Russian Active Measures

“KGB Defector Yuri Bezmenov’s Warning to America.” YouTube . 1 February 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA.

Kobaladze, Georgii. “‘Vypolnial voliu Putina.’ Kto khotel ubit gruzinskogo zhurnalista?” Radio Svoboda. 16 June 2020, https://www.svoboda.org/a/30674132.html.

“Kontrrazvedka Chekhii zakryla delo ob ugroze otravleniia prazhskikh politikov.” Radio Svoboda . 13 June 2020. https://www.svoboda.org/a/30668588.html.

Lacqueur, Walter. Putinism: Russia and Its Future with the West , 1st ed. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.

Laruelle, Marlene . The “Russian World”: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination. Washington, D.C.: Center of Global Interests, 2015. https://globalinterests.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FINAL-CGI_Russian-World_Marlene-Laruelle.pdf.

“Latvia: Latvian Parliament Member Accuses Russia of Genocide in Checnya.” IPR Strategic Business Information Database/Business Insights: Essentials . 9 February 2000. https://bi-gale-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/essentials/article/GALE%7CA59278837?u=embry&sid=summon.

Launer, John. “The Production of Ignorance.” Postgraduate Medical Journal 96, no. 1133 (2020): 179–80. https://pmj.bmj.com/content/postgradmedj/96/1133/179.full.pdf.

Malko, Victoria A. The Chechen Wars: Responses in Russia and the United States . Saarbrücken, Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2015.

McCauley, Kevin N. Russian Influence Campaigns Against the West: From the Cold War to Putin . North Charleston: SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016.

Mickolus, Edward. The Counterintelligence Chronology: Spying By and Against the United States From the 1700s Through 2014 . Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2015.

Motyl, Alexander J. “Putin’s Russia as a Fascist Political System.” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 49, no. 1 (2016): 25–36.

Politkovskaya, Anna. A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya, translated by John Crowfoot. London: Harvill, 2001.

Pomerantsev, Peter. This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War against Reality. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019.

Putin, Vladimir. “The Real Lessons of the 75th Anniversary of World War II.” The National Interest . 18 June 2020. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/vladimir-putin-real-lessons-75th-anniversary-world-war-ii-162982.

Redden, Molly. “FBI Probing Whether Russia Used Cultural Junkets to Recruit American Intelligence Assets.” Mother Jones . 23 October 2013. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/fbi-investigating-yury-zaytsev-russian-diplomat-spy/.

Rid, Thomas. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare . New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2020.

Sen, Ashish Kumar. “Will Sanctions on Russia, Weapons for Ukrainians Keep Putin at Bay?” Atlantic Council. 7 April 2015. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/will-sanctions-on-russia-weapons-for-ukrainians-keep-putin-at-bay/.

Shultz, Richard H., and Roy Godson. Dezinformatsia: Active Measures in Soviet Strategy . New York, NY: Pergamon-Brassey’s International Defense Publishers, 1984.

“Spy vs. Spy—Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s Agent of Influence Finder.” Minding Russia . 25 October 2013. https://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2013/10/spy-vs-spy-rossotrudnichestvo-russias-agent-of-influence-finder.html.

Stengel, Richard. Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle against Disinformation & What We Can Do About It. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019.

Stepanov, E. I., ed. Konflikty v sovremennoi Rossii: Problemy analiza i regulirovaniia. Moscow: Editorial URSS, 1999.

U.S. House of Representatives. Committee on Foreign Affairs. From Competition to Collaboration: Strengthening the U.S.-Russian Relationship: Hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs . 111th Cong., 1st Sess., 25 February 2009. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-111hhrg47667/html/CHRG-111hhrg47667.htm.

Van Herpen, Marcel H. Putin’s War: The Rise of Russia’s New Imperialism . New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.

Žižek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections . London, U.K.: Picador, 2008.

1The term chekists refers to those who worked/work for the Soviet/Russian secret services. It originated from the abbreviation used for the Bolshevik’s secret police—VChK, also known as Cheka (its full name Vserossiiskaia chrezvychainaia kommissiia po borbe s kontrrevoliutsiiei i sabotazhem /the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-revolution and Sabotage), created on 7 (20) December 1917. In 1923, the VChK was replaced by the OGPU/GPU (1923–1934) ( Obiedinennoie Gosudarstvennoie Politicheskoie Upravleniie /the United State Political Administration, also known as the Joint State Political Directorate). The functions of the OGPU were transferred to the NKVD in 1934 ( Narodnyi Kommissariat Vnutrennikh Del /the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) which in 1946 was renamed to the MGB (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti/the Ministry of State Security). In 1948, the military personnel of the foreign intelligence service were returned to the Soviet military, known today at the GRU (Glavnoie Razvedovatelnoie Upravleniie/the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation). The KGB emerged in 1954 and was reformed after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Today in the Russian Federation, the functions of the KGB are performed by the SVR (Sluzhba Vneshei Razvedki/the Foreign Intelligence Service), the FSB (Federalnaia Sluzhba Bezopasnosti/the Federal Security Service, before 1995 the Federal Counterintelligence Service), and the FSO (Federalnaia Sluzhba Okhrany/the Federal Protective Service).

2Although the term emerged after the Second World War in the 1950s, the strategies, tactics, and tools of active measures have been designed and perfected since the early 1920s.

3Kevin N. McCauley, Russian Influence Campaigns Against the West: From the Cold War to Putin (North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 374. The concept of the “Russian World” (Russkii mir) emerged in the 1990s but was vigorously promoted by Putin in 2014 to justify Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. The idea of gathering all Russian-speaking people under one “roof,” the Orthodox Christianity, and possibly being included in one political entity, the Russian Federation, motivated the current political regime in Russia to pursue this idea for Russia’s nationalist interests and security. For a detailed discussion about the Russkii mir , see Marlene Laruelle, The “Russian World”: Russia’s Soft Power and Geopolitical Imagination (Washington, D.C.: Center of Global Interests, 2015); also available at http s://globalinterests.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FINAL-CGI_Russian-World_Marlene-Laruelle.pdf(accessed 19 June 2020).

4For more on Rossutrudnichestvo and its ties to Russian intelligence, see a chapter in this volume written by Massimiliano Di Pasquale and Luigi Sergio Germani; Molly Redden, “FBI Probing Whether Russia Used Cultural Junkets to Recruit American Intelligence Assets,” Mother Jones , 23 October 2013, https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/10/fbi-investigating-yury-zaytsev-russian-diplomat-spy/ (accessed 17 June 2020); “Spy vs. Spy—Rossotrudnichestvo, Russia’s Agent of Influence Finder,” Minding Russia , 25 October 2013, https://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2013/10/spy-vs-spy-rossotrudnichestvo-russias-agent-of-influence-finder.html (accessed 17 June 2020); for a discussion about Russia’s recruitment of American students, exchange programs, and co-opted American scholars, see Yuri Felshtinsky, “‘My name is Fedyashin, Anton Fedyashin.’ Who Is Anton Fedyashin and What Was He Teaching Maria Butina?,” Gordon , 21 September 2018, https://english.gordonua.com/news/exclusiveenglish/my-name-is-fedyashin-anton-fedyashin-who-is-anton-fedyashin-and-what-was-he-teaching-maria-butina-investigation-by-yuri-felshtinsky-342703.html (accessed 17 June 2020).