Peace of Mind

Thinking of the pax russiana could come at the expense of our minds

Russian information manipulation is simultaneously highly recondite and highly simple.

It is easy to dismiss its methodologies as crude. However, this is to misunderstand the many complex strands of messaging that interact and work to enhance each other in specific contexts. Missing this multifaceted aspect of Russian information manipulation can mess with our bonces, lead us into a false sense of security, and lave us ignorant of the complex and sophisticated ways in it targets us.

This struck me today as I was reading the complex-simple commentary of state-owned and pro-Kremlin media to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he is ready to negotiate over Ukraine.

It is not enough just to read Putin. You have to read him laterally and simultaneously against the accompanying commentaries and insinuations by state-owned and pro-Kremlin media. You have to know all the various Russian sources and their techniques and tactics, how they hint and push at different audiences at different times.

You have to imbibe all this holistically and systematically, contextualising it within the Kremlin’s purpose and strategy, the way it relies on and simultaneously updates decades of experience of messaging mischief, misdirection, and malice. Losing sight of this multifaceted complexity in its messaging can be perilous.

I am almost certain that Putin is not entering into honest negotiations, and have spent some of the day reading Russian messaging alongside Putin’s statement. There are, if you can decode it, within this several pointers as to the Kremlin’s thinking and strategy, and keys to the desired responses from its various audiences.

What Russia will do: the Kremlin approach to peace

Focusing on the Kremlin’s political intent is crucial.

Moscow’s main intent is to infiltrate and take hold of the entire European security architecture. Destroying Ukraine is a crucial way to do this: but it also feeds into Moscow’s imperialism, its Ukrophobia, and its eschatological messianism.

The Kremlin’s ultimate aims have not changed since the start of the war, or at least 2009, or 2007, or 1991, or 1654. This is clear from Putin’s incessant statements that Russia must address the ‘root causes’ of the war, that is Ukraine’s existence as a viable sovereign state. Nothing Trump says or does will change that, though Putin’s approach might shift.

- Complicate and stall negotiations process

Putin’s offer to hold negotiations is a ruse. In fact, the suggestion itself was an art of manipulation, trying to tie Russia’s adversaries into a process on the Kremlin’s terms that Putin can then use to complicate talks. This in fact is a traditional Soviet ploy, to use the very European processes of democracy and diplomacy and exploit them to manipulate and control its enemies.

The Kremlin will likely want to pull Europe and Ukraine into a highly complicated negotiation process, trapping them in byzantine processes and stalling on specific points.

For the Kremlin, the most complicated the process is for Europe and Ukraine, the better. This is supported in pro-Russian commentaries to Putin’s statement, almost certainly carefully curated to support Moscow’s direction:

Image: Screenshot from RIA Novosti Telegram channel, 12 May

- Portray Moscow as the peacemaker

While complicating the talks process, Moscow will also manipulate news to portray themselves as obliging to US President Donald Trump’s desire to see fighting stop. They will try to make it look as they are doing everything they can for peace while Kyiv is the true sticking point.

- Smear Kyiv as the problem

This track works alongside messages — almost certainly placed in a range of state-owned and non-official sources — picking up on various points of alleged Ukrainian intransience.

State-owned Ukraina.ru on 12 May has already accused Kyiv of rejecting Putin’s plan:

Image: Screenshot from Ukraina.ru Telegram channel, 12 May

- Conditions to the ‘unconditional’ offer

Crucial to Moscow is persuading Ukraine’s partners to stop providing arms. This is a point in complicating processes, as suggested above, and points back to sequencing arguments that Moscow deployed throughout the Minsk processes.

The Kremlin is insisting on the ‘Collective West’ stopping arms supplies to Kyiv as a pre-condition to Russia’s ‘unconditional’ offer, as opposed to Kyiv’s understandable demand that a ceasefire must come first. The Kremlin’s insistence would only enable Russia to remobilise capabilities, while weakening Ukraine.

- Mirroring messaging

Russia excels at monitoring media from other countries, and picks up extremely well on our messaging and inverts this, in a type of mirroring that aims to divert attention on our supposed vulnerabilities. Key to this will be Moscow accusing Kyiv of aggression, fascism, and of distorted cultural values.

- Blame Ukraine for violations

Moscow will also claim that breaches in any ceasefire are the fault of Ukrainian forces, not Russian. It is crucial to be aware of this beforehand, as checking and countering any Russian claims retrospectively will be difficult and lengthy. Moscow has used this approach many times, during the Minsk processes and also more recently during previous claimed ceasefires.

- False experts

Russian media will also employ apparent third-party experts who praise Putin and Russia’s position, while criticising Kyiv from an apparent neutral standpoint. These ‘expert’ messages are carefully crafted alongside other strands of state messaging.

Divide: Trump is helping the Kremlin, again

In all this, Moscow is able to spot and exploit US weaknesses. Trump is still desperate for his Nobel Prize, and Putin can continue to play on his sense of urgency. However, the Kremlin will adapt to Trump’s impatience, using some of the above and other tactical points as they arrive to claim that Ukraine, in fact, is the real problem to peace.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has done well to pre-empt some of the above by offering to travel to Turkey to meet Putin, but the Kremlin will almost certainly find new reasons to stall, and plant other information in other sources, directing that carefully, to support that position.

Russia wants to pull apart Europe from Ukraine, and the United States from Europe. The UK position, for centuries, has been all about building coalitions and consensus. This has been a key approach for the FCDO for many years, certainly on the informational front: building common thinking on Russian informational manipulation and agreeing joint strategies. The Kremlin will attempt to take the upper hand in any negotiations, and pull at any potential point of division.

Already Russian sources are producing questionable ‘expert’ reports criticising estimates of Ukrainian natural resources and claiming that Washington is misleading itself and other about the possible benefits of a peace deal. We must be aware of how these lines of reporting develop.

The coming war that is already here

This war is about Ukraine, but at the same time has nothing to do with Ukraine.

As I wrote last year, Ukraine is just the means by which Moscow is attacking Europe, including the UK. The tragedy of the Ukrainians is that they are the tool for Russian brutality, without Europe having the foresight or moral fortitude to realise or help them.

Moscow wants to end Europe, and to remould the entire continent in its image. So this is your war: none of us can be complacent, and we do not have the moral right to close our minds to this while other people are fighting and dying for us.

Unfortunately, this explains why any peace deal with Russia is ultimately impossible. Russia demands to weaken and subjugate Europe, infiltrating its entire security architecture. This means that any security deal with Russia cannot work — and why previous deals have failed — as Moscow’s desire to be part of (and to undermine from the inside) a European security structure is intrinsically incompatible with our security requirements. Part of me feels that we were safer in the 1980s than we are now.

At least then we had certain forms of resilience. There is none of that know, and the opportunities for cognitive aggression against us are developing more quickly than we can realise or mitigate.

There is no soft way that I can find that squares this inherent incompatibility of interests and values. History underlines that any attempt at compromise with Moscow is met with dishonesty and attempts to exploit our approaches. Any relationship with Moscow that opens up any vulnerabilities to interference, especially to cognitive coercion, puts us in danger. Such vulnerabilities are developing more quickly than we can realise, and it is imperative that we find the correct processes (on a political and programmatic level) to help us understand how we can respond.

Key to this is remembering that, regardless of what Moscow says, the Kremlin does not want peace. Or, it wants a peace exclusively on its own terms, a pax russiana that serves only the Kremlin and opens the door for it to fulfil its policy priorities at our cognitive and physical expense. Ask the Ukrainians: such a peace is more perilous than no peace at all.

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