Delegates heard how how Kremlin backed media - inside and outside of Russia - disseminates misinformation, and very often outright lies, aimed at misprepresenting events in occupied Ukraine and in neighbouring states, particularly in the Baltic and Caspian regions.
Jakub Kalensky, of the European External Action Service explained how the East StratCom Task Force is monitoring and rebuffing Russian propaganda. He stated that this disinformation campaign is part of a wider Russian military strategy.
Acting Head of the Ukrainian Mission to NATO, Yehor Bozhok, talked of the importance of the cooperation between Ukraine and NATO.
Expert in Russian foreign and security policy, Yury Fedorov, went into considerable detail as to how Vladimir Putin is “repeating Soviet concepts”. The Kremlin’s unwillingness to accept the idea of an independent Ukraine, leaning towards the west, certainly echoes the infamous Brezhnev Doctrine of the late 1960s - “What we have, we hold.”
Mr Fedorov introduced his newly published book, Hybrid War a la Russe.
Energy expert Mykhailo Gonchar, President of the Centre for Global Studies, Strategy XXI, and author of the book Energy Component in New Generation Warfare discussed how energy has been ‘weaponised’. Control of supply and pricing, combined with intense pressure to block new pipelines that are out of Russian control ensure that the west remains dependent.
Mr Gonchar explained how the Kurdish terrorist PKK, largely controlled by the Kremlin, has been used to destroy supply infrastructure in Turkey, as recently as last year.
Whilst at the time, the significance was lost on western media, the day before the Russian invasionof Georgia in 2008, the PKK blew up a pumping station in Turkey. This suggests that the Kremlin was battle testing its assets as early as then. Political terrorism has long been a component of the Kremlin’s arsenal.
The final speaker, Mykhailo Samus, Deputy Director for International Affairs, Centre for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, discussed the military aspects of hybrid war.
In the context of the invasion of Crimea, and subsequent actions in Eastern Ukraine, Russia has covertly deployed special forces, as well as regular military units, and local volunteers, a multi-tiered ‘order of battle’.
Referring to the announcment that NATO would be committing four battalions the the Baltic states, Mr Samus said that “This is a sign that NATO is starting to understand the situation, to understand the threat from Russia.”
