(PatriotWise.com)- A former DIA officer told Fox News that Russia is using psychological operations to shape how the Russian people perceive the war in Ukraine and the US has to devote more resources to bolster our own psychological warfare.
Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Rebekah Koffler, who grew up in the Soviet Union, told Fox News that psychological operations, or “psyops,” are a possible “potential mitigating factor” in the Ukraine conflict.
Koffler explained that to counter the disinformation Moscow spreads to its own people, the United States has to “raise awareness within the Russian population about what’s going on.”
With Russia blocking western outlets and western countries blocking Russia, the net sum of these actions has caused an information Iron Curtain to drop on Russia. Koffler explains that this is not a situation that serves US interests because we need the Russian people to be favorably predisposed to Western information rather than Russian information.
According to Koffler, an example of the Western information Russians have to hear is how President Vladimir Putin is “killing brethren Slavic people” and how the Russian people shouldn’t stand for it.
Another expert in psychological operations, Ivana Stradner, told Fox News that the US should be providing Russians information on using virtual proxy networks (VPNs) so they can bypass the Kremlin’s censorship.
Stradner believes the United States and its allies should also be working with disillusioned Russians living in the West to help disseminate the Western psyops narrative to the Russian people. She told Fox News that this messaging wouldn’t be the usual promoting democracy narrative the US ordinarily uses. Instead, it should tackle things like Russian corruption which would resonate among Russian citizens, especially among younger people, because corruption affects every aspect of their daily lives, Stradner explained.
The main objective, Stradner told Fox News, was offering Russian citizens “alternative views of the war in Ukraine” while talking about government corruption at home.
The information warfare conducted by the Kremlin didn’t begin with its invasion of Ukraine, Stradner explained, and it won’t stop when the war ends. She said social media platforms have to do more to fight Russian disinformation.
