OPERATION: NOVOROSSIYA: Part 1: Behind the Kremlin Psywar: The Neo Nazi Problem
 |
Operation Novorossiya is a 6 part series that digs deep into Russia's history of using the Neo-Nazi movement as a tool for Psychological warfare and political chess games. From the FSB cultivating the movement inside Russia to fueling the movement in Ukraine. |
In 1950 the KGB and their Stasi henchmen, hellbent on changing the landscape of Western Europe, began financing and arming what can now be described as the very first Neo-Nazi organization; the Socialist Reich Party, controlled by the infamous Maj. Gen. Otto Ernst Remer, who served as Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard and personal security chief during the final months of World War II. As the SRP started to gain momentum politically, Remer entered into secret negotiations with Soviet authorities in East Germany. “I sent my people there,” Remer said in an interview shortly before he died in 1997. “They were all received at the Soviet headquarters in Pankow.” These contacts led to covert Soviet support for Remer’s neo-Nazi organization, which publicly favored Josef Stalin’s controversial proposal for a neutral, reunified Germany--a proposal condemned by U.S. and West German officials. In 1952, the West German government outlawed the SRP, describing it as the successor to Hitler’s Nazi Party.
Though he harbored no sympathy for communism as an ideology, Remer called for a strategic partnership with the Soviet Bloc. Those Nazis who looked to the East after the Third Reich fell, took their historic cue from Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian realpolitiker who insisted that Germany align with Russia, its proximate and mineral-rich neighbor. Racial factors also influenced Remer’s decision to play the eastern card: Russians were white people, while the United States, as he saw it, was polluted by racial minorities and controlled by a Jewish cabal.
KGB would also begin to run covert subversion with their Stasi proxies. When Adolf Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem, the Stasi funneled cash to a campaign to defend the captured war criminal and forged letters from “veterans of the Waffen-SS” urging comrades to join the “struggle against Jewish Bolshevism,” all in an effort to humiliate the West German government. With the same goal in mind, in the late 50s and early 60s, agents smeared swastikas on Jewish graves across the country
The KGB's actionable role in the creation of the European Neo-Nazi networks was publically exposed in 1968 with the arrest of Austrian far-right fixture: Dr Adolf Slavik. Slavik once headed the intelligence unit of the Hitler Youth in 1938 before joining the Waffen SS where he achieved the rank of Oberstrumfurher (company commander) before his eventual arrest in 1945 after the fall of Nazi Germany, being recruited by the KGB while in prison. After his release in 1949 he would create the political and para-military organization "National League" in Vienna under the direction of the KGB, recruiting former members of the SS, SD, and Gestapo. Slavik ran intelligence, information, weapons and money while supervising a Vienna based KGB "relay station" for Soviet spies operating in Southern Europe and North Africa. He would go on to Turkey in 1961, achieving the rank of Major in the KGB. His clandestine operations were imperative in the creation of Middle East terrorist training camps before being dispatched to Algeria, where he ran arms shipments from Czechoslovakia for the National Liberation Front, leading up to his detainment in Turkey in 1968.
The Gauck archives of the recently declassified Stasi files opened the door to the secretive years behind Iron Curtain. Describing in detail how the KGB tactics evolved, as did their use of Reflexive Control in the 60s and 70. The Kremlins' use of Neo Nazis to embarrass, destabilize and delegitimize the Western-backed government is a long time strategy developed by Soviet intelligence and refined into a time tested tool of hybrid warfare. The long-term goal was to prove that the West did not have democratic control and that Western governments could not keep their house in order. Russia knew full well that any attempt by W. Germany to ban or suppress these far-right parties, could be easily propagated and that E. Germans could then point the finger at them and say “look, they’re just pretending to be democratic and have equal rights, but they are banning political movements and silencing free speech”. In turn, making the West look hypocritical and that they are not really what they claim. Years later, it’s literally a carbon copy of Russian Active Measures used in the war with Ukraine today.
 |
| Otto Remer and the SRP. Declassified Gauck (KGB and Stasi) files revealed that it was in fact the Soviets who were behind the rise of the Fourth Reich in W. Germany. Neo-Nazism has been Russia's favorite tool in the destabilization of the West |
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Leonid Shabarshin, who formerly headed the First Chief Directorate (Foreign Intelligence) of the KGB, explained to the Moscow newspaper Trud that one of the jobs of the KGB was disinformation for "compromising ‘anti-Soviets.'" In Shebarshin's words, "during the Cold War the essence of our active measures was to inflict political and moral damage on our basic opponent, the United States, we compromised political figures, organs of the press, and Americans whose activities were in some way unwelcome [to the Soviets]."
The KGB veteran revealed that every "active measure" against the enemies of the Soviet Union abroad was submitted by KGB to the Politburo "and was implemented only with its permission. The results of the action were also reported to the Politburo." The KGB was given the important job of creating division in the anti-Soviet camp. English language propaganda books and pamphlets were prepared with KGB assistance for dissemination in the West. One such pamphlet complained that "Ukrainian nationalists arrange noisy demonstrations in support of the Israeli aggressors (as has happened in West Germany), while the Zionist chieftains declare their firm intention to continue close cooperation with the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists] killers. Therefore, both partners in this wicked marriage publicly admit the real nature of the sinister alliance between Zionists and Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists". To the Soviets, those who opposed them would only do so on orders of the CIA. The pamphlet went on "The malignant partnership of the Magen David [Star of David] and the nationalist trident [the Ukrainian national emblem], fostered by the CIA, has long become a reality."
 |
| KGBs "Zionist/Banderite" propaganda. 7 decades of information warfare continues today in real-time |
As we perhaps stand on the steps of impending doom, with the saber-rattling of the Kremlin and the WW3 cheerleaders of Russian media, one needs to think, how did we get here? Well if you are team Russia, then it's first and foremost Nazis, Ukrainian Nazis. Not NATO, not the USA, the first reaction was Azov Nazis. Putin used this narrative to justify his Special Military Operation. But why would a country with the highest numbers of far-right extremists in the world, not to mention the highest amount of hate crimes of any major country, use the fear of Nazis as the main narrative for such an operation? It's because their GRU Psychological Warfare wing (unit 54777) has been planning it for decades.
The GRU and FSB used a successful media narrative in 2013-14 to justify interventions in Donbas and Luhansk. 2014 Coincided with the newly structured launch of Project Lakhta, known to many by the Internet Research Agency aka GLAVSET, giving birth to another weapon in the information war. They would use the threat of Ukrainian Nationalists and Neo-Nazi "Banderist" death squads to discredit Maidan in 2014. The Kremlin-controlled State media would use weaponized propaganda, offering tranches of "leaked" half-truths to Western media outlets, summarizing a concern about the sudden rise of Ukrainian Neo Nazis, leading to mass hysteria within a Western media already obsessed with Nazi symbolism. From 2013 to 2018, the GRU Active Measures operations via state media like RT, Tass, Zvesda etc, started successfully "pushing" stories on to sympathetic contacts at Reuters, Time, NBC, Guardian etc etc. Most of the controlled narratives would be spawned by fake online personas or blogs, making the engagements organic and by 2014 Russian State media would make Ukrainian Banderists and Nazis from Azov a viral story. Ultimately giving Putin a free pass and providing the Russian public the ultimate boogeyman to rally around.
To make things more obtuse, the GRU would try to checkmate their "Ukraine is a fascist state" narrative by hacking the 2014 Ukrainian Presidential elections after Yanukovych fled to Russia.
Just before the elections wrapped up on May 25th, Russia's state-owned Channel One reported that the far-right Dimtry Yarosh of Right Sector had won the election with a total of 37% of the vote. Their source? Ukraine's Central Election Commission Website. The reality however was much different. Poroshenko actually carried 60% and would claim the eventual victory. Yarosh carried less than 1%, a disaster for the far right. The SBU would make arrests of hackers linked to Russian intelligence.
Russian intelligence felt that the Kremlin would only benefit from the instability and anti-Russian rhetoric by propping up the far right in Ukraine. With the FSB already having influence over political opposition like Svaboda, their new goal was to make Ukraine look like a fascist-run state, controlled by Neo Nazis. However, with the attempts to infiltrate Right Sector largely unsuccessful, FSB shifted their focus on financing and infiltrating new organizations, such as Azov in 2014, with the initial goal of influencing Ukrainian nationalists away from the West. With Banderism being historically a westward-leaning ideology, Azov (which half of the early members actually ethnically from Russia) was the Kremlin's attempt to push a more traditional, Hitler worshipping, anti-west, anti-Nato ideology to the media. Similar to some of the FSB-controlled Neo Nazi militias in Russia in the 90s and 2000s like NSO (More on Azov on parts 5 and 6 of the series)
With the West being somewhat new to the conflict, ignorant to the complex clandestine history within Ukrainian and Russian nationalism, and without any general knowledge of how Russian Reflexive Control works in the media sphere. It created a negative backlash in the Main Stream Media's narrative, even making NATO think twice before assisting Ukraine militarily and financially. The only odd thing was, not a peep from Western media about Russia’s Nazi problem across the street in DPR and LDPR where they had dozens of far-right, Neo-Nazi and Ortho fascist battalions. Compare that to Azov Battalion which started out with 400 volunteers and had at most only 2-3k throughout the beginning of the conflict. Not a word about the 2014 independent study that ranked Russia with the highest percentage of hate crimes of any major country. (The last year Russia participated in such studies). Also not a word of Russia's FSB's own love affair with their Neo Nazis and their support for operations inside their own country in the 2000s. in which far-right and nationalist groups with financial and political support from within the Kremlin, went on to create chaos and fear on the streets of every major Russian city leading to a wide range of new Draconian-style laws in 2008. Allowing the seizure of assets and unlimited powers of arrest in the guise of Putin being "tough on crime" and "fighting terrorism" all without the filing of charges.
The 2014 passing of the vague Yarovaya Law, referred to as the Law Against Rehabilitation of Nazism, would give the FSB full power to arrest anyone that discredited the Russian government, making free speech basically illegal and painting all political opposition as fascist Nazis. No longer would the Kremlin be sidelined with oversight of their surveillance programs. All communication (phone, texts, social media, internet) was fare game for FSB to tap or GRU to hack. The same year Vladislav Surkov would publically announce the implemention of the 2006 decree he drew up for the leaders of all the Russian Neo Nazi and right wing movements, to (pinky)promise to move away from Nazi symbolism to more palatable, traditional Russian imagery.
Russian Nationalists would head to Donbas to join the Separatist movement, where the lawless Donbas created an appealing proving ground for private military contractors, Russian extremists and violent criminals. Instead of arrests, they were given automatic weapons and positions of power, with the promise of political assignments in the new provisional government. Creating open season on looting, rape, torture and murder. Not to mention cartel style hostage-for-money kidnapping schemes using local businessmen and wealthy Ukrainians
In the year prior to Maidan and Donbas conflict, Moscow would begin to unleash these same extremists and Neo-Nazis from their prisons and into Ukrainian society. Inserting violent criminals and radicals onto Ukraine's streets and into their nationalist movement. All while being able to point the finger at Ukraine, for having the problem that they helped create.
 |
| From 2012-2018 the average Western Media's negative coverage of Ukraine's far-right problem was 6 to 1. With only one outlet questioning the anti-Ukraine reporting as perhaps biased Russian propaganda. Not exactly disinformation, but only reporting one side. You would be hard-pressed to find any Western outlets reporting on the Russian far-right problem, which according to researchers the worst in the world. |
 |
| The removal of Yanukovych in 2014 during Maidan would introduce a new weapon in the information war, with the newly formed Troll Farms of the Lahkta Project, shaping the new narrative of Ukrainian Nazis that would work hand in hand with Russian State media. |
Every single mass political mobilization in Ukraine has been accompanied by attempts to compromise the popular uprisings by associating them with the extreme right. And not only uprisings or protests, but big events too. For example, a few weeks before the start of the Euro-2012 football championship, British media hysterically accused Ukrainians of racism and xenophobia, and warned that any non-White person going to see football matches in Ukraine would definitely and immediately be killed. After the championship was over, no British media outlet apologized to the Ukrainian people when it turned out that not one racist incident involving Ukraine fans had been reported during the tournament.
Putins Neo Nazi Spies
To understand Ukraine's long-time corruption and previous failures, one needs to look no further than the neighbor next door. For most of Ukraine's short life as a fledgling democracy, it was basically a wing of Putin's Russia, with the Russian intel services of GRU,FSB, and SVR controlling Ukraine by proxy and infesting and degrading the military and SBU with traitors, double agents and sticky-fingered politicians, and in turn, influencing their politics. Some Ukrainian citizens from Crimea and Donbas cited that it was corruption in Kyiv as the #1 reason behind their political leanings toward Russia. It was all a bit too ironic as it was actually Russia and Putin's hand-picked oligarchs corrupting the Ukrainian state. To ensure Kremlin-friendly politicians were elected, Russian intelligence began financing and promoting their own hand-picked political opposition, usually within the Ukrainian far right, financing public actions that included elements of Nazi imagery, in a time-tested subversive strategy to scare up the voter base.
"The KGB and its counterparts in the countries of the Warsaw Pact kept on infiltrating neo-Nazi organizations in West Germany and some other Western countries, but then with a different aim, namely to goad them into extremist activities, only to accuse Western countries of the alleged resurgence of Nazism afterwards"
Vladimir Putin as a young KGB agent in Dresden was actually working as an undercover Stasi point man. He excelled in Active Measure ops in E Germany, his specialty was disinformation and Maskirovka. He ran countless amounts of informants, the KGB and their proxies at Stasi created modern day terrorism, from Middle East terrorist training camps of the PLO to financing and recruiting collaborators for the Red Army Faction (RAF) as well overseeing the training and financing infamous terrorist Carlos the Jackel. However, it was Putins' work with Neo Nazi gang leader and undercover Stasi agent Rainer Sonntag that would forever scar the European landscape, creating Neo Nazi gangs still operating in Germany today. Putin controlled and financed the fringe movement in E. Germany, making Sonntag somewhat of a cult hero in the modern Neo Nazi revival of Europe. Sonntag became the leader of the German Alternative . There he founded the National Resistance Dresden (NWD). Sonntag was seen as a pivotal figure between the west and east German neo-Nazi scene and was held in high esteem particularly within the Skinhead community. He also gained a reputation as a "clean man" who patrolled the streets of Dresden with like-minded people as a kind of private police force.
Putin would use his knowledge of the West's obsession with Nazi symbolism and their primal fear and anger of anything affiliated with the ideology. Ukraine would be a natural staging ground for his well-oiled operation of propaganda and violence.
The KGB often manipulated the threat of fascism and anti-Semitism to compromise political opponents of the Soviet Union. One of the most memorable cases was the KGB's Gray Wolves operation in the 1960s and 1970s. The goal of the operation was to prevent Baltic emigre and Jewish communities, who supported dissidents in the Soviet Union, from uniting against the Soviet regime. However, it was their own internal notorious Russian anti-Semitic group Pamyat (Memory), which paved the way for the post-Soviet Neo Nazi revival.
The National Patriotic Front or Pamyat (Memory) initially began in 1980 as an association of public activists from the Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments. By 1986 it transformed into a Nationalist movement and the voice of Russias far right. The early version of Pamyat was based on the ideology of extreme antisemite and murdering psychopath Valeri Yamelyanov. Yamelyanov was a Nazi paganist who helped pioneer the modern version of Russian Rodnovery with ideologue Alexey Dobrovolsky, which he called the true religion of Russia as well as the Aryan race, denouncing Christianity for worshipping a "dirty Jew". Prior to Pamyat, he authored books & Samizdats, expressing the need for ethnic cleansing, including the novel "Desionization" which was written in the 1970s and first published in 1979 in Arabic in Syria in the Al-Baath newspaper at the direction of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad . At the same time, a photocopied copy of this book, allegedly published by the Palestine Liberation Organization in Paris, was distributed in Moscow by newspaper "Russkiya Pravda", which he helped start. Yamelyanov was an expert in Arabic studies and worked as Nikita Khrushchev's assistant on Middle Eastern affairs. It is from the publication in “Desionization” of the Charter of the World Anti-Zionist and Anti-Masonic Front (WASAMF) that “Pamyat” got its name. He went on to facilitate some of the most vile antisemitic conspiracies as the voice of the KGB led Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee in the 1970s, he also went on to murder his wife with an ax and chopped her body into pieces.
Another infamous paganist Pamyat member was Valery Skurlatov. In the 1970s, while working at the Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences (INION), he promoted the “glorious Aryan history” of Russia and at the same time published one of the most radical and racist books ever created, the anti-Zionist novel: “Zionism and Apartheid,” which contained open anti-Semitic propaganda. This book made him one of the idols of the members of the Pamyat association, who were impressed by the idea of opposing “Jewish domination.”
 |
| The copy of "Desionization", which included insane theories that that pagan Russians were the true "Aryans", who lived in peace and hormony with nature, and that evil did not exist until the arrival of Jews, who were criminals, thieves and savages who migrated to “Aryan” Palestine and appropriated the “Aryan” cultural heritage. |
 |
| Alexey Dobrovlsky, One of the founders of Russian Rodnovery |
 | |
| Yamelyanov (right) with Alexy Dobrovolsky. Who believed the Nazis stole their faux Pagan ideology from Russians, who were the true Aryans The "Orthodox" version of Pamyat was started with the KGB inserting professional actor and monarchist Dmitry Vasiliev into the role of its leader, appearing on the Soviet political scene in the 1980s. A collection of black-shirted, bearded men, Pamyat was modeled on the pre-revolutionary anti-Semitic "Union of Russian People". The group claimed to be preserving Russian culture and artifacts but had an evident political agenda. Vasilyev, had promised his supporters an end to the ‘corruption’ of Western-style liberal capitalism in Russia and called for a return to ‘traditional’ values and institutions. Moreover, Vasilyev linked Western-style reform in Russia with what he called a ‘Judeao-capitalist’ plot.The leadership claimed that Jews in the Communist Party had been responsible for the ‘genocide’ of sixty to one hundred million Russians in the gulags, and that this was not based on ‘class’ but on ‘genetic type, the Russian type. Vasilyev’s activists also called for a return to the ‘old’ (traditional) values that were supposedly once dominant in Czarist Russia. They cited Count Uvarov, the 19th Century theoretician of absolutism: ‘We want a pyramid: God, then Emperor, then State, then nation, then people. Individuals come last. The groups obsession with reviving the pre Bolshevik Imperial ideology that gave rise to the German Nazi movement, which focused on conspiracies that lay claim to the existence of a so-called "Ziono-Masonic plot" against Russia as "the main source of the misfortunes of Russian people. |
 |
| The Pamyat Crest with modded Swastika |
Tsarist, Imperialist, and antisemitic propaganda would begin to take center stage in the movement. Pamyat would even revive the Swastika, into their own Imperial crest & modded logo, reminding that it was used in Russian circles as an ancient Slavic symbol before the Nazis branded it. Despite this overt Nationalism being contradictive to the Soviet ideology, Pamyat had support among the KGB, the Communist Party and the USSR armed forces. As reported by Helsinki Watch in 1990, "the Moscow intelligentsia believes that it is not Yeltsin who is supporting Pamyat, but in fact Yeltsin's conservative opponent in the Politburo, Ligachev as well as the KGB"
But why was the KGB interested in operating a Russian Nazi organization like Pamyat? A well-informed member of Gorbachev's Politburo, Alexander Yakovlev explained in an interview: "It was the 1980's, there was the dissident [movement]. A vent was needed to release the pent-up steam of dissidence from society. They [the KGB] selected a goal: Zionism, the culprit for all the misfortunes of the Soviet people. And they selected an executor, Pamyat'. It was intended to show the people its enemy. Later ever more extreme Nazi organizations began to detach themselves from Pamyat'. In this way the KGB organizationally gave birth to Russian fascism.":
 |
| Early leader of Pamyat and KGB agent Dmitry Vasiliev |
On September 29, 1991 the leader of Pamyat for the first time appeared in a radio program. In this juncture, it would be worthwhile to present parts of this speech of Vasilyev primarily due to the fact that it fully showed ideological transformation of the movement:
“Dear compatriots, brothers and sisters! The long-suffering Orthodox people! I am speaking to you at this arduous period for the Russian land. Many tempests and hurricanes have dashed upon the holy land, yet never has she witnessed such a difficult period is we are currently going through. The Russian people have forgotten bequests of their predecessors: wholeheartedly keep Russian land… they have succumbed to the diabolic temptations betraying the creed of their predecessors, sawing malice among their brothers, sisters, betraying their mothers and fathers, vilifying ancient wisdom of grandparents. They have ceased to sign Russian songs and speak Russian language… The kikes have captured Russian freedom! They are taunting and torturing without any shadow or compassion! And where are our people?!... I am wondering if Russian land has ceased to bring knights the Super-warriors?! Where are you, Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich and Alesha Popovych?... Are you going to serve to damned kike and tolerate his sneering for the eternity!? Has not the time come to start minting swards to relive the Russian lands from these abominable freaks!
… May the God, the Tsar and the nation guide us!”
In the 60s a group of intellectuals appeared in Moscow, studying traditionalism and the occult under the leadership of the writer Yuri Mamleev, who would end up immigrating to Austria In 1974. His comrades, fans of Nazi esotericism created an organization with the modest name "Black Order of the SS”, headed by the writer Yevgeny Golovin, who received the title of “Reichsführer”. Since the early 60s Golovin was intent on translating the works of European traditionalist Gnostics and underground occult, propagating the works of Rene Guenon, Julius Evola, Miguel Serrano and other authorities European “new right” intellectuals who created the philosophical and occult foundations of fascism.
By 1980, with the help of Islamofascist Heydar Dzhemal, would introduce a young satanist, obsessed with Aleister Crowley, named Alexander Dugin into this underground organization, which met on Yuzhinsky Lane in Moscow. They studied traditionalism and Nazi esotericism, accompanied by various orgies, heavy amounts of vodka and psychedelic mushrooms, (as later described in the stories of eyewitnesses, as well as in the novels of Mamleev). “Hundreds of people passed through the apartment on Yuzhinsky,” recalled one of the circle members, Igor Dudinsky, and something like a secret brotherhood arose there, with its own dramas and intrigues. If you tell specifics and details, list names, tell who occupied what place in the Yuzhin hierarchy, then there will not be enough energy or time"
During "perestroika" members of the "Black Order of the SS" tried to legalize themselves through political activity and in 1988 (on the advice of his teacher E. Golovin) Dugin together with Dzhemal were introduced to Vasilyev and became members of Pamyat. Dugin even became a member of Pamyat’s Central Council and would lead lectures on “white Vedanta”, a system of religious and occult views restoring the SS "Nordic mysticism". Dugin and Dzhemal were quickly expelled due to “suspicions of Satanism and for anti-Soviet statements.” (Both were members of Satanic cult: Order Of Nine Angle). Though Dugin claimed he left on his own will, claiming that Pamyat was "a community of hysterics, schizophrenics and KGB informants"
 |
| Artist Valery Konoplev designed symbolism for The Black Order Of SS |
 |
| Yuri Mamleev and Evgeny Golovin |
Despite seemingly appealing rhetoric based on patriotism and anti-Semitic sentiments, Pamyat failed to become the flagman of the Russian nationalist movement. Pamyat's recieved a fatal blow in 1992 when their lead ideologist, Alexander Shtimark would branch off and start his own movement called the Black Hundreds, in honor of the nationalist proto-Nazi movement of the supporters of House of Romanov. (The name apparently arose from the medieval concept of "black", or common (non-noble) people.)
Pamyat would eventually split into many factions and launch over 120 different Neo Nazi and far-right fascist organizations, many would be run by FSB and protected by high ranking racists inside the Duma and extremists within the Kremlin siloviki. Aleksander Barkashov's (Russian National Unity (RNE/RNU)) high-profile role within Pamyat' could only have occurred with the approval and the logistical support of the KGB. As the weekly Ogonek noted in early 1995, there have been persistent reports that Barkashov "immediately after [his time in] the army formed ties with the Fifth Directorate of the KGB.." Coincidentally, Barkashov, Alexander Dugin, along with Shtilmark, would be instrumental in the creation of the Ukrainian Separatist movements, ending up in Donbas trying to turn Ukrainians against each other, with the ultimate goal of fracturing the Kyiv government and destroying the Ukrainian state.
 |
| Alexander Shtilmark-One of the leaders of Pamyat, Founder of Black Hundreds |
To say Ukraine is a completely different country since 2014 is an understatement. SBU and the intelligence wing of the military: GUR MO have had numerous, highly public, successful operations, including leading the successful investigation of one the worst International crimes in Europe's history: by arresting the DPR terrorists behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. However not to underestimate the "cleaning" of their side of the street. The amount of Russian double agents outed and politicians disgraced is overwhelming. The high profile arrests of high ranking officers within the Ukrainian military as well as a complete purge and re-structuring of the SBU leadership, in which the infiltration went straight to the top. It seems Ukraine was just finding its footing as a nation finally wiping away its Soviet past and Putin's clandestine cloak. Not a coincidence Putin took action at the time that he did.
In the next 5 chapters, we investigate Russias Intelligence services' role in creating this Psyop, from Vladislav Surkov's network of FSB-run Neo Nazi gangs in Russia to the Neo Nazi and right-wing Russian nationalists acting as Ukrainian separatists in Donbas, from the clandestine Russian beginnings of the Azov Movement to the story of one of the most puzzling cases in Ukrainian Nationalist history, we tell the untold story...nothing is what it seems...
Separate from the Operation Novorossiya series we compiled a reference guide of material, videos, and links as a go-to for all your Russian propaganda and Psychological warfare needs.
 |
| Shouigu being very open on media manipulation being an essential tool of war. "Then came the day when we all recognized that word, camera, photography, Internet and general information are another type of weapon, another view of the Armed Forces. This weapon can be applied in a good and a bad way. This weapon, which at different times in different ways to participate in events in our country, as in defeat and in victory" |
 |
| How the Active Measures disinformation attacks in 2013-2016 were compartmentalized, the only mistake here is that Internet Research Agency aka GLAVSET is actually under the wing of GRU unit 54777 |
 |
| A rare look into GRU structure |
The Center for Special Service organizes and conducts PSYOP at the strategic and operational level in the interests of supporting operations (battles, combat actions) of troops (forces for strategic lines and support of the activity of troops (forces) in the zones of responsibility; takes part in activities of informational confrontation according to the General Staff’s plans; analyzes the socio-political and informational and psychological situation in the strategic areas; the emotional and psychological state of the personnel of the armies of the targeted countries in order to take them into account in planning and preparation of psychological operations (psychological warfare activities); and studies the psychological features and experience of the special and PSYOP armed forces of the targeted states.
Psywar is planned comprehensively, to the entire depth of the operative construction of the enemy’s opposition group. Moreover, along with other factors, the ability to reach targets with psywar’s available means is considered (regular and attached television and radio station broadcasting, artillery, aviation and aeronautical broadcasting, and ground stations).
establishment of the necessary consistency and periodicity of using informational and psychological influence on targets (groups of targets, areas of active psychological influence)
Psywar is waged on the basis of their careful analysis. Furthermore, the tasks with regards to each of the targets (groups of targets, area of active psychological influence) must be determined for a certain period of time and in accordance with their typological emotional, political, and psychological features.
PSYOP in conditions of peacetime
PSYOP in conditions of peacetime Psychological warfare in peacetime is a component of the state’s information policy, a form of information confrontation and is a package of measures for emotional and psychological influence of military personnel and the population of foreign countries in the interests of performing the assignments made by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The psywar service during peacetime also has a public title – “Foreign Military Information and Communications Service of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” [ZVIK]. In keeping with its purpose, it has the functions in particular of conducting informational and propaganda work abroad and making military and humanitarian contacts with foreign military and civilian organizations and mass media. Within the framework of this form of cooperation, each year dozens of international conferences and seminars are held, in which thousands of people take part, along with numerous publications in the press and on electronic media as well as special events.
The purpose of psywar in conditions of peace consists of forming and stimulating opinions, views, emotions, and behavior corresponding to the interests of Russia’s national security through the means of emotional and psychological influence on military personnel and the population of foreign countries. Conducting psywar in peacetime is simultaneously preparation of the governing bodies and service units for psychological operations in a combat setting.
The chief targets of psywar in peacetime are the personnel of the armed forces and populations of the target states. In special cases, when the contingents of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation are involved in conducting peacekeeping operations (for example, in the former Yugoslavia, at the decisions of the UN; in Tajikistan, Abkhazia and so on) and also special operations with border and internal troops, targets of psywar may be:
• opposing armed groups, ethnic groups of the population;
• participants in provocative and destabilizing actions on the borders of the Russian Federation and countries with which Russia has agreement of mutual protection and defense of borders;
• members of extremist nationalist and religious organizations, unlawful armed formations, terrorists and criminal groupings, and participants in mass disorders, anti-government, and socially dangerous actions.
In this case, the psywar tasks may be: facilitation of the stabilization of the situation, settlement of the conflict; mobilization of the population to support the government; and elaboration of principles of a loyal attitude to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The main lines of content of informational and propaganda materials are truthful information about our country and its army; explanation of the reasons and nature of wars, the dangerous military preparations of the West (the expansion of NATO to the East);
demonstration of the contradictions inside the coalition of a potential enemy; popularization of military cooperation (allied relations) of foreign countries with the Russian Federation. In conditions of peace, all basic forms of information and psychological influence are employed: print, oral, direct (unmediated) communication, emotional and psychological influence with the aid of electronics, including radio, video, and television; emotional and psychological influence through Internet channels; graphic depiction;
providing the population with humanitarian aid; and providing medical services and other methods.
The chief forms of emotional and psychological influence in print are newspapers, journalist, brochures, books, and letters, including facsimiles. Leaflets are printed and distributed in zones of local conflicts. Army and non-army domestic and foreign print publications are widely used in the interests of PSYOP, as a rule on the basis of cooperation with editorial offices interested in the relevant materials, relying on freelance service assets.
Publications in the foreign press may be made in cooperation with the Chief Directorate of International Military Cooperation, the Directorate of External Relations of the Ministry of Defense, the staffs of military attaches, advisors, representative offices, and embassies of the Russian Federation abroad. Informational and psychological influence are practiced by handing out Russian productions – albums, books, brochures, and booklets which are for sale openly or are published by the Voyeninform agency of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The most rapid form of printed production is faxed messages. They ensure only a limited capture of the reading audience, however and are used in special cases. Within the framework of oral propaganda, lectures and reports are given; conferences, seminars and talks with foreign military personnel and the population are held. A large part of this work is done through military-humanitarian contacts. Lectures and presentations are given to audiences of military personnel and the publics of foreign countries. A large amount of work on oral propaganda is done through military attaché generals and officers in Russian Federation embassies abroad, and also during visits of warships of the Russian Navy to foreign ports.Individual conversations are an important form, enabling in a confidential setting to have influence on people from the foreign assets of the service. A significant role is played in this setting by the knowledge of officers of the service of foreign languages and the psychological features of the population. Increasingly relevant is the form of giving (or demonstrating play) to foreign representatives of audio production – compact discs, recorded tapes, records, and so on with recordings of classical works of Russian music.
Oral broadcasting with the use of broadcasting stations is used as a rule only in areas of local conflicts. Radio, video, and television propaganda. Broad use of radio facilities is conditioned on the possibilities for radio to cover mass audiences of radio listeners; to rapidly convey information to the targets; and to have feedback from them. Radio propaganda for military personnel and the population of foreign countries is conducted mainly with the use of stationary state radio broadcasting stations in close cooperation with state organizations and radio editorial offices. The system of foreign broadcasting, in particular Radio Golos Rossii [(Voice of Russia)] plays a special role in this system. It broadcasts in four dozen foreign languages and is listened to in practically all the countries of the world. The psywar service plays the role of organizer and direct executor of a number of broadcasts to the foreign audience of Radio Golos Rossii. The ability to have direct communication with an audience on the radio is of significant value. For this form of work, radio advertising is run in the preparatory period; listeners are informed in advance of the frequency, time, and topic of broadcasts, and the telephone and fax numbers in the studio. Through various channels, for example, with the aid of military delegations, groups, military ships visiting foreign states, and also foreign delegations in our country, printed advertising materials from Radio Golos Rossii is distributed with the necessary information. For example, for a German language audience, it exceeds 300,000 people, according to the estimates of radio specialists. The question of organization and airing of radio broadcasts with the use of foreign radio station is an exceptionally important issue. Such a form of activity is not yet systematic in nature. Certain opportunities are available in this regard through the staffs of military attachés at embassies of the Russian Federation in foreign countries, at military and other representative offices, missions, delegations and on ship voyages.
The psywar service plays the role of organizer and producer in preparation of video production and running television broadcasts for a foreign audience. The capabilities of the central and regional television of Russia and foreign countries are used for television propaganda.As with oral propaganda, radio and television propaganda must strictly adhere to the requirements of the relevant policy documents and rules. The appearance of military personnel on the radio, as on other media, is allowed only with permission from immediate superiors who have this right, and after careful preparation.
Emotional and psychological influence has wide application with visual productions. Its chief forms are posters, banners, signs, photo materials (photo collections – newspapers, collages, exhibits, individual photographs), postcards, calendars, special symbols on ordinary and faxed letters, business cards and so on. This form was particularly widely used by Russian (Soviet) groups 4 “RT” does not appear to be a reference to the television company RT, but perhaps references the Republic of Turkey—The Interpreter/Free Russia Foundation. of troops during work with the military personnel of armies and the population of countries where they were temporarily stationed. At the present time, visual productions are used in psychological operations (measures) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, RT;4 during the calls of Russian Naval ships at foreign ports; during foreign trips of military delegations; at international conferences and seminars and the activities of military attachés.
A specific form of psywar is propaganda with the aid of souvenir products. Souvenirs may contain a symbol of Russia, its culture, military history, and so on. In them, as a rule, elements of audio, video, and print are combined, and also of visual productions propaganda. This refers to pennants, booklets, albums, brochures, books, buttons, audio and video cassettes, t-shirts, and other item
PSYOP during a prewar (threat) period
The onset of direct military actions, as practice and theoretical research have shown, is preceded by a threat period, the timely recognition and tracking of which largely determines the future dynamics of events and the justification for decisions made by the command, including in the area of organization and conduct of psywar (psychological operations). The features of this period are a sharp worsening of the military-political, informational and socio-political setting in the world and the region (regions); activization of information confrontation of the sides, to justify the active participation of each of them in resolving the conflict in their own (or a certain coalition’s) favor, and so on. Its most characteristic features include:
1. in the internal political area – a sharp escalation of the general international situation; an increase in diplomatic activity; intensive talks with allies and likely allies; an increase in tension in relations with states of opposing groupings right up to a break in diplomatic relations; incitement of ethnic, religious and other border conflicts;
2. in domestic politics – introduction in the “crisis” areas of a state of emergency; tightening of the administrative and police regimen; increase in the activity of reactionary organizations and movements; persecution and ban on the activity of opposition parties and organizations; incitement of nationalist and chauvinist sentiments; abolition or suspension of traditions and freedoms; harshening of censorship;
3. in the economy – the maximum increase of production of arms and military vehicles; clandestine transfer of industry to manufacture of military products; change in the work regimen of rail, water and automobile transportation; sharp increase in the volume of military shipments; activization of activity in improving the facilities of the military infrastructure;
4. in the military field – secretly conducted military activities, an increase in intelligence in all spheres, especially in border regions; bringing forces and means to the highest degree of combat readiness; conducting mobilization, reinforcement and deployment of strike groupings of troops; enhancement of management systems and communications.
5. in the area of information confrontation and psywar – activization of the forces and means involved; abrupt changes in its content, deployment and use of forces and means of psychological operations (psychological warfare). The duration of the threat period to a significant extent depends on the nature of the military and political situation; the readiness to take part in the proposed conflict by leading government circles; various categories of the population and military personnel; the state of the economy, armed forces, and also other factors. Based on what has been indicated, the purpose of psychological warfare in the prewar (thread) period consists of facilitation through informational and psychological influence of the reduction of military-political and socio-psychological tension; and reduction of the threats that it will grow into an open crisis (conflict) situation, which in turn may grow into an armed conflict. Psychological warfare during this period is conducted, as a rule, within the framework of information confrontation on a national state level. The tasks of psywar in the prewar (threat) period and its content are determined by the developing situation on the strategic (operational) line of the military-political, informational, and socio-psychological situation; changes in the sentiments of border regions; the emotional and psychological influence of targets (groups of targets).
Psywar in the prewar (threat) period includes
• securing the replenishment (mobilization) of PSYOP units, conducting combat coordination, and ensuring their combat capability;
• refinement of plans for psychological warfare and combat use of units (divisions, facilities) of psychological operations in various versions of development of the military-political and strategic (operational) situation;
• determination (clarification) of the lines (targets, groups of targets) on which it is feasible to concentrate the main efforts of psychological warfare;
• information and psychological support of border operations; selection, preparation, and involvement in psychological warfare of representatives of the political and other opposition to the leadership of the country (coalitions) of the potential (likely) enemy;
• determination of the content, forms, and methods of psychological influence on targets (groups of targets) of psychological warfare. In the threat period, psywar is organized on the first stage by governing bodies for units of PSYOP both central as well as the district (fleet) set, by the available forces and means in cooperation with the forces and means of other ministries (agencies) with the use of the capabilities of the media. The enhancement of psywar efforts is made according to the extent of replenishment and mobilization of PSYOP units (including advanced ones) and their transfer (including in part) to wartime strengths. In the prewar (threat) period, the command and staffs of military districts (fleets), on the basis of directives from the General Staff of the Main Directorate of the General Staff, ensure the mobilization and resupply of the psywar governing bodies and the centrally subordinate PSYOP units (facilities, divisions), and also on threatened strategic lines. Before the onset of hostilities (lifting of the state border regimen), according to the General Staff’s decision, after refinement of previously taken decisions, the psywar forces and means conduct PSYOP envisioned by the psywar plans, independently or with the participation and under the leadership of central governing bodies. Furthermore, unplanned PSYOP may be conducted as well. In conducting PSYOP (psywar measures) in a prewar (threat) period, special attention is paid to the legending of the activity of the psywar forces and means. As a rule, influence on psychological warfare targets (groups of targets) is organized with the use of federal television, and also under cover of commercial (nongovernment) broadcasting and on its frequencies. The chief lines of content of informational and psychological influence materials are refined and rounded out depending on the developing situation.
 |
| The GRU structure oversees several different units, with their specialty. However, the missions and attacks do not go unnoticed. Here The FBI is looking for 6 agents of unit 26165 charged with cyberattacks |
 |
| Here a group of outed GRU unit 29155 and 26165 agents, embarrassingly charged with infiltrating the IOC in the doping scandal and the 3 agents wanted in the attempted assassination of former spy Sergi Skipral with Novichok |
Glossary
INFORMATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL TARGETS. State and military governing bodies and their leadership; political, economic, financial and other organizations; groupings (groups) and their leaders, armed forces, troop formations, military personnel, members of armed (opposition) formations; nations, population of countries, civic, ethnic, social, religious and other communities (formations, organizations, groups), including their leaders; collectives of publishing houses (programs, channels) of mass media.
INFORMATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCE. A set of measures to influence the intellectual, rational-volitional and emotional sphere of the psyche and subconscious of informational and psychological targets, aimed at the formation in them of predictable opinions and views, worldview and psychological principles, as well as behavioral reactions. Informational and psychological influence are carried out by propaganda and agitation; disinformation; demonstrative and demonstrational actions; application of special psycho-physical and psychological methods, including the use of special (psychotropic, psychotronic,2 energy-informational3 and other) means.
INFORMATIONAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL (PSYCHOLOGICAL) WEAPONRY. The combination of methods and means (technologies) of overt (or semi-covert) influence on the psyches of people, used during informational and psychological warfare (informational warfare) for achieving stated goals. Technologies of informational and psychological confrontation (informational warfare) include such methods as open discussion, argument, conversation, colloquium, and so on, during which one side persuades (convinces) his opponent through the logic of thought, appeal to reason, and citing of persuasive arguments. The appearance of “dirty” (manipulative) techniques of informational and psychological confrontation (warfare) is linked to the globalization of mass media, a significant influence on the formation in people of different viewpoints on various political and social processes and phenomena; on international and domestic events; on the formation of their attitudes toward political and party leaders, and leaders of the government. The set of “dirty” techniques includes: disinformation, lying, manipulation of facts, distortion of the content of messages, activities, and acts; emphasis of the negative and silence about the positive side of a problem (an individual); alternating truthful information with false, and so on. “Dirty” techniques are implemented, as a rule, through all forms of media over a long period of time. The infiltration of agents of influence into the media of an opposing state enables the manipulation of public consciousness; to use special means for zombifying it – informational and psychological techniques of covert (clandestine) influence, which make up the physical essence of psychophysical weaponry.
INFORMATIONAL SUPERIORITY. Advantage over the opposing side in the information sphere, ensuring favorable conditions for effective performance of the assignments of the Armed Forces, the groupings of troops (forces). It is characterized by a more effective functioning and stable state for informational influence on its information targets by comparison with the functioning and state of the information targets of the opposing side. The scope of informational superiority may be: global (at the level of the world community) or strategic (on a strategic air and space line, continent or ocean theater of hostilities); regional (at the level of groups of states) or operational and strategic (on a strategic line, in an ocean zone); operational (on an operational line, air line or ocean zone); operational (on an operational line, air line, sea zone) and tactical (on a tactical line, in certain regions of an operational line). In content, information superiority may be technological, emotional, and psychological, intellectual, and so on.
INFORMATIONAL CONFRONTATION BY THE ARMED FORCES OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION. Confrontation by the Armed Forces in the information sphere by means of influence on information targets of the opposing side and defense of our own information targets from such influence.
INFORMATIONAL CONFRONTATION BY THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION. Confrontation between states in the information sphere for achievement of political, economic and other goals, and also states with organizations, civic associations and unlawful armed formations, whose actions are aimed at violent change of the foundations of the constitutional order and violation of the integrity of the Russian Federation; undermining state security; and incitement of social, racial, national [ethnic], and religious enmity. This includes: a protective (defensive) component consisting of the development and implementation by executive branch federal agencies of a system of measures to defend the information space and the information infrastructure of Russia; an active (offensive) component, consisting of the development and implementation by executive branch federal agencies of a system of measures for targeted influence on the information space and information infrastructure of the opposing side. The Russian Federation’s informational confrontation is conducted by the informational confrontation of state agencies and the military directorate of the Russian Federation, the Armed Forces, other troops of the Russian Federation, ministries, departments, and institutions of the Russian Federation.
TARGET OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE. Targets of psychological warfare are a specific person (an official) or a group of military personnel or civilians, varying in size, which belong to the same national contingent, under identical political, military, information, and psychological conditions; which have to a significant extent similar needs and interests; and which are united in an organizational structure and a general line of their activity.
INFORMATION WEAPON. The combination of methods and means of informational influence on equipment and people with the purpose of performing the tasks of the influencing party. An information weapon has two basic forms: an informational-technological weapon and an informational-psychological weapon. The chief target of the informational-technological weapon is equipment, and the chief target of the informational-psychological weapon is people. A weapon of information is distinguished as follows: a strategic information weapon – a combination of information, techniques, and means of implementing techniques capable of causing unacceptable damage to political, economic, and interests of a country.
WAR THREAT ESCALATION PERIOD. May be of various lengths of time and is characterized by extreme tension in relations between opposing states (coalitions of states) and the activization of immediate preparation for war. The escalation period of the threat of war may be used by an aggressor for strengthening his political positions in various regions; for the advance, covert conversion of the economy to war footing; for the strengthening of the groupings of troops (forces) in the zones of responsibility; for destabilization of the situation in countriesagainst which an attack is being prepared; for their political and economic isolation, discreditation in the eyes of the world community, and intensification of information and psychological influence on the personnel of the armed forces and the population.
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONFRONTATION BY THE ARMED FORCES. A form of strategic, operational combat support of the actions of troops (forces); a combination of measures conducted by the command and staffs at all levels, and special actions by trained units and divisions in propagandistic and psychological influence on the military and political leadership, personnel of the armed forces, and population of foreign states (in war time – the enemy) for the purpose of ensuring the national interests of the Russian Federation, the successful use of its troops (forces) and reduction of the effectiveness of the enemy’s use of troops (forces).
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE. (foreign), a system of coordinated measures conducted by a state or coalitions of states against other countries for the purposes of undermining the emotional, political, and psychological state of their population and the armed forces; interference in internal affairs; incitement of enmity among peoples; provoking of dissatisfaction, disorders, and distrust of the government. In the USA, the CIA, the International Communication Agency4 and others engage in psychological warfare. Within NATO, psychological warfare is coordinated and is conducted under the leadership of the USA.
PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION. (PSYOP) The chief form of conducting psychological warfare (psywar) is a set of simultaneous or consecutive measures and actions of psywar coordinated and interrelated by goals, tasks, place, time, targets and content; carried out according to a single intention and plan for informational and psychological influence on the psywar targets to support the operations (fighting) of the Armed Forces. Psychological operations are characterized by a wide range of applied forms (methods, techniques) of conducting psywar; conducted in several stages; long-term and have considerable range in space; conducted by the psywar forces and means both independently as well as with the involvement of forces and means of types and branches of troops of the Armed Forces in coordination with the forces and means of federal executive branch bodies of the Russian Federationstate, civic, and religious organizations.
FORCES AND MEANS OF INFORMATIONAL CONFRONTATION. Forces and means that are specially intended and/ or deployed for performing tasks of informational confrontation. They may include: government and military managing bodies; mass media; scientific research organizations; forces and means of intelligence and counterintelligence; radio-electronic and psychological warfare; strategic and operational maskirovka,, ensuring the security of communications, protection of information, moral and psychological support, and so on.
Comments
Post a Comment