Russia's New Strategic Weapon - Western Information Sources

How Russia is using the West's Own Words Against Us

The BLUF: Russia’s tactic of increasingly citing Western information sources as part of its information operations is very likely complicating Western efforts to frame Russian narratives as misinformation and disinformation. This tactic, rooted in Russian strategy and doctrine, forces the West into an intellectual conundrum where if the West claims Russian media and narratives are false, and Russia cites Western information sources, the West risks questioning the veracity of its own media reporting.

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Russia is very likely increasingly engaging in efforts to weaponize Western information sources to undermine Western strategic narratives, countering Western claims that Moscow is engaged in misinformation or disinformation. A review of Russian Western-facing media, especially RT, Sputnik News, and TASS, suggests that Russian media is increasingly citing Western media outlets, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and others, as well as the official statements of Western government and military leaders. This tactic, linked to Russia’s strategy for “information confrontation”, is likely part of more strategic efforts to counter the West in the information space.

Over the past 10 years, the West has enhanced its efforts to counter Russian activities in the information space. These activities include highlighting and exposing what the West determines to be misinformation or disinformation.¹ ² ³ At the strategic level, this includes efforts to “debunk” claims that underpin Russia’s threat perception concerning NATO expansion. At the tactical level, there are activities intended to counter Russian claims about Ukraine on social media platforms, such as Ukrainian conscription practices or battlefield successes or failures. In each instance, the West frames Russia’s narratives as disinformation intended to intentionally mislead Western audiences about what is occurring geopolitically or in Ukraine.

Defining terms:

Misinformation: an instance where an actor unwittingly disseminates false information intended to harm a specific target.

Disinformation: an instance where an actor wittingly disseminated false information intended to harm a specific target.

Data analysis of Russian Western-facing media outlets directly citing Western information sources indicates Russia is increasingly employing this tactic. For this analysis, we used large-language model data analysis to identify instances where Russian media, in this case RT, cited Western media in the titles of its articles. In 2014, this occurred roughly 10 times, whereas it was noted as happening 55 times in 2023. For 2024, data as of June shows that RT has cited Western media in its titles 33 times, a number that suggests an increase in the employment of this tactic this year (see Figure A). Data analysis over the same period for Sputnik News revealed a similar trend (see Figure B).

Figure A: Instances where RT cited Western media in its article titles between 2014 and 2023. Data for 2024 is excluded since the year has not yet concluded.

Figure B: Instances where Sputnik News cited Western media in its article titles between 2014 and 2023.

The tactic of citing Western information sources is likely linked to Russia’s official strategy for information operations, titled “information confrontation”. Similar in ways to Soviet-era ‘active measures’, information confrontation is largely synonymous with Western information operations. Russia’s information confrontation strategy is separated into two subset lines of effort; 1) “information-psychological”, and 2) “information-technical”. The former is designed to target the “psyche” of a target nation’s population. The latter is intended to target the “information processing systems” of the adversary. For this analysis, information-psychological is the strategy of interest.⁴ ⁵ ⁶

The aforementioned tactic very likely employs logical fallacies, specifically “appeal to authority”.⁷ As Western nations frame Russian media or official claims as misinformation or disinformation, Russian media citing Western information sources likely represents an attempt to legitimize Russian media reporting to Western audiences. Moreover, Russia is also likely employing its “reflexive control” strategy to force the West into an intellectual trap.⁸ This would force the West to call its media reporting untrustworthy in efforts to characterize Russian reporting as misinformation or disinformation.

A “reflexive control” dillema for the West:

If Russian media reporting is misinformation or disinformation and Russian media is citing Western information sources, then Western information sources must be untrustworthy

In May 2024, the Russian Internal Affairs Council (RIAC) published an analysis about the “malicious use of artificial intelligence” and its usefulness for strategic information operations. As part of RIAC’s analysis, they posit that a tier of information operations involves demonstrative information activities. In other words, demonstrative information operations with strategic effects against the target nation. These actions could result in “the sudden destabilization of a particular country or the international situation as a whole”.⁹

Figure C: RT reported on US Senator Lindsey Graham’s comments about the strategic significance of natural resources in Ukraine

Strategic Outlook and Recommendations

The West’s framing of Russian media or claims as misinformation or disinformation will likely need to adapt to account for Russia’s tactic of citing Western information sources. Russia is almost certainly aware of Western nation citizenry's distrust of Western media and is attempting to exploit that phenomenon. Although this would logically represent a conundrum for Russia’s efforts — why cite Western media if Westerns don’t trust it? — the overarching goal remains the same since Western governments hold Western information sources in high esteem regardless of how the citizenry views them.

Figure C: Trust in Western mainstream media from 2000 to 2023, citing data from Reuters, Pew Research Center, and Poynter.

Western media outlets and Western elected officials should be aware that Russia is weaponizing reports or statements that appear to conflict with Western prevailing narratives. These instances include when Western elected officials conduct interviews where they speak candidly about their perspective of Western foreign policy and Russia as a threat. For example, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov cited the interview between Jeffrey Sachs and Tucker Carlson concerning statements about NATO expansion.¹⁰ In another example, overtly pro-Russian social media users on X posted videos of Senator Lindsey Graham discussing Western economic interests in Ukraine and how that should drive Western efforts to prevent Russia from winning in Ukraine.¹¹ ¹²

The blanket employment of the terms misinformation and disinformation is likely resulting in a reduction of their effectiveness in countering Russia in the information environment. More precise targeting of Russian narratives will likely support efforts to counter Russian information operations. According to analysis from Reuters and Oxford University, not only do Western citizens not trust Western media reporting, they also view efforts to engage in “fact-checking” as biased. A contributing factor to this is that branding of information that is deemed untrustworthy or false seems to only apply to information that is inconvenient for the current administration or prevailing narrative propagated in Western mainstream media.¹³

Note to the Reader: How does Russia’s media citing Western information sources shape your opinion of Russia’s claims about the West?

1. https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol48/iss1/7/

2. https://www.csis.org/blogs/post-soviet-post/countering-russian-disinformation

3. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm

4. https://css.ethz.ch/content/dam/ethz/special-interest/gess/cis/center-for-securities-studies/resources/docs/NDC%20fm_9.pdf

5. https://cgsr.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/CGSR-Disinformation-Workshop-Summary.pdf

6. https://www.marshallcenter.org/en/publications/security-insights/active-measures-russias-covert-geopolitical-operations-0#:~:text=Aktivnye%20meropriyatiya%2C%20%E2%80%9Cactive%20measures%2C,of%20friendly%20political%20movements%2C%20the

7. https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Authority

8. https://georgetownsecuritystudiesreview.org/2017/02/01/disinformation-and-reflexive-control-the-new-cold-war/

9. https://russiancouncil.ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/malicious-use-of-ai-and-challenges-to-psychological-security-future-risks/

10. https://www.rt.com/russia/598409-lavrov-sachs-nato-expansion/

11. https://x.com/SputnikInt/status/1799911515111272769

12. https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/1799860209713906157

13. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/bias-bullshit-and-lies-audience-perspectives-low-trust-media