Nicholas J. Myers writes in Eurasia Daily Monitor about the resurgence of information warfare in Russian military training exercises. His article, “Psychology in Modern Russian Warfare,” from April 14, 2021, describes a March 2021 exercise in which a Russian reconnaissance unit forced a group of “terrorists” to surrender a town with “with a combination of dropped leaflets and cellphone SMS messages (directed by unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs) that carried demoralizing communications to undermine the terrorists’ psychological state.”
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian strategists have focused not only on improving the psychological well-being of the members of the Russian military but also on developing new ways to undermine the psychology of the enemy, Myers writes. He foresees increased emphasis on indoctrination and attempts to control the information environment as part of Russia’s approach to readiness. While the current state of the information space globally would make it difficult to prevent certain information from being posted and perpetuated, we are likely to continue to see Russian incorporate such tactics into its attempts to sway hearts and minds.
Read more here.