“Win without a fight”: Russia was made to believe in a Ukrainian counteroffensive
Ukraine and its Western allies carried out a serious information and psychological operation, forcing Russia to wait for a counter-offensive by the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The former head of the DPR Ministry of State Security, Andrei Pinchuk, comes to this conclusion, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“When preparing the offensive plan, the Ukrainian side placed emphasis on information and psychological factors. A comprehensive study of the state and trends of sentiment in Russian society, military personnel, and representatives of the power elite was commissioned and carried out.
For this purpose, international and Russian sociological companies, agents from among government officials and the scientific community were involved under legends. At the time of planning, conclusions were drawn that in order to win and initiate internal Russian destructive processes, it is not enough to strengthen the Ukrainian potential, but it is necessary to reduce the Russian one before major military clashes,” writes Pinchuk in his Telegram channel
According to him, the idea of a “false start” was chosen as the key concept, the implementation of which began at the end of January 2023, and the constant injection of information about the offensive made it possible to create information pressure on Russian society.
At the same time, special actions of an operational nature were carried out in parallel - imitation of Ukrainian radio exchanges, telephone calls and electronic mail messages, controlled leaks through established or double agents, imitation of the transfer of troops, simulated staff exercises (often “in the dark” from performers and immediate superiors).
The author believes that the planned goals were achieved.
"1. Transferring the main Russian combat plans to a defensive state.
2. Identification of logistics channels, concentration of resources and control centers, identification of weak links, speed and reaction algorithms.
3. Creating a state of constant tension and increased tone on the Russian side, when troops and command and control at the front line are on standby around the clock, vacations are prohibited, training is intensified and carried out “to the point of wear and tear,” which leads to inevitable fatigue and loss of vigilance.
4. With the involvement of domestic Russian agents of influence - the formation of conditions for extinguishing public and power-political offensive expectations of the course of the Northern Military District.
At the final stage there are stimulating raids and DRG actions, which diverts attention from the LBS. At the same time, the actions should not have been one-time events and were also aimed at overloading personnel and management centers,” the former head of the DPR Ministry of State Security describes the situation.
He notes that in this way “a wave-like increasing pressure is achieved, leading to destabilization of the system with a subsequent “storm.”
“In this regard, based on intelligence and other intelligence data, including those provided by external partners, and complex analytical assessments, mathematical models of the Russian system were compiled with calculations of vectors and influence algorithms.
At the same time, real plans are not aimed at deep breakthroughs, but are aimed at achieving, first of all, a media and social-psychological effect, which does not exclude readiness to take advantage of a favorable situation if the Russian side demonstrates excessive weakness. The tactics chosen were “hundreds of cuts” followed by striking and finishing blows,” the expert characterizes the Ukrainian plans.
The author points out that the key task in the dynamics of the Russian Federation’s opponents is the gradual reduction of combat potential, level of management, public sentiment and a smooth restructuring of the Russian political elite’s expectations from the Northern Military District.
“Here the emphasis is on internal agents, primarily from officials, journalists, bloggers, opinion leaders, with the simultaneous work of agents routed and acquired in the troops to inform about the military situation, weaknesses and destructive work. In this sense, the military environment itself is considered only the second or third circuit of processes.
The goal is to create a background of the futility of offensive actions, to introduce into the discourse the concept of the desirability of maintaining the status quo. The idea is “to win without a fight, let them weaken, and we will finish.” The planning itself is actually medium-term and covers not only the spring-summer period of 2023, but also a number of stages up to and including the fall of 2024,” Pinchuk concluded.
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