A counterattack to the escalating Kremlin attacks on the West may finally be starting
A lethal plume of toxic smoke was blowing towards us from a blaze at a battery manufacturing plant in Kaliningrad. Troops in the Russian exclave had been ordered to help put the fire out: untrained and under-equipped, they mutinied. Terrified civilians were thronging the borders. The Kremlin, oblivious to the unfolding humanitarian and environmental catastrophe, blamed the West for sabotage and incitement, and demanded a transit corridor across Lithuania.
None of this actually happened. We (20 retired and serving officials, experts and others) were in the safety and comfort of the Wargaming Lab at the ISM university in Vilnius, as guests of the Baltic International Security Centre (BISC). The crisis scenarios were hypothetical; the aim was to explore the dilemmas and trade-offs they created. (You are the Lithuanian government. Do you let the mutineers in? Or leave them to be massacred?)
The gamemaster provided regular “injects” – new developments – such as ill-written social media posts from President Trump. He blamed the authorities in “Lithvastonia” for having started the fire in “Kaliningradia”. An amusing parody, we thought. A few hours later, the real US president published news of his deal with Vladimir Putin on sanctions-busting diesel imports, and then blamed Ukraine for being invaded. Not so amusing, especially for our Ukrainian participant, a senior military commander there. As we were leaving (us to safety, him to danger), news broke that Russia is stepping up its assassination attempts in Europe, targeting defence industry bosses (and perhaps Polish politicians). Our scenarios seemed tame in comparison.
We found answers to our fictional problems. Lithuania reached out to pro-Ukrainian MAGA influencers such as Laura Loomer, for example, to get them to depict the Kremlin boss as “weak” for letting the mutiny spread. That worked. When “Putin” (played with sinister panache by the British Russia expert Keir Giles) demanded that the US bring its “European subordinates” to heel, “Trump” (actually former Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu) refused.
But what about the real world? Russia’s attacks on Europe are escalating almost by the day, and our greatest ally is shredding its credibility. Where is the deterrent response that might make Russia back down? Europeans have no shortage of tools for making mischief and mayhem inside Russia. Only the decision-makers’ appetite to use them has been lacking.
Belatedly, that may be changing. BISC’s weekly review of the Kaliningrad media highlights an intriguing fuss over a fake news report about a plan to draft 15,000 men for the war in Ukraine. It was spread with a rather well-forged document and a deepfake video featuring the region’s governor, Alexei Besprozvannykh. The authorities furiously denied the report, probably amplifying it further. The same story had appeared earlier elsewhere in Russia, attributed to the governors of Tomsk and Vladimir.
There are no digital fingerprints on this. It could just be an elaborate prank, perhaps by a war-weary Russian. But it smells to me like a well-timed, well-targeted information-warfare operation from outside. It neatly exploits Russian worries about a general mobilisation, and the public’s ingrained scepticism about official statements. (A Soviet-era wisecrack was “never believe anything until Tass has denied it”).
It could be the Ukrainians, who have unparalleled knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of the Russian psyche. But I think this may be an early public sign of a Nato country’s intelligence service flexing its muscles. Spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt); confuse and distract decision-makers, fray trust and confidence. Russia’s keyboard warriors have been doing this to us for decades.
We need many more such operations and with a wider mix of tactics. Let’s hope that someone, somewhere is wargaming this right now.
Edward Lucas is a British writer, journalist and security specialist.
Photo credit: Evgeniy D. on Unsplash