Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Cap

Russian Influence and Unconventional Warfare Operations in the "Gray Zone" Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Cap

The invasion and illegal annexation of Crimea in the spring of 2014 represents the breadth of Russia's influence campaign in Ukraine and the violation of Ukrainian sovereignty represents the first attempt to change the boundary of a European nation since the end of the Cold War. Russian operations span the spectrum from covert information operations intended to influence political opinion to overt deployment of military forces for unconventional warfare designed to dominate civilian populations. We cannot afford to understate its importance or ignore its lessons. The commander of United States European Command [EUCOM], General Scaparrotti, characterized the Russian operations in Crimea as activities short of war or, commonly referred to [as] the "gray zone." The Russian influence campaign and unconventional warfare efforts in Ukraine contain all the hallmarks of the gray zone operations: ambiguity of attribution, indirect approach, and below the threshold of open conflict. Russia's gray zone activities in Crimea are important for us to review, and unique because it was an influence campaign of propaganda and disinformation, culminating in the employment of Russian special operations forces on the sovereign territory of Ukraine. General Scaparrotti [has also] stated that Russia is using a range of military and nonmilitary tools to, "undermine the international system and discredit those in the West who have created it." [According to] General Scaparrotti, Russia takes not only a military approach, but a, "whole-of-government approach" to information warfare to include intelligence and other groups, which accounts for its rapid and agile use of social media and cyber.