Still too early but the audience for US/UK disinformation is one guy, Putin. A piece in the Guardian compliments the US and UK efforts to share more rather than less information, making Russia’s disinformation attempts less effective.
The US and the UK have sought to fend off a feared Russian invasion of Ukraine in part by going public with an unusual amount of intelligence, hoping to rob Vladimir Putin of the element of surprise.
There have been regular briefings in Washington and London – sometimes from national security officials who do not often talk to the press – going into detail about potential Russian military tactics, regime change plots, and “false flag” operations Moscow is allegedly planning to provide a pretext for invasion.
Derek Chollet, the state department counselor, said on Wednesday that the US and its allies wanted to warn of Russia possibly carrying out such operations in Ukraine “in order to hinder their ability to do so”.
“We are trying to be as forthcoming as possible, to say that’s their play and what could be coming,” Chollet said.
In doing so, the US and UK are trying to beat Russia at what has largely been Moscow’s game in recent years – or at least to provide better opposition.
“I think it’s the west getting a little more savvy on using intelligence in an actionable way,” John Sipher, a veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service, said. “It’s what we used to call – when the Russians did it – information warfare, and it’s something we’ve never got very good at.
[...]
Fiona Hill, a former senior director for European and Russian affairs in the national security council, and co-author of a Putin biography, contrasted the current approach to the western response to past Russian operations, such as the attacks in Britain on the defectors Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei Skripal.
Mr. Putin appears intent on winding back the clock more than 30 years, establishing a broad, Russian-dominated security zone resembling the power Moscow wielded in Soviet days. Now 69 years old and possibly edging toward the twilight of his political career, he clearly wants to draw Ukraine, a nation of 44 million people, back into Russia’s orbit.
www.nytimes.com/...
“We never really kind of revealed what we knew about what they were up to, and then they were able as a result to take advantage of all the grey zones and the uncertainty and spin their own narratives,” Hill said.
Going public also serves a domestic political purpose, especially for a US administration that has been widely criticised for failing to predict the collapse of the Afghan government and Taliban takeover last year. If there is a Russian attack, no one will be able to say the Biden White House was taken unawares.
The flip side of that is if Putin does not attack, US and British intelligence will be accused of crying wolf and getting it wrong once more, especially as neither has shown evidence for their assertions. The Kremlin is already taunting the western media for reporting US and allied claims of imminent war.
www.theguardian.com/...
After the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO expanded eastward, eventually taking in most of the European nations that had been in the Communist sphere. The Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, once parts of the Soviet Union, joined NATO, as did Poland, Romania and others.
As a result, NATO, an alliance created to counter the Soviets, moved hundreds of miles closer to Moscow, directly bordering Russia. And in 2008, it stated that it planned — some day — to enroll Ukraine, though that is still seen as a far-off prospect.
Mr. Putin has described the Soviet disintegration as a catastrophe that robbed Russia of its rightful place among the world’s great powers and put it at the mercy of a predatory West. He has spent his 22 years in power rebuilding Russia’s military and reasserting its geopolitical clout.
The Russian president calls NATO’s expansion menacing, and the prospect of Ukraine joining it an existential threat to his country. As Russia has grown more assertive and stronger militarily, his complaints about NATO have grown more strident. He has repeatedly invoked the specter of American ballistic missiles and combat forces in Ukraine, though U.S., Ukrainian and NATO officials insist there are none.
Mr. Putin has also insisted that Ukraine and Belarus are fundamentally parts of Russia, culturally and historically. He holds considerable sway over Belarus, and talks about some form of reunification with Russia have gone on for years.
But East-West relations worsened drastically in early 2014, when mass protests in Ukraine forced out a president closely allied with Mr. Putin. Russia swiftly invaded and annexed Crimea, part of Ukraine. Moscow also fomented a separatist rebellion that took control of part of the Donbas region of Ukraine, in a war that still grinds on, having killed more than 13,000 people.
A 2015 cease-fire agreement on Donbas could give Russian proxies veto power over much of Ukrainian policy, including in foreign affairs. But with the war making Russia more unpopular in Ukraine, and both sides accusing each other of violating the accord, it has never been fully implemented.
www.nytimes.com/...
President Biden will hold talks with other Western leaders Friday about the Ukraine crisis, as 11th-hour efforts to prevent a Russian attack continue against the grim backdrop of widespread shelling in eastern Ukraine and Moscow’s continued troop buildup at the border.
The White House will host a call with top officials — including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — during which the Kremlin’s military buildup will be discussed. Biden told reporters that the threat of a renewed invasion remains “very high” and that a Russian attack could happen in the “next several days.”
Vice President Harris, in Munich for a major security conference, is set to meet with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, representatives of the three Baltic states and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Secretary of State Antony Blinken agreed to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov next week under the condition that Moscow refrains from attacking Ukraine.
www.washingtonpost.com/...
