PECULIARITIES OF RUSSIAN INFORMATION OPERATIONS

Abstract

For an academic researcher it is not an easy task to define the information influence activities of the current Putin regime in a parsimonious way. Some of the obstacles are similar to the challenges that NATO and its nations face in adapting foreign policy, the military, and intelligence organisations in today’s era of globalised information. Other obstacles are uniquely Russian, derived from aspects of a worldview and codes of conduct dating back to Soviet Socialist and even to Czarist times, or spring from the peculiarities of a regnant regime. In this introductory article overview of the phenomenon of Russian information operations, the reasoning for a taxonomy referring to NATO terminology is provided in order to help readers categorise the findings of the following study papers in this volume. Methodological and empirical considerations specific for research on this partly amorphous subject area are discussed as well.