The Security Interviews: Inside Russia’s Ukraine information operation

Seize the memes of production

The Ukraine war being a conflict of its time, the Russian information operation focuses not just on fake news and manipulation of facts through its own propaganda mouthpieces – Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik are the main “mainstream” media outlets – but through memes.

“A very common thing that we saw was the use of memes,” says Terron, “some of them very creative memes, to try to influence audiences.”

Ref 1: Russian Meme produced by Z Memes. Image courtesy: Recorded Future

One such meme (Ref 1) seeks to undermine the integrity of the European Union (EU) response. It depicts a cartoon of the EU standing over Ukraine, which is trapped in a ditch. The EU tries to hand a rope down to Ukraine to help it out, but only ends up hanging itself on a nearby tree.

Others seek to sow divisions between European states, focusing on historical incidents or grievances. One meme (Ref 2),  uses the popular format of a conversation between the characters Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala from the Star Wars film Attack of the Clones, to exploit narratives around the westward shift of Poland’s borders after the Second World War.

This redrawing of the map saw historically Polish cities, including Lviv (historically Lwów or Lemberg) ceded to the Soviet Union and latterly Ukraine, and a major population transfer as well. The meme kindles the idea that Poland should seek to reestablish its pre-1939 borders, possibly by force.

Ref 2: A Russian Star Wars meme produced by Cyber Front Z, translated: Poland: “We will free your territory.” Ukraine: “From the Russians?”. Image courtesy: Recorded Future

Just as Ukraine has created its own IT Army of friendly hacktivists, many of these meme operations comprise groups of Russian netizens who are tied to but not directly controlled by the Kremlin itself, such as the Cyber Z group, which is apparently located in St Petersburg and commissions memes from a troll farm, says Terron.

“There are also pro-Russian Telegram channels, which might just be members of the public who are also creating these types of memes. It’s very hard to tell whether they are being commissioned specifically,” he says.

The zone is flooded

Terron and Recorded Future shy away from referring to Russia’s information operation as an information war on the basis that influence and information are just another tool to be used in the service of a kinetic war.

“We typically use the term information operation if its more coordinated, or just influence operations and influence networks that are spewing disinformation and propaganda,” says Terron, “influence being more all-encompassing than both disinformation and misinformation.”

The Russian information operation seems to centre the tactic of “flooding the zone” with malicious misinformation – the alleged FSB note, translated from Russian by Recorded Future, uses the term “saturate the information space”.

“Russian disinformation and influence operations are…less targeted,” says Terron. “It’s more just: ‘Throw this disinformation everywhere that we can as long as it fits our audience and our goals’.”

For the average citizen, countering Russian misinformation is a nigh-on impossible task – unless you are one of the many people who have supposedly signed on to Ukraine’s IT Army – but there are steps that we can all be taking, says Terron.

“There are a few known outlets that operate within the West that have ties to the Russian intelligence services, so those ones, anything they put out, watch out for,” he says.

“One key area of focus when we assess the outlook is that as the war continues, and as economic hardships become more difficult and people have to endure them for a long period of time, Russia is very much going to try to exploit those hardships to turn people against sanctions of Russia, against their support of Ukraine, and prioritising domestic economic, energy and food security issues.

“Any stories around that narrative that are coming from suspect sources and Russian state media sources, or smaller outlets that are tied to Russian intelligence, are very much something to look out for,” he says. “For the average person, I’d say just look at a variety of news sources across the political spectrum.”

Persistent challenge

Looking ahead, Terron and his team predict that the Russian information operation will remain a persistent challenge through the war and beyond it.

Although the Western coalition on Ukraine is broadly united for now, the Kremlin is likely expecting its operations to yield results, particularly if the conflict drags on into the winter. Over time, says Recorded Future ,this will lead to a natural dwindling of support for the coalition and it is likely this will be exploited too.

On this basis, a “whole-of-community” response to identify, isolate, inform and counter the Russian information operation will be required.

The full report, including the translation of the alleged FSB note, can be accessed via Recorded Future’s Insikt Group.