Abstract: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had major global consequences, ranging from a humanitarian crisis resulting in millions of refugees, to food crises in the Near East and Africa, followed by a worldwide energy crisis with economic shocks triggering geopolitical realignments, ultimately affecting all military domains, including cyberspace. Specifically, since the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, Moscow has tried to bring Kyiv to its knees in the cyberspace domain. Accordingly, this paper analyses how hybrid and non-hybrid, cyber and information warfare have worked in Russia’s favour, and where these tools and techniques might have failed. It highlights how the electromagnetic spectrum cannot be fully separated from the cyber and information spaces.
Problem statement: How to analyse and understand the interaction between Russia’s hybrid and conventional strategies and tactics in Ukraine?
So what?: Whoever has the edge in cyberspace has the ability to shape what people and societies perceive as the truth, as well as control the narrative about what is happening physically on the ground. Lessons from the war in Ukraine call for a coordinated and comprehensive strategy from Western states to strengthen defences against the full range of cyber-destructive acts, espionage, and influence operations.
The Hybridity of Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
On the morning of 24 February 2022, Russia’s attack on Ukraine suddenly catapulted the West into a reality that it had not acknowledged until then. Since then, the larger Western states have been forced to abandon the self-cultivated state of self-deception that they had been labouring under. Western military strategists have coined the acronym ‘VUCA’ — volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity — to describe the characteristics of the future operational environment, or, more pessimistically, ‘BANI’, which stands for brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible. It can be said that the Russians have been highly dynamic in creating – either intentionally or unintentionally – VUCA or BANI conditions for the West with near-perfect precision.
Russians have been highly dynamic in creating – either intentionally or unintentionally – VUCA or BANI conditions for the West with near-perfect precision.
The invasion of Ukraine cannot be understood without taking into account Russian President Vladimir Putin’s view of history. In his view, Russia has had to assert itself against enemies from the West for 1,000 years to achieve its strength — most recently in the Second World War. Putin accuses the West of denying Russia’s world power status since 1990,[1] a worldview that results in a permanent sense of threat. Accordingly, to pursue his goals, Putin has merely reactivated the old methods from the KGB junk room. The “old” Soviet instruments included:
- Disinformation and misinformation: Fake news must be spread on all channels. In recent years, the Kremlin has also built up its own media industry with RT and Sputnik in order to influence opinions abroad. A speciality of both Soviet as well as current Russian disinformation is the reinterpretation of real or historical events.
- Sabotage: The goal is to confuse the enemy and destabilise the enemy population’s trust in its government’s ability to provide the basic necessities of life. State actors work closely with organised crime, a general feature of Russian warfare.
In contrast to the Soviet era, however, new and additional “digital fire accelerators” are available through the internet and social networks.
Hybrid war is, therefore, a perpetually evolving phenomenon. Hybrid warfare (based on hybrid threats carried out with military means in particular) is still an interim term for the phenomenon. In the Hegelian sense, “hybrid war” can be seen as the antithesis of war in a world that situated war in international humanitarian law and finally prohibited it by making all nations sign the UN Charter. However, the synthesis is still missing. According to Hybrid CoE,[2] four characteristics of hybrid threat activity (encapsulating threats and warfare) can be distinguished:
- It is not a single event.
- It needs a malign intent/actor.
- It is conducted within authoritarian systems, challenging democratic rule-based systems.
- The grey zone is created by the defender, not the attacker; the latter is merely exploiting the defender’s unwillingness to protect red lines. The antagonist exploits either the unwillingness of the rule enforcer to defend the rules or the complexity of created laws and rules, which provides the malign actor with the opportunity to either misuse those rules or create dilemmas through the application of those rules.
Russia’s War in Ukraine Through a Hybrid War Lens
Russia’s hybrid threat campaign against Ukraine and its surroundings before 24 February 2022 was a strategic masterpiece of thought. Neither the US, NATO, nor the EU were sure what was happening, and the hybrid threat activities instilled fear (or pragmatism about survival) in the Baltic states, Sweden, and Finland.[3] The hybrid threat campaign was highly agile, constantly scanning for weak points in the West and addressing them almost immediately with legal, information, disinformation, and diplomatic means. These efforts were accompanied by a rather lengthy military show of force around Ukraine, adding to the overall uncertainty.
The less successful unfolding of military events after 24 February 2022, whereby the Russian forces could not exploit their assumed tactical agility, may have been accompanied by a strategic meltdown within Putin’s inner circle. The moment the Russian President started humiliating some of his senior leaders publicly, including the head of his intelligence service, Sergey Naryshkin, and later, his Chief of Defence, General Valery Gerasimov, the necessary organisational trust may have been broken. The organisation was reset into a less proactive “just follow orders” mode to avoid further humiliation, which reduced military efficiency and the effectiveness of ongoing hybrid threat activities against the West.
The less successful unfolding of military events after 24 February 2022, whereby the Russian forces could not exploit their assumed tactical agility, may have been accompanied by a strategic meltdown within Putin’s inner circle.
Lack of Electronic Warfare: Problems Due to Russia’s Own Communications?
After the intensive use of electronic warfare capabilities (e.g., jamming frequencies or disturbing electronic devices like GPS equipment) during the last eight years by the Russian military in the Donbas/Luhansk region, the Western definition of the military cyber domain was recently expanded to incorporate electronic warfare. Hence, Western military experts assumed that Russian military operations in Ukraine would be accompanied by the heavy electronic warfare activities that had already been demonstrated. This did not happen, however. Western experts have different explanations for the absence or lack of electronic warfare activities. This means that Russia is conducting an ever more intense cyber and information war, including the electromagnetic spectrum: The systematic distribution of psychologically and ideologically grounded material of a provocative nature can generate psychosis. If this is also combined with partly truthful and false information, accompanied by attacks on critical infrastructure, it is not hard to imagine how despair and a mood of doom may undermine confidence in the government and armed forces. Such measures serve a nihilistic ideology of pure power.
It looks as if Russia has been struggling with the problem of the tradeoff between jamming frequencies and the necessity to maintain command and control of its troops by using those frequencies. Further, it is confronted with the so-called “last mile” problem of supporting mobile forward-deployed forces with digital data. The Russian forces have apparently bypassed this problem by using Ukrainian communication networks.[4]
Ukrainian intelligence sources published numerous Russian military communications intercepted via internet connections through Ukrainian networks, which, of course, prevents Russian commanders from giving orders to shut down those networks using electronic warfare. The electromagnetic spectrum has been used to interfere with and/or disrupt the adversary’s flow of information. Russia attempted to cut off cyberspace within Ukraine by shutting down their server and mobile connections, such as 3G/4G band, to disrupt their national command and control systems so that the Ukrainian departments responsible for monitoring these systems would not be able to counter Russian disinformation.[5]
Ukrainian intelligence sources published numerous Russian military communications intercepted via internet connections through Ukrainian networks, which prevents Russian commanders from giving orders to shut down those networks using electronic warfare.
Other parts of cyberspace are adding new dimensions to this conflict. Cyber, including IT and the information domain, has become as hard a power as military power. On the Western and international front in particular, it looks as if Ukraine is winning the war of social media memes and narratives against Russia. However, it is still difficult to evaluate the extent to which the Russian population, influenced as it is by fake narratives about “denazification”[6] and “preventing a genocide”, can be reached or influenced by the Ukrainian counter-narratives. Furthermore, the Western media see a kind of applied “hybrid” thinking in the clandestine use of Russian military forces against targets in Belarus, and presumably in Luhansk, to foster Belarusian and separatist support. It is too early to evaluate the impact of the IT hacking activities. After Ukraine amassed an “army of 30,000” hackers and Anonymous took Ukraine’s side,[7] it is not entirely clear what is going on in the networks. There is intense activity in the cyber domain. However, it is difficult to assess whether Ukraine has consolidated its IT security sufficiently due to being under constant attack, whether Russian troops still need access to the internet as a primary means of communication, or whether Anonymous is neutralising Russian troll factories.
A Hybrid War Gone Rogue
Today, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or, as the Kremlin calls it, the “Special Military Operation”, has to be understood as a hybrid war that went rogue. However, after the initial failure in late February 2022, Russia’s activities must also be analysed and addressed as part of conventional war theory rather than merely “hybrid war” theory. One of the main intents of Russian propaganda activities is to “dehumanise” the other side. Targeted means of influencing serve as part of psychological warfare, a common method in times of war. From now on, these narratives will determine how and what the West should think about a crisis/war and what judgment should be made. Many political scientists agree that Ukraine’s conflict with Russia — an established cyber superpower that does not hesitate to flex its muscle aggressively — could test the rules of war in new and unexpected ways. Some say it already has.[8]
The cyber domain is the new battlefield, and its means, such as information operations, could be as effective as conventional military means, although NATO, the EU and their member states have yet to fully grasp this. Is it a new comprehensive domain, or is it better to regard its elements separately? The same could be said about the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum, the information space, and cyberspace reside within the physical dimensions of the information environment and can be used as sites of warfare, equivalent and akin to the domains of land, air, sea, and space.
The cyber domain is the new battlefield, and its means could be as effective as conventional military means, although NATO, the EU and their member states have yet to fully grasp this.
From the authors’ perspective, these domains are of equal value. Moreover, it must always be considered that one can influence the other and that information or electromagnetic attacks cannot be that successful without using cyberspace. The connection can also be summarised with an analogy: It is a threaded pipe in which water flows. The thread is the electromagnetic spectrum, the pipe is cyberspace, and the water represents the information flowing through it. Therefore, the electromagnetic spectrum cannot be fully separated from cyberspace and the information space.
The operations of the Russian Armed Forces, and especially their warfighting tactics, have often failed to meet even basic international standards such as International Humanitarian Law (IHL) and the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC), which adds an organisational or systemic dimension to the file of observed war crimes committed by individual soldiers.[9]
From Hybrid War to Conventional War
Vladimir Putin’s information-space army of trolls and cyber criminals has been unleashing its destructive power on the Western world for years. Their cyberattacks have interfered in countless elections and referendums, with Brexit and the 2016 US election being the best-known examples. They hacked Western computer systems, spread viruses like NotPetya (one of the most disruptive cyberattacks in history) in Ukraine in 2017, and attacked Western critical infrastructures such as SolarWinds in 2020 and Colonial Pipeline in 2021. Moreover, they also fuelled conspiracy theorists and right-wing hardliners, as in the stories about Q-Anon or Western coronavirus vaccines.
However, when the time came to oversee Putin’s most ambitious and probably most important operation, the information-space army failed on all fronts. The goal has been to spread false information and manipulate society to push for actions that can destabilise Ukraine during the war. However, rather than establishing in the minds of Europeans the narrative of Russia as the Eastern leader fighting Nazis in Ukraine and protecting all ethnic Russians, Ukraine has thus far dominated this online battle for the hearts of Westerners.[10] Furthermore, it is now very difficult for Russia to change the narrative. When the initial hybrid-threat approach of using land forces to coerce the Ukrainian government failed within the first ten days, the Russian Armed Forces regrouped, even (mis-)using safe Belarusian territory.
To the utmost surprise of Western observers, they chose a style of attack reminiscent of the First and Second World Wars, with mass artillery fighting rather than 21st-century doctrinal Western-based modern warfare, which relies on precision-guided munitions to reduce civilian casualties. This has increased the brutality of the Russian operations, causing heavy military casualties among the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as civilian casualties.
To the utmost surprise of Western observers, they chose a style of attack reminiscent of the First and Second World Wars, with mass artillery fighting rather than 21st-century doctrinal Western-based modern warfare.
Besides the brutal and excessive use of military force under the statute of a military strategy described by experts as “Terror”, the Community of Interest for Strategy and Defence at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats also observed overt applications in Ukraine of military methods attributed to the arsenal of hybrid warfare in sub-threshold environments: targeting and attacking systemic vulnerabilities to influence decision-making or undermine and terrorise Ukrainian society.
In addition to military targets, Russian forces and their proxies have started to strike Ukraine’s societal system-relevant targets, conducting deliberate and repeated attacks on important railway infrastructure and power grid nodes. These attacks fit the hybrid definition and the definition of cross-domain effects in the Western Multi-Domain Operations terminology.[11] In sum, Russia has applied an overall systems-thinking approach to its warfare capabilities, allowing for more complex military operations.
While the Ukrainian railway system proved resilient,[12] the Ukrainian power system, presumably due to its size and need for essential infrastructure and critical spare parts, has regularly been severely affected by missile strikes with longer-lasting power outages.[13]
Russian disinformation experts have tried to influence the Ukrainian population through “targeted messaging” over the years. However, their efforts fell flat in light of the war crimes committed by Russian troops (e.g., in Bucha). Nevertheless, Russian propaganda concerning the “evil Ukrainians” continues to resonate among the Russian population, with internet polls still showing a total lack of Russian empathy or sympathy for Ukrainians.[14]
Although many Western observers have been surprised by the way in which Russia conducts its military operations, all of these examples are deeply interconnected and rooted in Russia’s theoretical military and strategic thinking. However, for the first time, the Russian idea of reflexive control theory is being applied simultaneously and in parallel in sub-threshold hybrid warfare environments and real war environments; whether by accident or design can only be ascertained after the war.
Reflexive Control
“Reflexive control is an activity which influences the adversary’s decision-making processes with a specifically altered piece of information in a prepared information campaign. The primary goal of such doctored information is to induce the other side to make decisions that are, in fact, predetermined by the producer of the doctored information.”[15]
Reflexive control is an activity which influences the adversary’s decision-making processes with a specifically altered piece of information in a prepared information campaign.
The concept of reflexive control has a long history in Russian military strategy. Taught in military schools and academies, it is also codified in the Russian National Security Strategy. Its elements include:
- Power pressure (provocation and deterrence);
- Measures to present false information about the situation (deception, distraction, and paralysis);
- Influencing the enemy’s decision-making algorithm (exhaustion, divisions, and suggestion);
- Altering the decision-making time (pacification and overload).[16]
The foundations of Russian reflexive control, dating back more than 200 years, are rooted in the ideas of General Peter Rumyantsev and Alexander Suvorov.[17] Overall, reflexive control loosely aligns with the concept underpinning Chinese General Sun Tzu’s commandments of war: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”.
The concept was updated in the late 20th century in line with:
- Evgeny Messner’s ideas on subversion-war – an activity that is intended to erode an adversary’s socio-cultural and military cohesion;
- Alexander Dugin’s network-centric war – more in a virtual dimension, establishing control over networks, more political than military, and not to be confused with Western ideas of Network-Centric Warfare; and
- Igor Panarin’s information warfare, handling psychological and specifically informational aspects.
Accordingly, all information means are used to target decision-making processes by manipulating international and domestic public opinion.[18]
The Use of Modern Technologies with a Hybrid Character
Since the dawn of humankind, war has been a relentless innovator. Russia’s war against Ukraine is no exception to this rule.
Cyber
The cyberspace war began long before the first Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine. Since 2014, Ukraine has registered more than 5,000 cyberattacks on state institutions and critical infrastructure.[19]
By mid-2021, Russian hackers had begun targeting digital service providers, logistics providers and supply chains in Ukraine and abroad to gain further access to Ukrainian systems and those of NATO member states.[20] When all diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the conflict failed in early 2022, and the Russian military began to complete its troop deployment along the border with Ukraine, cyberattacks intensified rapidly. Hackers were also increasingly using wiper malware, which erases hard drives and data, against Ukrainian institutions.
By mid-2021, Russian hackers had begun targeting digital service providers, logistics providers and supply chains in Ukraine and abroad.
On the one hand, Ukrainian IT systems are subject to constant Russian attacks. Cyberattacks do not cease during a conventional war. On the other hand, so-called spill-over or domino effects of offensive cyber operations – as predicted by Western experts as an argument against the use of offensive military cyber operations – have not yet been observed. Finally, critical infrastructures must be identified early, protected, and defended in the physical and cyber domains simultaneously.
Hybrid Threats and Warfare Around Ukraine
Russia has carried out extensive hybrid activities during the war in Ukraine, applying almost all of the above means and methods in other operations around the world:
- Russian Private Military Companies (PMCs) acted just as brutally in Africa as they did in Ukraine, but with almost no international reaction. The killing of 300 Malian civilians by Wagner mercenaries and Malian Army units drew almost no international condemnation;[21]
- Constant Russian disinformation campaigns through pre-established networks throughout Europe and the Americas;
- The use of so-called “useful idiots” and influencers in almost all Western societies;
- Unattributed or denied attacks on pipelines and critical infrastructures all over Europe; and
- Cyberattacks on Western political leaders, especially those who have publicly spoken out against Russia.
Fighting Value = Capabilities x Motivation
Both Western and Putin’s experts mainly discuss technology as the driving force behind military might or power. However, military leaders are already taught at a very early stage of their careers that the fighting value of their troops must be seen as a function of their capability (technical means/weapons) to conduct a mission multiplied by their motivation squared.[22]
Military leaders are already taught at a very early stage of their careers that the fighting value of their troops must be seen as a function of their capability to conduct a mission multiplied by their motivation squared.
Normally, this is only seen at the individual force level, but Russia’s war in Ukraine demonstrates that this must also be considered at a force-wide level. It would explain why the Ukrainian military and their “army of volunteers” can successfully take on the mighty battle-hardened Russian military, as the Ukrainian Armed Forces called it.
Poor mental preparation by the Russian ground forces, leading to deserters and abandoned equipment, can also be interpreted as a sign that the Russian military leadership, in particular, might have seen waging war as the only possible option within the overall hybrid threat campaign against Ukraine, and hence they failed to plan adequately.
The Russian Armed Forces masked their initial main attack thrust axes into Ukraine – Kyiv from the North, Donbas/Luhansk from the East and Mariupol from the South – by deploying battalion task groups without any logistical or communications support, creating problems for Western intelligence services attempting to assess Russian intentions.
Fortunately for Ukraine, the deployment did not go as planned. The Russian forces have suffered from gaps in their communications and logistical setup in particular. The low morale of the troops should also be factored in, as reports from Belarus before the attack indicated that Russian units had cleared forestland for firewood and bought food with their own money.[23]
What Are the Implications of Russia’s War in Ukraine for Hybrid Warfare and Hybrid Threats?
The Russian military forces, Secret Services, and PMCs are willing to engage in inhuman brutality and violence, even in the public eye. Hence, Western assumptions that covert operations, where attribution is almost impossible, would not be conducted by Russia or Russian operatives due to concerns about morale should be dismissed.
The authors are highly sceptical of the possibility that Western militaries, such as NATO Allies, with their ongoing and floating ideas of a “Cognitive Warfare Concept”, will develop a concept that can cope with Russia’s reflexive control theory. Copying it will be a value-based subset only, which cannot replicate the Russians’ outreach. Moreover, Russia has implemented systems thinking into hybrid and conventional military thinking. It is conducting military operations and targeting accordingly. This fosters the need for rapid implementation of Multi-Domain Operations and a re-thinking of defence as total defence by integrating non-military security providers and striving for societal resilience.
Russia has implemented systems thinking into hybrid and conventional military thinking. It is conducting military operations and targeting accordingly.
Over the past year, pundits have constantly analysed and discussed possible scenarios for the outcome of Russia’s war in Ukraine. One of the constants in all scenarios was that hybrid threats and warfare would continue due to their cheap and, unfortunately, effective and flexible nature. The unexpectedly high conventional losses of Russian military personnel and materiel amplify the risks of hybrid threats in a post-war setting.
Regardless of whether Russia wins the war, hybrid threats and warfare will be Moscow’s first and cheapest choice to bridge the gap until it regains sufficient conventional military power, especially in the European geopolitical sphere.
What Should NATO and the EU Expect in the Future?
The West will likely be prepared for a protracted, mostly low-intensity war. Putin already perceives the imposition of sanctions almost as a declaration of war. For Russia, the means of retaliation could be cyber and disinformation operations. In its November 2023 report, Microsoft warned of increased Russian military offensive cyber operations (wiper malware) against European critical infrastructure in the coming months. These attacks began in February 2022, targeting Ukrainian government agencies and IT service providers. Collective Western efforts towards cyber resilience at national, EU, and NATO level urgently need to be accelerated.
The West will likely be prepared for a protracted, mostly low-intensity war. Putin already perceives the imposition of sanctions almost as a declaration of war.
The cyber threat landscape is evolving at a rapid pace. Europe must now prepare for ongoing grey-area conflicts. Through anticipation, risk mitigation, and creativity, the West can shift the balance of power in cyberspace in favour of the defenders of an unfragmented, safe, and free internet.
EU and NATO countries should develop satellite capabilities to provide internet coverage and connectivity. This would become part of a global doctrine to encourage open information provision in conflict zones and to counter authoritarian internet shutdowns. The logic should follow that of Cold War shortwave radio.
Whoever wins in the cyberspace domain decides what people and societies believe, what the truth looks like, and what is happening physically on the ground. Whoever loses the battle for information also loses the moment to act and win the physical war.
Josef Schröfl started his career in the Austrian Armed Forces in 1982 and worked since then in various areas of the military, including several military operations/UN tours, e.g., to Syria. Since 2006 he served in the Austrian MoD, heading: “Comprehensive Approach”, “Hybrid threats”, and “Cyber Security/Cyber Defence”. He holds a B.A. in Computer Technology, an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Delaware/US, and a PhD in International Politics from the University of Vienna. Several publications/books on Asymmetric/Cyber/Hybrid threats, crisis, conflict and warfare. Peer Board member/reviewer of/from several magazines, e.g., “The Defence Horizon Journal”. Current position: Deputy Director for CoI Strategy & Defence at the hybrid CoE in Helsinki/Finland, leading the Cyber-workstrand there.
Sönke Marahrens, Colonel i.G. (GER AF), Dipl. Inform (univ), MPA, Director, COI Strategy & Defence. He is a career Air Force officer, previously serving as head of research for Strategy and Armed Forces at the German Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies in Hamburg. As well as a Full Diploma in Computer Science, he holds a master’s degree from the Royal Military College in Kingston, Canada, and another from the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Hamburg. He was deployed with NATO to Bosnia and Kosovo, and in 2020 served as Branch Head for Transition at HQ Resolute Support in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not represent the views of Hybrid CoE, or the Austrian and/or the German Federal Armed Forces.
[1] Fiona Hill, “Putin kämpft den Krieg seines Vaters,” Die Zeit, Mai 06, 2015, https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2015-05/gedenken-zweiter-weltkrieg-wladimir-putin-tag-des-sieges.
[2] European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, https://www.hybridcoe.fi/hybrid-threats/.
[3] Finnish Ministry of Defence, “Russian attack on Ukraine and Finland’s support to Ukraine,” last accessed December 29, 2023, https://www.defmin.fi/en/topical/russian_attack_on_ukraine_and_finlands_support_to_ukraine#744487d3.
[4] “Ukraine conflict: Russian forces attack from three sides,” BBC, last accessed 29 December, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60503037.
[5] Idem.
[6] Patrick Gensing, Andrej Reisin und Carla Reveland, “”Entnazifizierung” als Vorwand,” Tagesschau, Feber 25, 2022, https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/russland-propaganda-ukraine-101.html.
[7] IT Army of Ukraine, https://itarmy.com.ua/.
[8] Vladimir Putin, “Article by Vladimir Putin ‘On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians’,” http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181.
[9] Lonas Lexy, “Here are Russia’s alleged war crimes in the Ukraine invasion,” The Hill, https://thehill.com/policy/international/3262626-here-are-russias-alleged-was-crimes-in-the-ukraine-invasion/.
[10] The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/ukraine-live.
[11] Stephen Russell, Tarek Abdelzaher and Niranjan Suri, “Multi-Domain Effects and the Internet of Battlefield Things,” IEEE, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9020925.
[12] Jack Peat, “War-torn Ukraine running more reliable train service than TransPennine Express,” January 06, 2023, https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/war-torn-ukraine-running-more-reliable-train-service-than-transpennine-express-342002/.
[13] Claire Parker, “Russia and Syria conducted dozens of illegal ‘double tap’ strikes, report says,” The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/21/syria-russia-double-tap-airstrikes-report-war-crimes/.
[14] Lew Gudkov, “Interview Conducted by Christina Hebel in Moscow,” Der Spiegel, https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/opinion-researcher-lev-gudkov-russians-have-little-compassion-for-the-ukrainians-a-066c08c6-60f4-48e1-853a-d2b3d67bd6b8.
[15] “Seeing Red,” Hybrid CoE 8th Research Report, Jukka Aukia & Lucjan Kubica, March 2023, 34.
[16] Former Research Director of Hybrid CoE, Dr Hanna Smith, in a paper not publicly available, August 12, 2022.
[17] Idem.
[18] Idem.
[19] “The unfolding cyberwar in Ukraine,” Vision of Humanity, https://www.visionofhumanity.org/ukraine-cyberattacks-2022/.
[20] Office of Budget Responsibility, “Cyber Attacks During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine,” last accessed December 29, 2023, https://obr.uk/box/cyber-attacks-during-the-russian-invasion-of-ukraine/.
[21] Emmanuel Akinwotu, “Russian mercenaries and Mali army accused of killing 300 civilians,” The Guardian, April 05, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/05/russian-mercenaries-and-mali-army-accused-of-killing-300-civilians.
[22] Allan R. Millett, Williamson Murray and Kenneth H. Watman, “The Effectiveness of Military Organizations,” International Security 11, no. 1 (1986): 37–71, https://doi.org/10.2307/2538875.
[23] ISW, “Ukraine Conflict Updates,” ISW Press, last accessed December 29, 2023, https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates.
