The Russian state has a long history of using its information operations to try and shore up its military plans overseas. Of course all states try to win over the hearts and minds of the population either at home or where they are fighting. But Russia’s approach is a bit different.
What we see in Russia is a strange sort of intermeshing between official statements, interventions from people who are clearly on the Russian state’s payroll and the pronouncements of supposedly neutral but Kremlin-aligned commentators. It’s not for nothing that Margarita Simonyan – a close associate of Vladimir Putin and the editor-in-chief of Russia’s international broadcaster, RT – once infamously said that Russia needed RT for “the same reason the country needs a defence ministry”.
The Russian state and its representatives frequently use lies to create cover for their military operations. And some are believed, at least, temporarily or in part. Back in 2014, Putin personally denied the involvement of Russian special forces in the annexation of Crimea, claiming that the military equipment sported by the “little green men” on the peninsula could be bought from any local shop. Following the 2018 poisoning of two Russian nationals in Salisbury, England, three Russian suspects were charged. Putin stated that the suspects were private citizens, even though later open-source investigations proved them to be senior members of Russian military intelligence.
