Eurasia Press & News
The Insider has obtained hacked correspondence of SVR employees responsible for the “information war” with the West. The leaked documents, which were prepared for various government agencies, reveal the Kremlin’s strategy in the field of information warfare: spreading disinformation on topics that are painful for Western society, leaking information on behalf of radical Ukrainian and European forces (existing or specially created for this purpose), appealing to emotions (and above all to fear) rather than rationality, using new Internet platforms instead of the outdated RT and Sputnik. In addition to global projects, SVR employees also participated in local campaigns against Russian emigrants — for example, in attempts to discredit one of the FBK sponsors who left for the United States.
Spies and their “facelessness”
The group of SVR employees studied by The Insider operates under the cover of the International Security Center “Peacemaker”. A key role in the organization is played by 45-year-old Mikhail Kolesov – he graduated from the Military University of the Ministry of Defense as a translator, after which he joined the SVR – in military unit 33949 (Department S), which is engaged in servicing illegal spies (for example, the defector spy Alexander Poteyev served in this unit). Kolesov worked under the cover of a diplomat in Kabul, then graduated from the law faculty of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in absentia, and in 2020 became the “head of information projects” of the “Peacemaker” center. He himself claims that he has 40 employees under his command, but officially there are less than 10 in “Peacemaker”. At the same time, Kolesov is also an FSB officer, which, however, is a common practice – the SVR and the FSB have long been closely linked structures.
In their projects, the SVR people promise to “ensure the complete anonymity of their actions” and pay great attention to conspiracy. Apparently, for this purpose, Kolesov’s main ally, Mikhail Kulemin, posted not his own photo on WhatsApp, but a photo of James Bond. However, the “anonymity” was a poor success, since in the address books of their friends, Kolesov’s and Kulemin’s contacts are next to the abbreviations of the SVR and the FSB. In their analytical notes for various departments, they marked their document with the “C₿Project” logo, which also doesn’t go well with the “anonymity”.
According to the correspondence available to The Insider, in the 2010s, Kolesov and Kulemin devoted themselves almost entirely to commercial activities, but in the early 2020s, sensing a new situation, they switched to an information war with the West. At the same time, they never left the service, as evidenced, for example, by the passport issued to Kulemin under a false name:
Mikhail Kulemin often coordinates his projects with his father, General Alexander Kulemin of the 12th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, which oversees nuclear weapons. After leaving active military service, Kulemin Sr. worked at the Russian Munitions Agency and then served as director of a Swiss company associated with a scandalous project to export Russian uranium under the guise of “nuclear disarmament.” Alexander Kulemin, in turn, coordinated the project with Eduard Chernovoltsev, the head of the FSB’s scientific and technical service, which, among other things, oversees the FSB’s main hacker unit and the very same Institute of Forensic Science that developed poisons for Navalny and Skripal.
The SVR officers prepared their reports on the information war for various types of security and political agencies, and from their content one can draw a rough picture of how the special services imagine a strategy for confronting the West.
Manual: “All efforts are aimed at broadcasting a negative agenda”
On May 26, 2022, the Federation Council hosted a roundtable discussion chaired by Pushkov on the topic of “The Role of Information in the Great Confrontation with the West; the Future of Internet Platforms in the New Reality.” This was the finest hour for the SVR people from “Mirotvorets,” who presented their report there, which they had been preparing for several months. The document is written in an unreadable bureaucratic language with a claim to be scientific and contains the SVR’s Napoleonic plans in the field of information warfare. The “analysts” begin with some fair self-criticism:
“The reliance on the ‘old’ media; commitment to those forms of information and propaganda work that have demonstrated near-zero efficiency for not years, but decades; an attempt to continue foreign broadcasts by RT and Sputnik; even the relatively ‘fresh’ trend of supporting loyal Telegram channels – all of this, individually and together, does not justify the expectations placed on the performers and demiurges. The lack of creativity, hypocrisy and moralizing aggravate the current situation.”
The security officers propose to act decisively and aggressively on the information war front, but on behalf of supposedly pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian players:
“In order to deepen internal contradictions between the ruling elites, stimulate protest activity of opposition forces, escalate anti-government demonstrations and “stir up” the amorphous part of the electorate in the GP countries and their satellites, it seems appropriate to organize appropriate work at the junction of the operational responsibility zones of the FOIGV by means of a controlled non-governmental organization (for reasons of conspiracy and security), whose competence will include the implementation of secret influence actions on authoritative representatives of the above-mentioned circles. <…>
“Organize work to deepen internal contradictions between the ruling elites, escalate anti-government protests and “rock” the amorphous part of the electorate”
The proposed option for conducting IP allows for the possibility of using non-standard methods of influence that are not included in the toolkit of the Federal Information Warfare Institution. As an example, we can cite the campaign against the background of the SVO, where the tool can be the placement in foreign segments of the Internet, primarily in the most odious countries — sponsors of Ukraine, of materials allegedly on behalf of pro-Kiev public organizations containing new demands to the GP countries of a political, economic, and social nature. Due to the frequency, obsession, aggressive form, and incorrect presentation, we should expect a negative reaction from the target audience in fulfillment of the aforementioned goals of the IP.”
The SVR people also propose dividing the audience into two parts – rational and emotional – and throwing their own stories into the information space for each of them: regularly, two per week, so that the relevant groups have time to digest them (and to save money):
“The proposed scheme of information and psychological influence on the target audience involves the use of rational and cognitive tools. Each of them is designed for its own circle of recipients.
Rational (20-30% of the audience, the intellectually developed part of society) is designed to influence the mind with critical thinking. In this case, the substantive provided by the customer on events that actually took place, with documentary confirmation, is more effective.
Cognitive (70-80% of the audience, who do not resort to rational and critical understanding of reality in everyday life, ordinary people) is aimed at psycho-emotional impact, as a result of which the subject is on the verge of insanity due to the fact that the known and habitual picture of the world is collapsing before his eyes at a rapid pace. Often the thesis part used in this case does not fully correspond to reality, has no documentary confirmation, at the same time, due to the combination of the above factors, it has a significantly stronger final effect, compared to the rational one.
The combination of these methods of influence involves dividing them by days of the week in favor of the cognitive (for the reasons set out below) with a corresponding rotation of localization (shifting the focus of attention to the business or everyday activity of the recipients).
We believe that the optimal rotation intensity is a weekly change of the main topic of the mailing according to each scheme: rational and cognitive. In other words, in total, 1 week contains 2 plots. More intensive diversification of plot lines entails a proportional increase in the expenditure part of the operation budget.”
At the same time, the SVR members suggest focusing more on emotions rather than rational arguments, raising topics that exploit internal contradictions in the West and help to divide society:
“Appealing not to reason, but to emotions, namely to the irrational component of human sensory-psychological perception, contributes to the fastest and most reliable achievement of the goals set before the propaganda machine. Taking into account the above, it seems appropriate to consider the issue of shifting the vector of the main efforts in information and propaganda work against the states of the main enemy (GE) to the transmission of the so-called negative agenda.
“An appeal not to reason, but to emotions, contributes to the fastest achievement of the goals set before the propaganda machine”
As an example in this context, we will cite the Ukrainian vector, which has not lost its relevance. Work in this direction should be built by abandoning straightforward thinking and the subsequent openly pro-Kremlin agenda proposed by the Central Asian region. Due to a number of known factors, such aspirations are ineffective; on the contrary, they increasingly bring the opposite result. Therefore, it would be more useful to focus on deepening the existing and creating new contradictions between the functionaries of the Kyiv regime and their foreign sponsors. The most rewarding topic at the moment is the Ukrainian refugees, who are actively mastering European social support measures. Conducting network wars in the EU cyberspace on the basis of the growing demands of Ukrainian migrants and the new waves of irritation of the local population provoked by this, according to preliminary estimates, will have a very high efficiency both now and in the foreseeable future.
In the current conditions, such work in broadcasting the so-called negative agenda through all channels (primarily Internet content, social networks, messenger mailings) has the most serious prospects. The undeniable advantage of using the “new” media is that in the modern world, the consumer of information has direct access to media in portable communication devices (mobile phone, tablet, laptop). The flow of information that falls on the recipient-ordinary person of the 21st century in online mode is not only comparable, but significantly exceeds in volume and saturation the daily workload of professional TV and radio editors of news departments 25-30 years ago.”
Among the entire possible spectrum of emotions, the Chekists predictably suggest emphasizing fear the most, while believing that this is a very opportune moment for the Kremlin – supposedly, the familiar picture of the world for Europeans is collapsing before their eyes (what exactly is collapsing is not explained, but here, one must assume, the fighters of the information front were somewhat shell-shocked by their own propaganda).
“At the same time, we could organize effective counteraction to the collective West, and specifically on their field, using the methods and techniques they have developed on Internet platforms they control. At the present time, when the picture of the world familiar to the average European is collapsing literally before our eyes every day and hour, a favorable moment is coming for the Russian side to establish systematic, targeted work on transforming the mass consciousness of Central Asia in the EU.
The leitmotif of our cognitive campaign in the GP countries is proposed to be the awakening of the strongest emotion of the human psyche in recipients – fear. It is fear for the future, uncertainty about tomorrow, the impossibility of making plans for the future, the uncertainty of the fate of children and future generations, the cultivation of the listed triggers that overwhelm the subconscious of an individual with panic and horror. The infliction of successive cognitive blows on the CA, linked by a single plan, will first of all form a stable rejection of the political course of governments and supranational institutions of the EU, in the long term will lead to an escalation of protest activity and other negative consequences.”
The SVR plan to use either existing or specially created radicals in the virtual space to spread these ideas, so as not to act on behalf of Russia. It is separately emphasized that considerations of “morality and ethics should be neglected.”
“At the same time, it seems appropriate to build a dialogue with the contingent from the position of a fictitious (or specially created for these purposes, albeit in virtual space) organization, which will eliminate any connection to the Russian Federation. In this regard, we consider the possibility of blaming one’s actions on the interests of a pro-Ukrainian public organization of a radical nature to be successful and promptly justified. Such a platform allows one to broadcast practically any theses, promote the most leftist ideas and put forward demands of a political and economic nature, even to the point of complete absurdity.
In this context, the absurd will work precisely for the cognitive side of propaganda. The promotion of such an agenda can pursue and achieve a dual goal – discrediting the Kyiv regime and the Nazis oriented towards it in the eyes of the collective West and increasing contradictions between various centers of power inside and outside Ukraine. A secondary product of such events can be considered the creation of information pretexts for use in the Russian media field for the purpose of properly “feeding” the unstable consciousness of the masses.
It is necessary to emphasize that considerations of morality and ethics in composing content should be neglected in favor of creativity in solving the tasks at hand. The reasoning of “moralists” that we cannot imitate our opponents is, for obvious reasons, pure hypocrisy, moreover, it works for the enemy, who does not disdain any methods. In this context, there can be only one goal – victory, and we must achieve it by any means necessary.”
In all seriousness, the SVR-FSB team hopes that by using “social engineering” methods it will attract an audience to “controlled resources.” However, they do not provide any examples of success in attracting such an audience:
“The developed algorithm of influence is applicable to all major global cyber platforms. With a high degree of reliability on a planned and targeted basis, we are ready to carry out a comprehensive coverage of recipients both in mass and selective formats. In other words, regardless of the user’s desire, we will somehow present him (her) with the necessary content in the flow of viewed pages. By using special means of social engineering, we will encourage a significant part of the target audience (regardless of social status) to go to the main resources under our control, study additional materials, show interest in them and distribute them among their immediate circle. In the future, we will be able to establish stable business relationships with especially active “retransmitters”, thereby transferring them to the category of public opinion leaders (POL) and encouraging them to quantitatively and qualitatively expand their own, and therefore our, audience.”
In addition to this plan, Kolesov also has a separate document, where a plan for completing the assigned tasks is presented specifically and with prices; for example, it is planned to distribute campaign materials through the publication of short videos, two pieces per day, and street actions in Europe are planned to be carried out at a price of 100 euros per person:
“An approximate scheme of information impact looks like this: we take as a basis a website created for an “information agency” (or an “independent investigation agency”). All materials intended for inspiration will be accumulated on this website. In addition, the printed form will be duplicated by audio and video on popular video hosting sites (YouTube, RuTube, etc.). To enhance the effect, we cut the main video into shorts and publish it 1-2 times a day. Links to the content are introduced into the target audience’s electronic communication media using a unique algorithm based on the new module of the “Storm” platform and special software. In addition, we simultaneously launch campaigns on social networks, supplementing them with targeted mailings via messengers in accordance with the recipient geolocation plan.
We plan to reach the horizon of obtaining the primary results of the campaign in 4-5 weeks after the start of the operation. Depending on the tasks set, the deadline may be adjusted, which will affect the formation of the budget. On average, the successful achievement of the goals of a medium-term set of activities linked by a single concept is ensured in 3-6 months.
The estimated cost of the operation is determined by a set of factors, the most important of which is the number of recipients of the target audience. With a certain degree of conventionality, the average estimates look like this: with an audience of up to 1 million people, one device for influence costs $3 per month (for example, reaching 100 thousand people costs $300 thousand per month); an audience exceeding 1 million people, due to the increased “cross-device” effect and the virality of the topic, will cost less. Specific calculations will be provided after receiving the task.
On the organization of mass protest events on the territory of the EU:
Preparation will take up to 4 weeks.
Business trips around Russia (Vladikavkaz, Saratov, Irkutsk, etc.) will be required to agree on details in person and on site.
The appropriate and effective number of demonstrators is up to 100 people. More is pointless and carries political risks. Less is of little resonance and ineffective.
The cost of a demonstrator going to the action is 100 euros. The action lasts for 1 hour. During this time, photo and video shooting is carried out for subsequent distribution in the media.
The cost of organizing the event is approximately 4 prices (1 price will be taken by the territorials, 1 – our work, 1 – “Peacemaker”, 1 – travel and operational expenses (including filming and replication of content). Thus, the calculation of the estimate: 1 person – 5 euros. A single picket is calculated separately.”
Implementation in practice: SVR in contact with GRU
The above report was prepared in early 2022, and much of what was mentioned in it was already a long-standing (still Soviet) practice in the field of information warfare, but some subsequent events showed that the SVR manual was completely consistent with the logic of subsequent Kremlin campaigns in Europe and the United States. For example, in 2023, anti-Semitic graffiti began to appear en masse in Paris , photos of which were immediately actively distributed by the Kremlin’s Doppelganger bot network, which is associated with the GRU. The French authorities arrested some of the “graffiti artists”, and they turned out to be Moldovans hired by people associated with the pro-Kremlin politician Shor. The same Doppelganger network distributed fake quotes from Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, Ronaldo and other stars with indignant demands to stop aiding Ukraine. The same Kremlin bots, pretending to be Latvians, called for the return of licenses to hockey players who played in the Russian Federation. The network has often used deepfakes, such as when it faked Tom Cruise’s voice to scare people about terrorist attacks at the upcoming Paris Olympics.
It is difficult to judge what the SVR has to do with these provocations, but judging by the correspondence between Kolesov and Kulemin, they coordinated their activities with the GRU. As mentioned above, Kulemin’s father forwarded a version of the project to Chernovoltsev on May 30, 2023. Chernovoltsev’s billing shows that immediately after receiving the version, he began a series of calls with Andrey Averyanov. One of Kolesov’s letters to Kulemin with explanations about the cognitive component of the project is called “Answer AA” – perhaps this is a reference to questions about the project from Averyanov. Also, judging by the correspondence, Kulemin prepared analytical reports for the “Secretary of the Security Council”.
At the same time, it is doubtful that all these colossal combined efforts of the Russian special services actually bring any significant political results. For example, the most successful of these projects, the aforementioned Doppelganger network, increased its reach on Twitter to one and a half million users per day, which does not sound so bad for a social network with a daily audience of 230 million, but for the audience of truly large platforms such as YouTube or TikTok, such reach is negligible and is unlikely to have significant political significance, say, in the upcoming elections in France or the UK. But in some situations, such influence can play a significant role. For example, in the upcoming US elections, the results in some states will be determined by a very small number of voters in specific districts, and as Kolesov and Kulemin’s correspondence shows, the SVR understands the importance of precise targeting of disinformation very well. Moreover, they have already managed to try out such tactics in one of the American cities.
“Iceaxe” project
Among other things, the correspondence between Kolesov and Kulemin also reveals one specific project with the ironic name “Ice Pick,” aimed against a specific emigrant in the United States who had obviously angered the authorities by sponsoring the FBK. The SVR agents hoped to organize a campaign to discredit him:
“The goal: to discredit the defendant in the eyes of his immediate circle, the authorities of the host country, stable business contacts, local special services, public and diaspora circles of the cities of residence. The absolute result in this case will be considered to be achieving a state of inviolability, opening of legal prosecution, picking up the campaign by local media, public censure of the defendant.
Location: Boston, USA.
Timeframe: 2–6 months. When determining the timeframe, we assume that, if events develop favorably, the neighbors will stop greeting the defendants by Catholic Christmas. If the other side is persistent, the clients should “mature” by 05/28/2023.
For $300,000 a month, the SVR agents were going to make their victim’s life unbearable through a defamation campaign:
“As an example of such an action, we can cite the launch of the thesis that “No. 1, Kadyrov’s wallet, has settled in Boston. In 2015, he fled the Russian Federation because in 2014 he invested bank money, including from the Chechen Moscow diaspora, in the common fund of Colonel Zakharchenko, and an FSB officer warned him, his own, i.e. Lubyanka agent, about the beginning of the criminal prosecution of Zakharchenko. Now No. 1 with Chechen money is in Boston, Ramzan is looking for him all over the world, and the last time the Chechens came to Boston was remembered by all residents of the city in April 2013 for a series of terrorist attacks during the annual marathon.”
The combination of these methods of influence involves dividing them by days of the week in favor of the rational one – on weekdays, the cognitive one – on weekends, with a corresponding rotation of localization (shifting the focus of attention to the business or everyday activity of recipients).
For known reasons, the most effective method of influence seems to be targeted coverage of work and personal electronic communications of the target audience by geographic (the subject’s residential area, the school district, the prosecutor’s office, the FBI, the immigration service, the town hall, etc.) or informational (search queries of the corresponding nature on the network) criterion. Outwardly, such activity resembles targeted contextual advertising – a bright banner with a loud slogan in the flow of electronic pages viewed by users. At the same time, the developed algorithms make it possible to fully track the reaction of the objects of influence to the content offered to them (clickability for going to the main pages, time spent viewing the material, expression of attitude to the content, express survey, etc.).
This method is optimal, since it ensures the complete impartiality of our actions, thus practically eliminating the link to a specific broadcast channel and close attention from local intelligence agencies.
Conclusions and suggestions: according to average estimates, to reliably achieve the desired result within the specified time frame, the number of recipients is about 10 thousand people daily (taking into account changes in impact locations on weekdays and weekends, as well as possible new inputs as the campaign progresses).
The cost of a series of events, linked by a single concept, using the specified tools and algorithms, is 300 thousand US dollars per month.
The estimate can be revised upward or downward at the customer’s discretion by changing the number of recipients of the mailing and its intensity. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the delayed result of the campaign’s effectiveness.”
Following the campaign, Kolesov estimates the reach at almost 600,000 people. “Wow, with Boston’s population at 646,000, that means we reached almost everyone!” Kulemin responds to Kolesov. Apparently, the SVR people considered their operation incredibly successful. The banker himself, however, was surprised to tell The Insider that he hadn’t even noticed the disinformation campaign.
