP #Kobzon, allowed into Germany for cancer treatment, calls for suspension of diplomatic relations w/ US.
    http://www.newsru.com/russia/29aug2015/kobzonsays.html

    So he wants the benefits of western medical treatment vs that great Russian cancer treatment that he could get cheaper and yet he still complains....typical Russian Orwellian doublespeak ---I want the best but I do not want the best BUT I want it cheap better yet free.

    Ukrainians Filed To ECHR Over 600 Lawsuits Due To Russian Aggression - Petrenko http://ukraineunderattack.org/en/324...-petrenko.html

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    Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
    This individual is a close friend of Putin who he used to get him into the EU as he was under travel sanctions and then he demands this...........

    Sanctioned MP #Kobzon, allowed into Germany for cancer treatment, calls for suspension of diplomatic relations w/ US.
    http://www.newsru.com/russia/29aug2015/kobzonsays.html

    So he wants the benefits of western medical treatment vs that great Russian cancer treatment that he could get cheaper and yet he still complains....typical Russian Orwellian doublespeak ---I want the best but I do not want the best BUT I want it cheap better yet free.

    Ukrainians Filed To ECHR Over 600 Lawsuits Due To Russian Aggression - Petrenko http://ukraineunderattack.org/en/324...-petrenko.html
    West! Why impose personal sanctions on Putin's mafia if per Putin's request they can be lifted??? https://twitter.com/christogrozev/st...37181544939520

  9. #1909
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    Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
    Be careful with this article as it is interesting that the actual document was first released--archived though by social media--then suddenly withdrawn and released in a redacted fashion--all within say a timeframe of 20 minutes.

    If in theory I am working disinformation then why would I first place the article then withdraw it and then rerelease a redacted version? Just place it into play and move on. Yes in theory if one wants a quick attention getter then withdraw and redact---but releasing the figures in the first place was a direct violation of the new Russian law on the reporting of military loses even in so called peace time.

    The original and redacted versions have been released by social media in order to do a side by side comparison of the changes.

    WHAT the FSB did not anticipate as it was their pressure to redact under the new Russian law concerning the non reporting of Russian war loss figures was the speed by which social media caught it in Russian and that social media has learned with their own info war abilities to archive everything and some of the social media has the ability to store terabytes of archived media for later review.

    NOW comes the interesting info war game--in some ways the released figures really do parallel a large number of social media reports since August 2014 and if the imagery work done by them is accurate and it usually has been lately --alone in the Rostov an Don region there have been 1200 new grave sites dug and filled in since August 2014 with a large number of those graves being dug in the last six months.

    Alone on grave site confirmations ---1.2K have been killed--the problem is are they all Russian mercenaries or is there a mixture???--some sources have been quoted as stating those are just the unidentified that could not be sent back to their own towns for burial there.

    That imagery has been geo tagged, dated and released into social media for further verification--western mainstream media response to this reporting--a big fat ZERO.

    REMEMBER in the month of late July 2015 through to mid August 2015 the OSCE SMM in the Ukraine reported 21 semi trailer trucks carrying +200 cargo--200 refers to Russian KIAs. Russia has been shipping only the bodies back in body bags to Rostov where they are then placed into coffins and a death certificate is issued. If we take conservative figure of just 20 per truck then that alone is 420 KIAs if as usual we take the normal load of 40-50 in each truck then that conservative figure is say 800-1050--again the problem is what is the mixture of mercenary to regular army dead.

    Western mainstream media reporting of this--a big fat ZERO.

    NOW the info war game begins---the initial denial and statements that the story was a fake came from TASS--total Russian controlled media and then Russia Today started their drumbeat--remember RT also totally Russian controlled and in over 126 countries has a far larger target audience than does TASS--Russian info warriors had noticed little to no take up with the TASS PR so they moved their efforts on to RT.

    NOW it gets interesting after Forbes released they article--I watched this all day and into last night--then a number of somewhat reliable western journalists started to repeat what RT had stated and openly doubted the initial report of the KIA numbers, then a few other western media outlets started carrying the RT report as well. Something to remember is normally social media is quick to state fake or real---noticed that social media stayed on the sidelines after releasing it and still are---they are accepting as real and feel no further need to jump in--Ukrainian media is also quiet as they are assuming the figures are real as well.

    THEN last night a Russia troll under guise as a reliable commenter stated at he had compared the document and found similar wording of the first report on an old archived document from a few years ago alluding that the first report was a blatant fake.

    NOTICE that in all of this info war fight not a single western journalist and or western mainstream media has picked up the OSCE +200 movement reporting and or the verified and geo tagged imagery of the 1200 graves-that cannot be replicated and faked.

    INTERESTING question--just why does all and I mean all of the so called independent western media ignor anything coming out of the Ukraine and why are they so lax in their fact checking????

    I can count at least six major articles released by western media since the Russian invasion that have been based on Russian faked information and yet when called out by social media requesting retractions--silence is their response.
    A massive amount of Ukrainian intelligence on the order of battle of the Russian military inside the Ukraine was released yesterday all day long in English by the Ukrainian President. Down to names and locations.

    So let's see exactly how long it takes to get into if at all western mainstream media???

    Rus Gen-s commanding Rus contingent in E Ukr: @TheBankova Prez Admin releases more ENG proof https://www.dropbox.com/s/vval5hz0du...f-eng.pdf?dl=0 … pic.twitter.com/kMIVzQZEoJ

    Professional Russian Army in Ukraine. Database and Visualisation via @en_informnapalm pic.twitter.com/tz1CERIZpu http://liveuamap.com/en/2015/28-augu...e-database-and

    So we can start counting from 28 August and see just how it takes before MSM wakes up if at all. We are in day two and still nothing from the major media outlets.
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 08:24 AM.

  10. #1910
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    Obama should have paid more attention to his own words—“we will judge Putin by his actions and not his words”—on this day in the Ukraine in 2014—Russian forces killed approximately 1100 UAF after Putin agreed via his generals for a safe conduct withdrawal—the UAF believed him but forgot about Grozny.

    29 Aug 2014 Ukr troops started moving out of #Ilovaysk along preagreed green corridor. Hundreds killed by Rus troops pic.twitter.com/8xQs28m1Bm

    Maybe this is the reason the Ukrainians absolutely do not believe anything Putin says---BUT is it not interesting that Obama does and when Putin demanded from the Ukraine a "sign of good faith" the US pressured via a unilateral appeasement move the Ukraine to meet Putin's demands.

    BTW --the Russians have never actually stopped fighting in their own proposed DMZ that Obama helped in creating.
    Why is that????
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 08-29-2015 at 09:28 AM.

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    HERE is the massive US disconnect and yet they seem to not be able to understand it----

    WHEN the US talks about supporting Ukrainian decentralization---is it the version that the Ukrainians within their own good governance they formulate in their Parliament via the rule of law OR is it the Bosnian “federalization model” that Putin is pushing for that gives him complete control of Ukrainian foreign policy decisions??????

    NOTICE Biden is not specific is he??????


    USA backs Ukraine's decentralization efforts - Biden
    http://www.unian.info/politics/11166...rts-biden.html … pic.twitter.com/qHdqfQoHpy

    NOW notice the average Ukrainian blogger response----
    We've lost the plot about Ukraine's constitutional decentralization. But IF it leads to ANY power for DPR/LPR scum, there WILL be trouble.

    The US appears to not understand that the current government is only accepted by the Ukrainian civil society if they continue to move toward the Maidan demands of rule of law and good governance and elimination of the systemic corruption.

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    Even more evidence that those so called Russian "humanitarian aid convoys" are just hidden military resupply runs-----

    Russian 'hybrid' aid - Same boxes!
    Top: "humanitarian aid" in Rostov-on-Don 24 Aug
    Bot: military equipt in DPR 26 Aug
    pic.twitter.com/KG5PHnACAc

    White #Russian truck convoys named "humanitarian" are double twisted weapon, fuel & ammunition supplies for #Putin' #war against #Ukraine.

    Has anyone taken notice that out of the 37 convoys there has never really been solid photos or videos of them unloading all that food, and clothing they claim to be needed by the Donbass????

  13. #1913
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    When there are two key elements in a success 21st century UW strategy---one is informational warfare the other cyber warfare/cyber crime-- then we should be paying close attention to comments like this---as we are being run in circles by the Russians and Chinese on the cyber warfare front.

    Rio Rancho Hackers

    By Glenn Norman

    http://hackerhighschool.org/

    We’ve got a hacker problem in the United States, and right here in my home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico. But it’s not the problem that you’re thinking.

    Recently, three adolescent boys lived up to their hormonal destiny in neighboring Rio Rancho, trolling the Enfamil online community with the kind of juvenile shock-posting you can expect, I’m afraid, from my gender at that age.

    Like most of us when we use the Internet, they thought they were cleverly anonymous online. They learned the hard way that they were wrong.

    The Enfamil techs quickly identified their IP address and blocked it, a highly appropriate response. They also notified the FBI, which got the U.S. Secret Service involved, and things went downhill from there.

    The teenagers, who were of course immortal and possessed godlike powers, visited a so-called “hacker site” and posted a “Raid Time” call. This actually did the trick: the kiddies brought down the Enfamil site.

    Nice job, right? High fives all around. Except that they also broadcast highly visible incriminating evidence, which produced very different feelings in short order.

    The FBI immediately deployed the nuclear option, informing the entire school district that “RRPS [Rio Rancho Public Schools] computer access to the world wide web would effectively be shut down if the suspects were not identified.”

    That’s when I said, “Wait a minute.” Why shut down the entire district? They knew exactly which school the attack came from, so what’s the agenda? Preventive action, or something more like floggings for all?

    In any case, the three boys were identified by their logins, according to the school district. This was a smart response, and one any network security pro would expect. They now face felony charges that could effectively wreck their lives. And they’re being called hackers.

    So yes, we’ve got a hacker problem. But no, it’s not that we’ve got them. Exactly the opposite.

    These three boys are anything but hackers. When they trolled the Enfamil site, they were trolls. When they visited the “hacker” website they were essentially tourists. There wasn’t one line of code, one drop of solder or one creative solution to anything in what they did.

    Calling these boneheads hackers is an insult to hackers. And that’s one source of our real problem: we don’t have enough of them. Real hackers, that is. They’ve been given a bad name at the same time our young people have been steered away from technical careers.

    This isn’t solely the fault of the media, because the tech industry has practiced bad public relations for decades by, among other insanities, forcing American workers to train their H-1B replacements. Regardless, the consequence is that we don’t have enough creative technical solution-finders here in central New Mexico, which is a problem for local companies.

    I don’t say this from observation, but as a direct participant in the struggle. As an indie consultant my biggest problem isn’t finding gigs, its finding people to work with me. I know plenty of great ones, but they’re all as deeply booked as me.

    As faculty at the University of New Mexico, I have to personally scramble to fill my classes because there are so few students. Then the recruiters descend on them and many get jobs even before completing their programs.

    It’s a thin, thin trickle: three to seven students per semester lately, in a state where an incentive program is trying to hire 350 tech people in the next year. The disproportion between supply and demand just shocks me.

    One of our success stories is restaurant software builder Lavu, which recently received a massive cash infusion. What’s their biggest problem? They struggle find the software engineers they need, either locally or nationally.

    They need clever techies who can hack code. They’d do a lot better if they could find more technical talent, but as I’ve said it’s awfully thin on the ground in this low-income rural state. You’d think we’d be cultivating that talent, but in practice we send a very different message.

    America needs hackers, say the NSA, FBI, Homeland Security and more. They visit conferences looking for creative hackers, but rather than finding love, their own practices have made them the unloved targets of Spot the Fed games.

    In this particular case, felony charges, if they stick, are going to wreck these boys’ lives. No voting, no firearms, likely no jobs. These boys, and this experience, could be put to much better use. They’ve learned several extremely valuable lessons: you are not invisible, your actions are not untraceable, and the consequences are grim and far too likely.

    Do they want to be real hackers? Then hand them over to me, or an educator like me (and there are more than a few). Make them document every minute of their experiences, build an active website with an online community, build training materials for their peers, and conduct those trainings around the city or the state. Work their tails off.

    This is the kind of thinking we should be engaging: make their experience useful. And make these boys useful too, because experienced hackers and coders and teachers and trainers are in very big demand. They are adolescent boys, and thus by definition idiots.

    Let’s not destroy them for life with heavy-handed tactics. Let’s make them valuable instead.

    So which is it? Do we desperately need creative real hackers, or do we vilify the name? Do we recruit our young techies, or charge them with felonies when they behave like the children they are?

    Is massive intimidation really our best tactic? Or should we try something different, like harnessing that youthful energy to build the creative adults we so badly need? I’m watching this case to see.

  14. #1914
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    Really worth reading--long but worth it.....

    https://www.lawfareblog.com/russias-...l-law-have-say

    Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: What does International Law Have to Say?

    By Thomas Grant
    Tuesday, August 25, 2015, 7:45 AM 

    Apart from Iraq, no member State of the United Nations has done anything quite like it. First, in 2008 against Georgia, then on an ever widening stage since February 2014 against Ukraine, the Russian Federation has invaded a fellow member State and forcibly separated territory belonging to that country. No other state, not even Russia before the invasions, had made any claim to that territory.

    Even Iraq had made known its rejection of Kuwait’s statehood from the start. To that extent, we had warning of what was to come. Not that a warning about an impending act of aggression cures the act. A centerpiece of modern international law is that territory changes hands only by consent, never by force. The rule of territorial stability is more than just another rule of international law. It is the indispensable rule of our system of law between States, and to let it lapse will send us back to an age of disorder. However you look at it, it is evident that relations among states—and the system of law that states have built since 1945—will change fundamentally, if we dispense with that rule.

    Russia’s assault on that rule, and thus that system, is the subject of my new book Aggression Against Ukraine: Territory, Responsibility, and International Law. Let us assume, even as the system of international law is in—and needs—constant evolution, that we should seek to preserve the basic stability of law that results from settled expectations. And let us assume that settled expectations about which states have responsibility for which territories are particularly important. What are we to do about a state that breaches the rule of territorial stability?

    Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait met with a robust international response. The Security Council acted; and states joined Kuwait in an exercise of collective self-defense. The annexation failed; Iraq was expelled.

    The difficulty is that the Russian Federation is not Iraq. The Russian Federation is a Permanent Member of the Security Council. So the Security Council has not acted. And the Russian Federation, as its leaders since February 2014 have reminded us repeatedly, has a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. So the military response to aggression has been muted.

    Faced with this situation, unprecedented in the United Nations era, governments since the start of 2014 have found themselves confused about the proper response. True, some have adopted sanctions, some adopting more stringent sanctions than others. The United States has sent a modicum of military assistance to Ukraine and has reaffirmed its NATO commitment to the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

    Russia has worked to deter a more vigorous response. Sabre-rattling is a mainstay of Russia’s deterrence strategy, but there is more to Russia’s strategy than that. To a considerable extent, Russia, in working to keep us from responding to its aggression, exploits our failure to understand and to apply international law.

    We need to clear the air about international law if we are to respond appropriately. At least five points of international law in particular need to be clarified.

    First, as I have written elsewhere with historian Rory Finnin, it confuses things to refer to the conflict in Ukraine as a civil war. Western media, the BBC for example, routinely refer to it as such, identifying the forces holding Donetsk and Luhansk as “rebels,” and failing to note the presence—acknowledged by a range of credible observers—of Russian personnel or the dependence of the putative “rebels” on Russia’s armed intervention. The salient fact of the situation is that Russia has invaded Ukraine, not that an indigenous force has risen up spontaneously against the central government; it hasn’t.

    The legal conclusion to be drawn from this fact is that Ukraine has an inherent right of self-defense against Russia’s aggression—including the right to organize its self-defense collectively. By no means does international law impede other States from assisting Ukraine. To the contrary, international law envisages it.

    Second, the territory of Ukraine is the territory within the borders of Ukraine that every state in the world—including Russia—has recognized. Russia tries to cloud this point, when it threatens that the defence of Ukraine will trigger a regional or global war. We see this tactic at work for example when a retired Russian general, speaking to the BBC earlier this month, says that any attempt by Ukraine to recover control of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east will be to cross a “red line.” Presumably, the general means that if Ukraine attempts to defend against Russia’s forcible separation of Ukrainian territory, Russia will seize even more Ukrainian territory. The general’s threat is legal nonsense. It rehashes the position that Russia used in 2008 when it invaded Georgia: Georgia had attempted to restore its effective control in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Russia invaded. Ukraine holds sovereignty over all the territory of Ukraine. Russia’s illegal presence in parts of Ukraine does not displace Ukraine’s legal rights.

    Russia’s illegal presence does however attract legal responsibility to Russia for conduct in that territory, a result supported by the European Court of Human Rights’ judgments concerning the northern part of Cyprus and the Russian-occupied parts of Moldova. This leads to a further point, to which I will turn below.

    Third, clothing aggression in the language of self-determination does not change what it is. Aggressors have alleged before that indigenous movements have sought freedom under the barrel of a gun, and international law sees through the ruse. Nobody talks about a “State” of Manchukuo without noting that Japan created that entity by invading China. Nobody should talk about Crimea as if it engaged in a valid act of self-determination; or about Donetsk and Luhansk as if these places sua sponte broke away from Ukraine. The situation in all three places is the direct result of Russia’s armed intervention. As to Ukraine’s domestic politics, whatever its complexities, the people of Ukraine support unity, a position disclosed by polls and suggested by the absence of any effective separatist movement prior to the invasion. The supposed self-determination acts have been dismissed as void and without effect by the UN General Assembly, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President. There is no valid reason to prefer Russia’s characterizations over those of the pre-eminent available global and regional organizations.

    Fourth, there is the omnibus rejection of international law as relevant to the conflict. This is part and parcel of John Mearsheimer’s view, as expressed in Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault, a piece arguing that “liberal delusions” led the West to adopt “provocative policies” and that these “precipitated the crisis in the first place.” It exceeds the scope of a post on international law and the war against Ukraine to address in detail Professor Mearsheimer’s thesis, but some general observations may be made.

    Continued.....

    Mearsheimer’s thesis rests on the assumption that “strategic interests” trump vested rights. But rights are the mainstay of law. To say that one thing trumps another without considering the force and effect of that other thing is, at best, sloppy thinking. Russia has no right cognizable under law against the territorial integrity of its neighbors. In truth, Russia does not even have a claim against its neighbors—none, at least, was articulated before 2014, and the exact opposite was articulated repeatedly. Russia repeatedly, by treaty and by practice, almost continuously since 1991, and without reservation or exception, acknowledged the sovereignty of its neighbors within the borders that they inherited upon independence.

    Continued.......
    MAYBE this article should be mandatory reading for Obama, Kerry and the entire 700 person NSC --concerning Russian violation of actual international law--NOT what Russia defines as international law which are really only propaganda words.
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 10:41 AM.

  15. #1915
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    News
    Strong decrease in Russian attacks across #Donbas yesterday (like 30%).
    No artillery or MLRS used.
    Still 74 ceasefire violations.

    Which General said "The danger is in not seeing the obvious"? There are 55,500, no, now 57,000 Russian troops on Ukraine's eastern border.

    Luhansk: Yesterday's #Plotnitsky show near @ICRC_ua office, "Ukraine kills", "ICRC idles" pic.twitter.com/BE4gJFQMAX @LUGANSK_TODAY

    BUT yet all these 37 Russian humanitarian aid convoys were never allowed to be inspected by the ICRC nor where they allowed to be near them when unloaded.

    Typical Russian doublespeak again at work--blame someone else.

    Russia's eye on Kharkiv – SBU
    http://www.unian.info/society/111663...arkiv-sbu.html … pic.twitter.com/BDRtGtalpl

    Russia's eye on Kharkiv – SBU
    29.08.2015 | 13:30

    Kharkiv regional office of Ukraine’s Security Service sees new attempts to destabilize the political situation in the area as Russia’s new stage of aggression – a so-called “Russian autumn” plan.

    In recent days, the media and the Internet have been distributing information intended to discredit the government and law enforcement agencies, incite the popular discontent with the authorities ahead of local elections, create bias against the current head of the region and future candidates," says Vladyslav Abdul, head of the press center of the SBU in the Kharkiv region.

    Russia has chosen Kharkiv for its next attack, "because the region is one of the key outposts of preserving the country’s unity,” says Abdul.

    "For almost a year and a half, despite all attempts to undermine stability in the region, public authorities, local governments and law enforcement agencies, with the support of all concerned citizens, have managed to maintain peace and tranquility in their native Kharkiv region. Obviously, this is not what the Kremlin "puppeteers" and their minions want to see. According to operational data, Russia’s special services stand behind informational operations. They manipulate public opinion, using social networks under their control, online resources and media," according to Abdul.

    The SBU encourages residents of Kharkiv region not to succumb to provocations, and only use information from trustworthy sources, to avoid the spread of false rumors.

    As UNIAN reported earlier, the SBU reported on deployment of a large number of Russian heavy weapons and troops in the occupied areas of Donbas, preparing for an offensive.
    11:35 #Stakhanov @DNSRRSTRTS Passing the central market 1 Ural moved towards #Kirovsk, w/machine gun on cabit and troops in the body
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 10:52 AM.

  16. #1916
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    Reference the so called Russian summer general offensive---

    Yes. But I still can't tell u why.
    So much "looming offensive" talk over the last 6 months, but nothing solid of more than 1 day.


    Here is where I differ from a number of the bloggers--there has been in fact a Russian general offense underway for over four weeks.

    One needs to understand the front line is approximately 600km long and a majority of the fighting is going on inside a 30km wide zone following that front line laid out by Minsk2.

    The Russia military command is doing a great job at "masking" the operation by what I call the slow step method--meaning at no time does the mainstream media and especially western leaders get to concerned that there is in fact a true offense--a so called steady state of fighting lulls both the media and western leaders into believing it is just standard skirmishes nothing more nothing less. Even the Germans have fallen for it with their FMs recent statement---the "ceasefire" is largely holding--why--no major ground attacks were being seen by him.

    the Russian military does not fire an average of 150-200 tons of munitions every night for four weeks just for the fun of it and then they have to hustle more munitions to backfill--makes no sense logistically speaking unless you are firing that amount in support of "something" not for the heck of it or just as harassment and interdiction.

    BUT here is the catch there have been an increasing numbers of breakthrough attempts led usually by Spetsnaz in the lead to include one attempt yesterday.

    ALL these attempts have basically failed. Why--- I have posted here--the Russians are so tied to their doctrine of the deep fight and they cannot get the edge they need to make a solid breakthrough.

    The UAF knowing the Russian deep fight doctrine have been countering it effectively by denying them that much needed breakthrough but basically blocking the attack prongs as they develop similar to the Spetsnaz attack last night as they attempted to out flank the UAF and create one of the two needed attack prongs for a envelopment maneuver.

    The Russians could actually breakthrough with the 400 tanks anytime they wanted to BUT then you wake everyone up and then the sanctions will come down like rain.

    The slow step process has run it's course and gotten them nowhere--will be interesting to see what they attempt next.

  17. #1917
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    MAP of current Ukraine military situation:
    2 #Ukrainian servicemen were killed in action in the last day, 3 were wounded in action
    http://mediarnbo.org/2015/08/29/zved...to-29-serpnya/ … |EMPR pic.twitter.com/hUY3rj0eBi

    MAP---
    Pro-#Russian insurgents violated cease-fire 74 times in #Donetsk and #Lugansk Regions. Read at http://lugansk-news.com/pro-russian-...gansk-regions/ … pic.twitter.com/So5Y4WrJmD

    Russia trains militants in 195 camps in Russia, Crimea, occupied Donbas, - says SSU.
    http://espreso.tv/uploads/article/20...ges/im-F10.jpg … pic.twitter.com/WUI873A1Gq

    One thing we know but deny is: NATO is sitting on a pile of sat imagery of Rostov, Voronezh, Belgorod regions' deployment.

  18. #1918
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    Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
    All I can say is amen.....to this article--I have been stating over and over that Obama has absolutely no strategic strategy for dealing with Putin other than he being worried about his legacy and legacies do not make strategy.

    Obama has in some ways shifted his foreign policy to that US form of isolationism of the 1920s just after WW1 and it cost the US dearly when it had to come out of that isolationist phase and rejoined the rest of the world.

    Really well worth the reading of this article as it sums up a number of areas that I have been commenting on since the Crimea annexation.

    https://www.foreignaffairs.com/artic...ama-and-europe

    Obama and Europe
    Missed Signals, Renewed Commitments


    By Anne Applebaum
    THIS is exactly just how bad the current Obama and his NSC foreign policy is--really there is no foreign policy to be seen anywhere.

    During a recent Normandy Four meeting Putin literally demanded the Western leaders pressure the Ukraine into a "sign of good faith" by pulling out the Azov REGT from a strategic seaside town protecting a major flank to the city port of Mariupol.

    The Russians convinced the OSCE of the necessity of a DMZ and the US evidently willingly applied unilateral appeasement pressure on the Ukrainian President who then in the face of any military tactical reasons simply pulled out the Azov REGT who had been defending the town against all and I mean all attacks over a six month period virtually defeating every attack on them.

    Their own DoS statements after the UAF pullout was "see the Ukraine is implementing Minsk 2---what world are they residing in as Russia has never fulfilled a single point of Minsk????

    The Ukrainian President then declared the willingness to create a 30km wide DMZ and pulled his main forces back 15kms--the Russians only 1.4km and at the same time started an attempt to pull back all weapons of 100mm or less from the front lines--which was actually proposed first by Russia and then ignored by her troops and the Russian mercenaries.

    NOW this today----

    Once again fears for safety of #Mariupol as OSCE confirms more Russian proxy weapons threaten city; 2 days after #Russia "aid" convoy

    OSCE says RUssians concentrate armory near Mariupol. Video https://twitter.com/5channel/status/637591755341193216

    BTW-there was to be no fighting in this town due to the so called Russian DMZ proposal THEN why this???? Obama got suckered again by Putin.

    17:06 @AMykhailova Truce in #Shyrokyne since yesterday evening...

    Why is there a need truce when Russian troops are not suppose to be there in the first place????

    Obama caves to Putin and makes the UAF cave to his unilateral appeasement demands and then the Russians shift from looking like peaceniks straight to full combat operations in and around their own proposed DMZ and "sign of good faith".

    WHEN will Obama and his very own 700 person NSC believe at least his own words of--"we will judge Putin by his actions not his words".

    Appears Obama has a rather short memory.

    Obama has turned a UAF strategic advantage in defending Mariupol into a massive military disadvantage but then again Obama was never in the military and has never fought in combat.
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 02:37 PM.

  19. #1919
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    Obama's most famous statement of 2014 will haut the history books forever---

    QUOTE "we will judge Putin on his actions not his words" UNQUOTE

    Aug.29, 2014 Putin made a midnight stmt calling on safe passage for surrounded UA soldiers after >500 were murdered pic.twitter.com/f9neXp1L68

    On August 29, 2014 an agreement was reached to allow surrounded & weaponless UA soldiers free passage, more than 500 were murdered while marching

    Was Obama just stating words for the press or did he really mean them???? Bad when no one fully understands what a US President means in his statements.
    Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 08-29-2015 at 03:08 PM.

  20. #1920
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    https://www.overtaction.org/2015/08/...re-is-upon-us/

    Wake up, West! The Era of Hybrid Warfare Is Upon Us

    Aapo Cederberg and Pasi Eronen

    August 25 2015

    Times have changed. We in the West—especially in Europe—should know by now that we’ve left behind us an era when wars took place in some remote foreign location, waged by professionals with American accents utilizing high-tech weapons systems in an apparently surgical manner with a limited number of casualties.

    This kind of war allowed Western civilians to be seduced by an idea of perpetual peace, briefly disturbed by occasional acts of terrorism. We could stay detached from the complexities of power struggles taking place in the international arena. Similarly, this state allowed many Western militaries to resemble more of an international policing force than a solid fighting machine prepared for national and alliance defense.

    Europe has now entered an era of hybrid warfare that will force us all, civilians and military alike, to participate. The events in Ukraine—first in Crimea and then in the eastern part of the country—are still currently unfolding. It’s important for the West to understand hybrid warfare is not limited to Ukraine. Russia is already waging hybrid warfare throughout the West.

    We have been challenged on several fronts, which means that the time of perpetual peace is over. It’s time to wake up to the way the world is.

    What is Hybrid Warfare?

    These instruments, such as cyber attacks, economic blackmail, information warfare, and exploitation of ethnic divisions, target various parts of society. Targets reside wherever there are major societal vulnerabilities and greatest asymmetry between target’s weaknesses and own strengths are found.

    The use of violence is by no means necessary—or even desired. The political end state should be preferably reached without reaching the threshold of war, which would allow an opponent to legally use force. This would make the conflict much more expensive, as well as draw unwanted international attention.

    This is why hybrid warfare presents a great challenge to Western countries. The whole-of-society targeting makes the hybrid threat even more difficult to fight, as our siloed defense mechanisms do not work particularly well when the adversary strikes at soft targets throughout society.

    Russia Is Already in the Game

    Our old adversary is already mastering this new type of warfare. The Russian toolkit contains a wide variety of instruments that can be applied against a target. The recent uses of those instruments indicate the extent of the challenge the West now faces.

    Russians already see themselves being in conflict with us, which is why they have deployed various instruments from their toolkit against the West. All these serve Moscow’s political goals.

    As we have witnessed, Russia conducts information warfare activities in an industrial manner. Ethnic Russians residing outside ‘Mother Russia’ are taken advantage of in justifying diplomatic bullying, and military forces are used to intimidate and threaten both neighboring countries and NATO members farther away. Furthermore, Russia exploits energy issues—both as a tool for blackmail and to build new dependencies for later use.

    Despite Russia’s WTO membership, trade is applied as a weapon for example by limiting imports from the West and by threatening to deny exports critical to trade partner’s industries. Other economic links are taken advantage of, such as using sovereign debt as pressurizing means. Financial means are used not only to lobby, but given out as loans to buy political influence, financing NGOs and popular movements that can help reaching Kremlin’s goals. Moreover, Russian individuals and companies are buying stakes in Western critical infrastructure and key resources, investing in land plots located next to critical military installations.

    Russia has also engaged in lawfare, utilizing legal agreements and frameworks, to serve its goals. Kremlin is also a major cyberpower, as the Pentagon recently noted. Members of German parliament, and hundreds of private sector companies have been subjected to sophisticated cyber attacks. Most worrisome, nuclear threats have been brought back to the table to test NATO’s unity and determination.

    This all leads to an unsettling conclusion that Russia has already mobilized and deployed its hybrid instruments against the West.

    What Can The West Do To Defend Against Hybrid Warfare?

    While we might not be fully aware of Moscow’s intentions behind the use of its hybrid capabilities, we are not powerless to face this challenge. The West can build defensive mechanisms to shield our societies and alliances while establishing deterrence to ensure any aggressor will pay a high price.

    Furthermore, updating and strengthening our policies can help us deny Russia’s access to its hybrid warfare instruments by both limiting the number of the instruments available and supportive allies. Lastly, certain steps can be taken to erode Russia’s current ability to field its existing hybrid capabilities.

    There have already been a number of individual and collective actions that have some success in countering Russia’s efforts. Regarding information warfare, in addition to wide recognition of Russian information warfare activities throughout the Western media, NATO established in 2014 a Center of Excellence in Strategic Communications to Riga, Latvia. There are also other geographically well-targeted initiatives, such as offering grants for training journalists in countering the Russian narrative in Baltics.

    In the area of energy security, the EU has taken concrete steps to blunt the efficacy of Russian energy blackmail against European countries. These steps have been supported by US diplomatic efforts.

    In addition to defensive actions, there has been several military exercises conducted with allies and partners, and forward deployment of equipment shows support deterrence and resolve. The most proactive instruments the West has taken into use are the economic sanctions that deny certain actors Western capital and technology, thus eroding the long-term outlook both for the Russian economy and the unity of the ruling clique.

    What More Can Be Done?

    While the existing actions serve as a good start, there are further steps to counter Russia’s hybrid warfare activities:

    In the short-term:

    Continued...........

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