Maskirovka explains Putin’s covert disinformation effort against Ukraine

*Paromita Das

President Putin has frequently stated prior to Russia’s attack on Ukraine that he had no ambitions to invade Kyiv.

According to the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin joked that Western officials knew the exact moment of the attack while assuring French President Emmanuel Macron that Russia had no plans to attack Ukraine.

Last week, on Thursday, Putin ordered “military operations” against Ukraine, as missiles began landing in Kyiv, devastating the capital’s infrastructure, and Russian forces launched a ground attack.

According to experts, the Russian president utilized an age-old Russian military strategy known as “maskirovka.”

Brijesh Singh, an author and IPS officer who specializes in information warfare and cybersecurity, says it “may be best understood by its literal English meaning, which means masking something.

“It entails using dummies, decoys, denial, disinformation, and deception to mislead the opponent.” It has been used in Russian intelligence for centuries, well before the Communist era. “It was actually taught in Czar Nicholas II’s military school,” Singh explains.

Days before the invasion, the Kremlin said that some Russian troops would return to their barracks following their drill with Belarusian forces, and then a few days later announced that the soldiers who participated in the Crimean exercise would return to their bases.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned that Russia would use a “false flag” attack to legitimize its invasion on Ukraine, even though the White House predicted that Putin’s forces would strike Ukraine between mid-January and mid-February, with thousands of troops deployed along the border.

“It’s not just the Russians who utilise this; intelligence organisations all around the world use ‘active measures’ or psychological operations to force their will on the enemy,” Brijesh Singh explained.

“However, the Russian strategic maskirovka idea seeks to pre-emptively distort the enemy’s decision-making process and steer it toward desirable results,” he added.

Last Thursday, as the UN Security Council met in New York, Russian President Vladimir Putin surprised everyone by announcing his “military operation” against Ukraine.

“Using the principle of’reflexive control,’ the enemy is influenced into making decisions that the manipulator has predetermined.” “Through deliberate misdirection, such ‘information confrontations’ are employed to win over global public opinion as well as galvanise domestic populations,” Singh added.