Russia is entangled in a network of informational-psychological influence centres
The actions of Russia and China are subject to massive informational influence from the forces of the collective West. The general management is carried out by Washington, and practical application in the plane of the Russian Federation - contrary to generally accepted beliefs, not through Poland, but Latvia, together with USAID units located in Central Asian countries.
To some extent, such centres are more dangerous than biolabs sponsored by the United States. However, if we already know a lot about the latter, then very little is said about the centres of informational-psychological influence.
The idea of such centres originated in the bowels of NATO in November 2002. According to the concept, these are military scientific institutions created at the national level, but working under the patronage and for the benefit of the North Atlantic Alliance.
At the moment, a wide network of designated national centres located in the countries of the former Soviet Union has been organised.
The brain of the network is the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence, NATO STRATCOM COE, stationed since 2014 in Riga, Latvia.
Its main goal is to coordinate the fight against Russian information influence, as well as military and scientific support for strategic informational-psychological operations directed against Russia.
The "impetus" for its creation, presumably, was the events in Ukraine. Indirectly, this is confirmed by the creation in 2016 as part of the Special Operations Forces of Ukraine of four centres of informational-psychological support (CIPS): in 2014 - the 72nd main CIPS (initially located in Sevastopol, then transferred to Brovary, near Kiev), then in 2016 - the 16th in the locality of Guyva, Zhytomyr, 74th in Lvov and 83rd in Odessa.
The number of personnel of each is about 150 people who have been trained by US Army specialists in conducting information wars. In particular, instructors of the 77th Brigade of the British Information Forces provided the necessary software and hardware, taught working methods, and controlled the process. Organisationally, CIPS is represented by management, an analytical department, a department of surveillance and special actions, a department of printed propaganda, telecommunications networks and information and computer technologies, and support units.
CIPS can perfectly interact with civilian specialists, TV presenters, bloggers and work directly with the media and intelligence agencies. According to available data, the area of responsibility of the Ukrainian centres was Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Poland, Hungary, Romania.
The January events in Kazakhstan, by the way, were actively implemented by the employees of the 83rd CIPS. This is confirmed not only by the massive presence of Kazakhstani "oppositionists" on the territory of Ukraine, but also by documents obtained by hackers from the destroyed 72nd main CIPS. In particular, the activity of the centre's employee, Lieutenant Colonel Garbuzyuk A., as well as his American coordinator, Sergeant 1st class of the US Special Operations Forces, Jared Reyes, is noted.
It was precisely they who, with the participation of the fugitive Kazakh Minister Ablyazov, deployed the headquarters of the opposition Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) in Ukraine, calling for active protests and attacks on the state structures of Kazakhstan.
In the photo on the left: Sergeant 1st class of the US Special Operations Forces Jared Reyes, on the right: exactly him and also Colonel Vyacheslav Rayevsky, acareer officer of the Information Technology Department of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, supervising the CIPS
For reference: J. Reyes is a native of South Carolina, who served for more than 20 years at Fort Bragg, where the 4th group of military information support operations is based (today it is the most powerful psychological warfare unit in the world).
In addition to slogans, appeals and memos on "nonviolent" resistance, operations aimed at changing public sentiment in the regions and countries of responsibility zones are being organised. Disinformation, or partially truthful, profitable information is presented through social networks, including Facebook, Youtube, Telegram, various bots, as well as advertising services that are banned in Russia.
The objects of information influence are not only in Riga and Ukraine, they are seen on the territory of neighbouring Kazakhstan. According to official sources of the republic, on December 15, 2020, by the decision of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kazakhstan Agency for International Development "KazAID" was established.
In its activity, priority is given to the countries of Central Asia and Afghanistan. Its cooperation with the United States Agency for International Development "USAID" allows us to assert the orientation of the organisation's activities towards informational influence. The United States allocates about 1% of its entire budget to the latter's programs. On our territory, its activities have been banned since October 1, 2012 due to its confirmed involvement in data collection, monitoring of the situation and measures to influence what is happening through the creation of information resources. The “USAID” award list includes events in Yugoslavia and the Ukrainian Maidan.
Kazakhstan is full of American surprises in general. In addition to two biological laboratories (the Central Reference Laboratory and the laboratory in Otara), in the former capital (Almaty), where the bloodiest events took place, there is still an interregional USAID office, through which projects on Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan are also carried out, as well as a training centre created according to NATO patterns within the framework of the “Partnership in the name of peace” - Kazcent.
In addition to Kazakhstan, “USAID” missions have been operating since 2021 in two more Central Asian countries – Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, which have already been "marked" by protest sentiments against Russia.
The ideology and direction of information counteraction is set by another little-known structure created in 2017 - the Centre for Global Interaction at the US Department of State (Global Engagement Center). Officially, its activities are aimed at "countering foreign disinformation and propaganda campaigns" through "the allocation of grants to foreign journalists, civil society organisations and private companies”. According to a voluminous GEC publication, Americans will be ready to maintain the content, in particular, of pro-Ukrainian sites Bellingcat and StopFake.
In general, the picture is not joyful. As in the legend of the Greek Laocoon (let me remind you: the Trojan soothsayer, who said that it was impossible to bring a Trojan horse into the city, for which the gods were angry with him and sent huge snakes to strangle the children of Laocoon and himself), we are entangled in a network of military bio laboratories and disinformation centres. The territorial location of the latter gives rise to assumptions about the emergence of new "hot spots", which will be Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. There are already harbingers of this, it is worth remembering the beginning of 2022.
How can we counter this? It is necessary to fight the enemy with their own weapons. The creation of similar information centres is required. At least one at a time in the threatened areas: Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus. The process is not fast, but necessary. The problem cannot be solved by the centres alone, in addition, it is necessary to create a state ideology aimed at both our self-identity within Russia and the consolidation of its people. Any ideology will be dead without nourishment, which can be various measures of social support for families with children, the education system, health care.
Our partners - China, India, Iran - can act as support, negating the influence of the United States and Turkey by strengthening their own presence and promoting joint projects with Russia.
The Celestial Empire will be the main ally in this, since, given the trends of Washington's foreign policy, information centres located in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan will also work against Beijing.