Vladimir Lenin’s famous statement, that “a lie told often enough becomes the truth” has been the mainstay of Russia’s successful program of lies and deception since 1917. This powerful quote encapsulates the power of dishonesty and manipulation to sway public opinion. And this stratagem was amplified by Stalin, the KGB and all the Russian rulers since.
Putin has added the concept of “reflexive control” to this strategy, which puts out false bases for decision making to the West so that they freely come to a decision pre-determined by Putin and the Russian regime.
“Russia uses perception manipulation to advance its interests globally”, states the ISW study. “Information operations have been a key part of the Kremlin’s toolkit for decades.”
Many of the lies and deceptions have been debunked by the Ukrainian army in the current war of aggression by Russia – eg: the infallibility of the Russian military (over 400,000 dead and wounded), the strength of its Black Sea fleet (27 warships and 1 submarine lost to a country without a navy), the superiority of its hypersonic missiles (destroyed by the Patriot systems), and the accuracy of their precision weapons (non-existent).
But the West must not fall for the continued lies and deceptions of the “reflexive control” propaganda programs now massively deployed by the Putin regime, which is set out in detail in the attached study artfully entitled “Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success”.
The words used are different, but the concepts are the same: disinformation and social engineering on massive scale.
Bob Onyschuk is President and CEO of Onyschuk Strategic Advisors and the Founding President of the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce.