Russia’s propaganda operation is failing

Discussion in 'Politics' started by gwb-trading, Mar 7, 2022.

  1. Scott Ritter
    [​IMG]
    11h
    • 16 tweets • 3 min read

    1/ Big Arrow War—a primer. For all those scratching their heads in confusion, or dusting off their dress uniforms for the Ukrainian victory parade in Kiev, over the news about Russia’s “strategic shift”, you might want to re-familiarize yourself with basic military concepts.

    2/ Maneuver warfare is a good place to start. Understand Russia started its “special military operation” with a severe manpower deficit—200,000 attackers to some 600,000 defenders (or more). Classic attritional conflict was never an option. Russian victory required maneuver.

    3/ Maneuver war is more psychological than physical and focuses more on the operational than on the tactical level. Maneuver is relational movement—how you deploy and move your forces in relation to your opponent. Russian maneuver in the first phase of its operation support this.

    4/ The Russians needed to shape the battlefield to their advantage. In order to do this, they needed to control how Ukraine employed it’s numerically superior forces, while distributing their own smaller combat power to best accomplish this objective.

    5/ Strategically, to facilitate the ability to maneuver between the southern, central, and northern fronts, Russia needed to secure a land bridge between Crimea and Russia. The seizure of the coastal city of Mariupol was critical to this effort. Russia has accomplished this task.

    6/ While this complex operation unfolded, Russia needed to keep Ukraine from maneuvering its numerically superior forces in a manner that disrupted the Mariupol operation. This entailed the use of several strategic supporting operations—feints, fixing operations, and deep attack.

    7/ The concept of a feint is simple—a military force either is seen as preparing to attack a given location, or actually conducts an attack, for the purpose of deceiving an opponent into committing resources in response to the perceived or actual actions.

    8/ The use of the feint played a major role in Desert Storm, where Marine Amphibious forces threatened the Kuwaiti coast, forcing Iraq to defend against an attack that never came, and where the 1st Cavalry Division actually attacked Wadi Al Batin to pin down the Republican Guard.

    9/ The Russians made extensive use of the feint in Ukraine, with Amphibious forces off Odessa freezing Ukrainian forces there, and a major feint attack toward Kiev compelling Ukraine to reinforce their forces there. Ukraine was never able to reinforce their forces in the east.

    10/ Fixing operations were also critical. Ukraine had assembled some 60,000-100,000 troops in the east, opposite Donbas. Russia carried out a broad fixing attack designed to keep these forces fully engaged and unable to maneuver in respect to other Russian operations.

    11/ During Desert Storm, two Marine Divisions were ordered to carry out similar fixing attacks against Iraqi forces deployed along the Kuwaiti-Saudi border, tying down significant numbers of men and material that could not be used to counter the main US attack out west.

    12/ The Russian fixing attack pinned the main Ukrainian concentration of forces in the east, and drove them away from Mariupol, which was invested and reduced. Supporting operations out of Crimea against Kherson expanded the Russian land bridge. This phase is now complete.

    13/ Russia also engaged in a campaign of strategic deep attack designed to disrupt and destroy Ukrainian logistics, command & control, and air power and long-range fire support. Ukraine is running out of fuel and ammo, cannot coordinate maneuver, and has no meaningful Air Force.

    14/ Russia is redeploying some of its premier units from where they had been engaged in feint operations in northern Kiev to where they can support the next phase of the operation, namely the liberation of the Donbas and the destruction of the main Ukrainian force in the east.

    15/ This is classic maneuver warfare. Russia will now hold Ukraine in the north and south while its main forces, reinforced by the northern units, Marines, and forces freed up by the capture of Mariupol, seek to envelope and destroy 60,000 Ukrainian forces in the east.

    16/ This is Big Arrow War at its finest, something Americans used to know but forgot in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains how 200,000 Russians have been able to defeat 600,000 Ukrainians. Thus ends the primer on maneuver warfare, Russian style.


    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1508813631311466496.html
     
    #121     Mar 29, 2022
  2. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    Seems he is an IT customer service rep named Bob in Pest, Hungary. A happy authoritarian subject for the trojan horse member of Nato under Viktor Urban. What is it about IT guys and being proper morons? :)

    Certainly a pest.
     
    #122     Mar 30, 2022
  3. Last edited: Mar 30, 2022
    #123     Mar 30, 2022
  4. UsualName

    UsualName

    To be clear if it was a feint to get 200 of Russia’s most elite spetsnaz were slaughtered at the Kyiv airport at the opening of the invasion and that four successive attacks on the Kyiv airport failed thereafter. The Russians simply could not take Kyiv.

    What this thread does not account for is that dozens of generals and high ranking commanders in the Russian military were killed feinting. Or the tens of thousands of russian conscripts killed and wounded. Or the hundreds of pieces of military equipment destroyed or confiscated.

    The Russians got their ass kicked in the north and after a tactical pause they are now looking to be in retreat. Which is smart.

    That land bridge they have is very dicey right now. We will see if they hold it.
     
    #124     Mar 30, 2022
    Bugenhagen likes this.
  5. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Propagandists on suicide watch:

     
    #125     Mar 30, 2022
    Bugenhagen likes this.

  6. Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’.


    George Orwell essay "Looking back on the Spanish War"
     
    #126     Mar 30, 2022
  7. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Orwell was a good militant ANTIFA socialist, it is "the sun" so I'll grant you some leeway
     
    #127     Mar 30, 2022
  8. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    While the quality of Russia's deep fakes has been improving, the outlandish claims made in the deep fakes make them laughable. For example, the deep fake video of Zelensky telling Ukrainians to surrender. Never the less, the West has been surprised that Russian deep fakes have been used and propagated so much over the recent weeks. Leading to the need to address these deep fakes as they become more prevalent.

    ‘We are not prepared’: Russia uses artificial intelligence, deep fakes in propaganda warfare
    https://globalnews.ca/news/8716443/russia-artificial-intelligence-deep-fakes-propaganda-war/

    Russia’s war on Ukraine started over a month ago, and the potential for ceasefire remains up in the air.

    But those closely watching the Kremlin propaganda machine say there is another battle waging online — a “war of information” that will last far beyond any potential ceasefire.

    “This is not new,” said Oleksandr Pankieiev, research coordinator at the Canadian Institute on Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta.

    “Russia has been working to condition its audience for war with Ukraine and NATO for eight years.”

    From using man’s best friend to gauge sympathy, reportedly using actors to frame Ukraine as the assailant, and re-circulating old media as ‘Ukrainian propaganda,‘ the Kremlin narrative spread online following the invasion of Ukraine has been “aggressive,” says Pankieiev, adamant on making us “doubt what we see.”

    But there are other disinformation tactics at play that threaten to blur the line between fact and fiction.

    A senior research fellow for Harvard University told Global News that Russia has taken a deep dive in artificial intelligence.

    Aleksandra Przegalinska says the Kremlin is using deep fakes — fabricated media made by AI. A form of machine learning called “deep learning” can put together very realistic-looking pictures, audios, and in this case, videos that are often intended to deceive.

    Deep fakes are usually highly deceptive impersonations of real people. But the technology can also be used to create a completely synthetic individual using multiple faces.

    Przegalinska says they’re a Russian specialty. The Kremlin has already circulated several deep fakes on Facebook and Reddit – one of a supposed Ukrainian teacher, another of a synthetic Ukrainian influencer, hailing Putin as a savior.

    Some platforms have managed to take them down – but Przegalinska and Pankieiev say such disinformation continues to run amuck on other channels like TikTok, and state-controlled social media app Vkontakte.

    “Russia has experience with deep fakes, and they really know how to use them,” said Przegalinska.



    Early March, Ukrainian intelligence warned a deep fake of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was being prepared. Days later, the website of TV network Ukrayina 24, as well as its live broadcast, was hacked. A deep fake of Zelenskyy appeared – calling for Ukrainians to surrender.

    While some have called the video quality laughable and easily identifiable, others warn the next deep fake may not be.

    Is this technology new?
    Deep fakes have been around since 2017. Reportedly created by a Reddit user, the technology baffled the online community, and raised alarm bells about their disastrous potential.

    Two years later, a cybersecurity firm found that 96 per cent of deep fakes being circulated online were of pornography, all of them depicting only women.

    Those familiar with artificial intelligence warned it was just a matter of time before the technology would be used to threaten international security.

    And it appears that time has already come.

    “It is so easy (to fall for this}. Its about the easiest thing in the world,” Mike Gualtieri, VP and principal analyst of AI research firm Forrester, told Global over Zoom.

    Gualtieri says the rise of the internet had already opened the door for misinformation and disinformation to spread rapidly. Add AI to the mix and the advantage those engaging in disinformation has becomes astounding.

    “When you add AI to it, it lets you test the effectiveness of these messages in real time.”

    Gualtieri warns of generative adversarial networks (GANs), a branch of AI that can be trained to produce realistic-looking data. Basically, a computer can generate disinformation on its own (think pictures, videos, even research papers.)

    GANs can then disseminate that disinformation like rapid fire, while at the same time tracking its performance online by counting clicks and engagement.

    “It’s incredibly dangerous,” said Gualtieri. “When you have technology that can automate persuasion in the way that AI can, you can get public opinion to form in a very scary way.

    “We are not prepared, and people in power and social media companies have every incentive not to prepare us. Because if we’re prepared, it doesn’t work.”



    Where is Russia going with this?
    The kind of agenda Russia is trying to push depends on the target audience.

    Right now, Pankieiev says the Kremlin is focused on reframing the narrative in the West, and within its own borders.

    In the West, Russia is trying to justify the war on Ukraine as an unavoidable “special military operation.”

    Putin is also trying to find hidden allies that are engaging with his movement, while threatening anyone inside and outside Russia that aligns themselves with Ukraine that “they will be the next casualty.”

    “They’re starting the witch hunt on ‘traitors’,” said Pankieiev.

    Read more: The Russia-Ukraine information war: How propaganda is being used in two very different ways

    The good news? Przegalinska and Pankieiev say Ukrainians have been advancing in the war of information by flooding the internet with real-life accounts of what’s happening on the ground — something Russia did not expect.

    The public is also getting suspicious, according to Przegalinska, as some are quickly spotting fabricated videos or TikTokkers reading from a pre-written script.

    Alongside Gualtieri, she stresses the need for the public to practice spotting fabricated media by using online tools.

    MIT has some tips on detecting deep fakes, while sites like Botometer can help discern whether an online post came from a bot account. Users can also reverse image search on Google to look for an old photo or video that may be re-circulating under a fake headline.

    Such tools may give the public an upper hand on propaganda says Przegalinska. However, not utilizing them keeps the door open for Russia to delude the public.

    “Even if we have a ceasefire — the propaganda war, the misinformation war — this will still continue … Once the first wave of interest in the conflict wanes, Russia may strike again,” she said.

    The long-term effect? A “huge radicalization” in Russia in the coming years, says Pankieiev. Not to mention lasting trans-border tensions that could harm Ukrainians seeking asylum.

    (Article has videos and other links)
     
    #128     Mar 30, 2022
  9. piezoe

    piezoe

    Are you simply blind to what the Russians are doing in Ukraine?
     
    #129     Mar 30, 2022
  10. ipatent

    ipatent

    No, but we're getting the propaganda version.
     
    #130     Mar 30, 2022