The war in Ukraine exposed the weaknesses of the Russian disinformation machine

Russia not only attacked Ukraine with tanks and missiles on February 24, 2022. It also began a brutal test of its disinformation machine, which quickly exposed its weaknesses. What was supposed to be a lightning victory in the information sphere turned into a costly lesson in adaptation, censorship, and digital warfare of attrition.

The full-scale invasion launched by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, was not only a turning point in the geopolitical competition between Russia and the West, but also a catalyst for significant changes in the concepts and practices of Russian information warfare; these changes relate both to the recalculation of operational means and to an accelerated institutionalization of control and adaptation mechanisms in the conditions of intensified external countermeasures.

Prior to 2022, the Russian concept of information, as defined in official documents such as the Information Security Doctrine, viewed the information sphere as an integral component of national security, requiring defensive and offensive, narrative, technological, and legal measures aimed at protecting information sovereignty and influencing the decisions and perceptions of adversaries. This document formalized a broad notion of the information space that included communication systems, media, and digital resources, which, prior to the invasion, provided a theoretical justification for conducting coordinated influence campaigns.

In Russian military and strategic thinking, the idea of ​​combining military and non-military means was further popularized by the work of the officer corps, a classic reference being General Valery Gerasimov's 2013 article, which described the blurring of the dividing lines between war and peace and the necessity of using various forms of influence in a new generation of warfare, a conceptual contribution that prepared the apparatus to conduct large-scale information operations.

However, practical experience on the battlefield in Ukraine quickly revealed the limitations of these assumptions and the adjustments that were required. The Kremlin’s first surprise was the level of resilience in Ukrainian society and the ability of the Kiev authorities to conduct effective and credible communication in real time; an example is the daily presence of the Ukrainian leadership on social media, the use of short authentic messages and narratives of resistance that gained international resonance and thereby weakened the ability of Russian state media to rapidly shape the picture of events.

As a result, the effect of a quick victory in the information sphere, envisaged by the Russian leadership, was not achieved, and delays and errors in military operations further undermined the credibility of some parts of the Kremlin's narratives.

A second area of ​​unrest was the international backlash and networks of private technology platforms: restrictions and blocks imposed by Western institutions and actions by social platforms against pro-Russian content (including suspensions and broadcast restrictions on state media outlets such as Russia Today and Sputnik within the European Union) meant that traditional channels of state propaganda ceased to be as effective outside Russia, which forced the search for alternative, more difficult-to-moderate transmission routes.

As a result, Moscow accelerated a two-pronged strategy: first, it strengthened the instrumentalization of the domestic information space (legal and technical control mechanisms) and second, it intensified external operations, moving to a multi-channel model that combines state media, intermediary networks, messaging platforms, and representative actors in the global South.

Domestically, the most significant and quickly implemented change was the legal regulation criminalizing the dissemination of false information regarding the actions of the armed forces and discrediting the use of the military, which in practice enabled the penalization of journalists and critics and narrowed the space for independent verification of facts; these legislative acts of March 2022 and the subsequent tightening of laws (including instruments for confiscating the assets of persons convicted of false facts regarding the armed forces) became part of a mechanism that ensured the state narrative, while simultaneously signaling that information should also be used as a tool of social consolidation during a protracted conflict.

In parallel with a repressive legislative apparatus, there was a technical sealing of the domestic Internet: Russia continued to implement framework rules and mechanisms known under the slogan of sovereign Internet, which legally and technically increased the ability to disconnect the national network from global traffic, thus allowing the state to selectively control information flows and limit the influence of external platforms at critical moments. For Kremlin strategists, this legal-technical combination was a necessary condition for waging an information war at a time when traditional external instruments were being limited.

On the external front, the adaptation took the form of diversifying channels of influence and greater decentralization of narrative operations. As official broadcasters lost reach, pro-Russian campaigns began to use smaller platforms, regionally funded portals, messaging apps (Telegram), and networks of intermediary influencers: media personalities and groups with apparent independence who amplified pro-Russian content in a way that was harder to link to Moscow.

Telegram, due to the lack of effective moderation and the nature of one-way communication channels, became one of the main battlefields of information warfare, both within Russia and in occupied areas; research shows that this platform functions as a distribution channel for disinformation and facilitates micro-targeting of audiences.

An important element of maturity in the Russian operation was also an orientation towards audiences beyond the West. Moscow increased promotional efforts directed towards countries of the Global South, emphasizing anti-colonial, anti-Western and economic narratives that find greater resonance in those contexts and allow for the circumvention of barriers imposed by Western platforms. In this sense, Russian information warfare was transformed from a unified and centralized message to a distributed system of influence, capable of multilayered impact on different social and national groups.

A third dimension of adaptation is a stronger integration of cyber operations with disinformation campaigns. Experiences from the conflict showed that digital operations: communications disruptions (e.g., the attack on the Viasat satellite network), destructive malware targeting energy infrastructure (using variants such as Industroyer/Industroyer2), or DDoS campaigns; are most effective when synchronized with targeted narratives that create information chaos and undermine citizens’ trust in the state and its defense capabilities.

Examples from the first months of the war confirm that cyberattacks were used as preparatory and supporting tools for psychological operations, and their political impact was significant, especially where they caused real disruption to daily life. Furthermore, the conflict served as a testing ground for techniques based on artificial intelligence and generative models, from the creation of manipulated video materials (so-called deepfakes) aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian leadership or sowing confusion, to the automation of botnets that amplify certain narratives; although many early uses of deepfakes were of low quality and had relatively limited effect, experience showed that AI can significantly reduce the cost of producing fake content and increase the scale of impact, which poses new challenges for fact-checking mechanisms and rapid debunking.

Another lesson from Ukraine was the importance of authenticity — content that seemed authentic, quick battlefield reports, and emotional narratives had an advantage over artificially generated messages; this meant that Russia needed to not only produce more content, but also refine its methods of presenting it as moderately authentic, using local actors and tailoring messages to the language and sensitivities of specific communities.

From an institutional perspective, the war triggered an accelerated reorganization of the apparatus responsible for information activities: an expansion of structures linking security services, ministries, state media, and private entities providing information services, in order to create a network effect and a model of operations that was more difficult to dismantle. At the same time, limitations of this strategy emerged: the internationalization of campaigns and the expanded field of view of Western intelligence services and OSINT analysts caused many operations to be detected and exposed relatively quickly, which damaged their long-term credibility and forced constant tactical adaptations.

In summary, the experiences of the full-scale war against Ukraine forced the Russian Federation to fundamentally revise the concepts and practices of information warfare: from a centralized and propaganda strategy towards a more complex, hybrid and multi-channel model that combined repressive instruments of internal control, technical mechanisms of network sovereignty, diverse external campaigns and close integration of cyber and psychological actions.

Such an adaptation increases the flexibility and resilience of Russian information operations, but at the same time reveals new limitations related to technological countermeasures from platforms, international coordination of counter-campaigns, and the need to maintain domestic legitimacy in the face of rising costs of conflict – which makes the future information landscape more complex and difficult to predict, while confirming the central place of information in the Kremlin’s geopolitical strategy.

Author: Agnieszka Rogozińska, PhD