For Ukraine, for their Freedom and Ours ! - CSO
Wars against the West
Our campaigns and actions
An hybrid war
Hybrid warfare is often characterised by non-state actors, espionage, cyber attacks, electoral interference and disinformation. Now accepted as an integral part of Moscow's policy towards the West, Russian hybrid warfare seems to remain below the threshold of the traditional act of war. Back in 2013, General Guerassimov highlighted the need for automated, robotic and artificial intelligence-based tools in armed conflicts, as well as the use of asymmetric actions and informational spheres to offset the advantage enjoyed by the enemy, us. The international political order has benn founded on values such as freedom and democracy - ideals that are not very widespread in Russia. To win his hybrid war and impose a so-called ‘multipolar’ order, Vladimir Putin intends to redefine the existing international order. (Arsalan Bilal (2024), NATO Review, Russia's hybrid war against the West )
The impact of Russia's hybrid war on Western democracies is already being felt in unprecedented ways : mass information attacks, organising migratory pressure on the European Union, energy blackmail, targeted assassinations in Europe, destabilising Western political life, funding numerous groups with anti-democratic ideologies. (Antoine Arjakovsky (2024), Le Monde, Pour mettre fin à l'agression de la Russie, la solution la plus simple est d'intégrer l'Ukraine à l'OTAN dès 2025)
EXTRAITS - Soft propaganda: an invisible and invasive threat
While hard propaganda is visible to those who are aware of this type of threat, soft propaganda is most often left unchallenged. It is rarely decoded. It is also disseminated — intentionally or unintentionally — by members of Western governments, senior civil servants commenting on government positions, well-known journalists and sometimes think tank leaders and academics. Most of them are certainly not active agents of the FSB or sponsored by the Kremlin, nor are they sympathisers of authoritarian regimes, but they express more or less influential positions that ultimately help Vladimir Putin achieve his goals.
Underestimating the particularities of the ongoing war — this non-linear warfare, according to Russian terminology — is in itself one of the Kremlin's key objectives.
The fourteen basic narratives of soft propaganda
1- Make people believe the narrative of humiliation. According to this discourse, we should understand the frustration of Russians due to the collapse of the Soviet empire. This is supposedly a trauma that we should understand, especially since the West betrayed Moscow by expanding NATO eastward.
2- Suggest that we should ‘understand’ Russia and soften our positions.
3- Focus attention on the turpitudes of others. Propagandists thus resort to whataboutism. They will mention the United States (the Vietnam War, the second Iraq War), France (its colonial period and intervention in Libya), Saudi Arabia (Yemen), the United Kingdom, etc.
4- Warn the West: ‘You are preparing for World War III. Your warmongering is dangerous.’
5- Assert that we have no choice but to accept the fait accompli.
6- Accept the ‘yes, but’ rhetoric: assert that no one can legitimise Putin and Assad, for example, by stating in advance that we do not like them and even acknowledging their crimes. However, we must also add that we know them, that others could be even worse, and that their removal from power could lead to chaos.
7- Assert that Russia is a major factor for stability in the world. This discourse proclaims, in a way: ‘You may not like Russia, but without it, the world would be less stable.’
8- Instil the idea that Putin's regime is a very minor threat compared to Islamism, when we should be joining forces against the real threat.
9- Legitimising regimes based on oppression. The message being spread is that the West should not impose its own values and defend dissidents fighting for freedom, as this would be imperialism or even colonialism.
10- Promote a false narrative about Russia: Russia is portrayed as a country of great culture (cite a few great Russian writers, musicians or painters), great history (refer to Peter the Great or Catherine the Great) and great religion (the splendour of the Orthodox religion, its magnificent icons). It does not matter that none of this has anything to do with the Russian regime and that the Moscow Patriarchate is subservient to the Russian regime and covers up its atrocities.
11- Assert that Russia is a continent and we cannot oppose a continent. Above all, do not talk about the regime, but resort to reductio ad geographiam.
12- Recall the economic interests of the West, regardless of the figures that say otherwise about our dependence on Russia.
13- Resort to vague theories about the soul of peoples and determinism and assert learnedly, citing the Tsarist regime and Soviet communism, that the Russian people are not ready for democracy, that it is not in their history, or even in their DNA (as if a people had such a thing).
14- Evoke the theory of development, or better still, developmentalism: helping Russia to modernise will ultimately bring it democracy.