The military did not like the theorist, but it came up with the concept of “hybrid war”, the main achievement of which was the Crimea.
The deputies of the Duma was amazed. On 22 February, defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented to them the military strategy of the country, they did not expect that he will reveal the carefully kept secret: the creation of the Ministry four years ago, a special Department of the information war. We are talking about a whole office that deals with counter-propaganda, cyber-attacks and spreading false news.
The program was inspiration. This 62-year-old Valery Gerasimov, chief of staff of the Russian army. It was he who laid in 2013, the foundations of the hybrid war, which has been approved by Vladimir Putin. “It is a favorable state for a few months and even days can turn into an arena of fierce armed struggle, he wrote about the war in Ukraine and the Arab spring. — The “rules of war” have changed significantly. Increased role of non-military ways to achieve political and strategic objectives, which in some cases its efficacy is much superior force of arms.”
Anyway, General Gerasimov quite similar to “geek”. This is military to the bone, spoke about it the Minister Shoigu. This native of Kazan began his career during the protracted second Chechen war. Then he commanded the 58th army and tried to rein in the villages of this Caucasian Republic. He showed inflexibility in matters of discipline and participated in the arrest of Colonel Budanov for the torture of a Chechen girl. It is highly noted even murdered in 2006 the opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya. According to her, he — man to protect the honor of an officer.
The main success — the Crimea
Gerasimov continued upward movement in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In 2012, he was Deputy chief of staff, when there was a scandal around the Minister of defense Anatoly Serdyukov, who was accused of embezzlement and fired from the government. Whatever it was, he kept the place, and even became the right hand of the new Minister Sergei Shoigu. According to Colonel Victor Baranets, he decided to leave 80% of the old leadership, which allowed the team to rally. Gerasimov also had the opportunity to implement your scenario of hybrid war.
What is its main success? In the capture of the Crimea in 2014 without bloodshed amid the waves of misinformation. Later, he expanded the cyberwar and allowed Russian hackers to interfere in the American elections.
Recently NATO sees Moscow’s hand in the dissemination of false information to discredit the Alliance in the Baltic States. This applies, for example, appeared in mid-February, Lithuania e-mails that German soldiers raped at the barracks of a minor girl. “This is completely untrue, but we should wait for a new incident of this kind”, — says the head of the NATO military Committee Peter Paul. Russian defense Minister did not deny it. “Propaganda got to be smart,” said he to the deputies of the Duma.
