US Tries to Disrupt Russia With Intelligence Dumps

Releases about Putin's plans could buy time before any invasion
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 12, 2022 5:45 PM CST
US Tries to Rattle Putin With Releases About His Plans
Armored vehicles move at the Gozhsky training ground during the 2022 Russia-Belarus military exercises in Belarus.   (BelTA via AP)

In a strategy the US hasn't used on this scale since the Cuban missile crisis, the Biden administration is trying to disrupt President Vladimir Putin's planning in the Ukraine impasse by regularly releasing classified information showing what Russia's doing. The releases have covered troop movements, a purported scheme to create a pretext for an invasion, and reports that senior Russian officers are unsure about their president, the New York Times reports. One goal is to hamper Russia long enough to allow time for diplomatic efforts to end the crisis or for Putin to be convinced an invasion is a bad idea.

"The hope is that the Russians are surprised about the allied knowledge of these things, and that they have an internal reaction," a Western intelligence official said, per CNN. "Usually, what you'd expect to see would be the Russians wondering if they have a mole." Learning what the US knows about the operations could make the Russians wonder whether they can maintain the secrecy and surprise they'd want in taking action, the official said. The US also wants to lay out any Russian plans for false-flag operations or invented pretexts to make those strategies more difficult to carry out. Making that information public also could hurt Putin's global standing and help build international support for a strong allied response.

President John F. Kennedy released photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles installed in Cuba in 1962, to convince Americans, other nations, and the news media of the threat. In 2014, in a past Russia-Ukraine showdown, intelligence agencies kept President Barack Obama from releasing information about Russia's intentions. "We have learned a lot, especially since 2014, about how Russia uses the information space as part of its overall security and military apparatus," a National Security Council spokeswoman said, per the Times. "And we have learned a lot about how to deny them some impact in that space." (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)

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