AQUARIUM LEAKS Inside the GRU’S Psychological Warfare Program

EDITED AND CURATED BY MICHAEL WEISS IUM UAR AQ KS INSIDE THE GRU’S LEA PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE PROGRAM FREE RUSSIA FOUNDATION WASHINGTON, DC 2020 AQUARIUM LEAKS Inside the GRU’s Psychological Warfare Program Edited and Curated by Michael Weiss Translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick WASHINGTON, DC 2020 Free Russia Foundation Washington, DC, 2020 Edited and Curated by Michael Weiss Translated by Catherine A. Fitzpatrick Proofreading by Courtney Dobson Contents Inside Russia’s Secret Propaganda Unit 3 My Life as a Propagandist: The Memoirs of Col. Aleksandr Golyev 9 Russian Dolls: How the GRU’s Psychological Warfare is Organized 39 “Will This Be on the Test?” 70 Know Thine Enemy 72 The Lingo of Tradecraft: A Layman’s Guide to GRU Terminology 104 INTRODUCTION Inside Russia’s Secret Propaganda Unit By Andrei Soldatov and Michael Weiss In the late 2000s, former deputy head atrocities committed by Chechen separatist of Moscow’s spy station in New York Sergei militants. He also noted screenings before Tretyakov, who defected, was explaining U.S. and NATO officials of state-produced how Russia’s foreign intelligence, or SVR, documentaries purporting to show that Rus- handled propaganda and disinformation. sia in Chechnya and the United States in the “Look, the department responsible for running Middle East were fighting a common jihadist active measures,” he told Andrei, referring to enemy, just on different fronts. The objective, the term of art used for influence operations, Tretyakov continued, was to signal to Wash- “was given a new name, but the methods, ington that it would be morally hypocritical structure, and employees were retained.” to kick up a fuss about Russian human rights When asked about specific operations, Tre- abuses in the Caucasus. It was part of con- tyakov indicated Russian photo exhibits at certed effort by the Kremlin government to the United Nations headquarters in Turtle pitch itself as America’s indispensable ally in Bay, a shocking collage depicting alleged the nascent war on terrorism. INTRODUCTION 3 Back then, Tretyakov did not volunteer side of the agency’s rarefied circles – which (and may not have even known) the prov- the Free Russia Foundation is releasing under enance of these exhibits and films, but now, the title, “Aquarium Leaks: Inside the GRU’s thanks to a tranche of documents obtained Psychological Warfare Program.” The collec- by Michael from within Russia’s military in- tion also includes two long lectures delivered telligence agency, or GRU, we can finally within the last decade by GRU faculty at the answer that question. The Chechnya propa- Military University (not to be confused with ganda was manufactured by a secret section the Military-Diplomatic Academy, where of the GRU known as Unit 54777 in a re- GRU operatives are trained), a definition of markable period of collaboration between terms used in one of those lectures, even a set two Russian spy agencies. of exam questions put to cadets at the univer- One of those documents is the personal sity. memoir of Col. Aleksandr Viktorovich Goly- The authenticity of these documents ev, a psyops and propaganda specialist in has been corroborated by a Western intel- the GRU who began his career in the ear- ligence agency Michael consulted. And the ly 1980s and was active in chronicling and story they tell will be of great use to historians trying to suppress various anti-Communist of the Cold War and analysts and scholars movements sweeping the Warsaw Pact na- trying to understand how Unit 54777’s on- tions. Golyev was sent to Poland at the start going influence operations are waged, not of Solidarity; then to Lithuania in 1990 after only against NATO, the United States, and the storming of the Vilnius television center, Europe, but against the Russian people. whereupon he launched a regime-loyalist newspaper, Soviet Lithuania, which was ac- *** tually printed in Minsk. His final foreign post- To understand Unit 54777’s remit, it’s ing as a Soviet special propagandist was first necessary to understand its provenance. East Germany, just as Russian troops began In the Soviet Union, psyops were con- withdrawing from the German Democratic ducted by the Special Propaganda Director- Republic. When the first Chechen war broke ate, incorporated in the massive directorate out, Golyev was seconded into the newly of the army, GLAVPUR (Glavnoye Politich- created Unit 54777 and, as he writes, had eskoye Upravlenie, or the Main Political De- a hand in the manufacture of “Dogs of War” partment). GLAVPUR was a powerful testi- and “Werewolves,” the anti-Chechen films mony to Bolsheviks’ constant fear of the army to which Tretyakov referred. going rogue or mutinying. In 2019 the Rus- His memoir is part of a remarkable col- sian army proudly celebrated the centenary lection of GRU texts – never before seen out- 4 AQUARIUM LEAKS of GLAVPUR, established by the Revolution- Languages, where Golyev studied, and for ary Military Council of Bolsheviks a year and the faculty of Journalism at Moscow State a half after the October Revolution as the po- University, the goals being to train officers in litical department to supervise thousands of psyops and create a reserve of Soviet jour- commissars, Communists attached to military nalists in the event of war mobilization, re- units to spy on and oversee their command- spectively. ers (the commissars had the final word in mil- The fidelity of the Soviet army remained itary operational planning). a primary objective of GLAVPUR. The Special The Communists never fully trusted their Propaganda Directorate was, in theory, busy soldiers since soldiers had played a decisive developing methods of subverting the hostile role in all attempted or successful seizures armies’ morale but was mostly focused on its of state power in Russian history. It was the own military personnel rather than on West- commissars who kept the Red Army loyal to ern soldiers. It was the body that played a the regime even during the first two disas- largely defensive, not offensive, role. trous years of war with Nazi Germany, when Unless, of course, actual war broke out millions had been killed or captured, thanks again. “As for special propaganda,” Arsen to the incompetence of the officers’ corps, Kasyuk, one of the top authorities on Sovi- which had been hollowed by Stalin’s purges. et-era special propaganda, told official Rus- (Hitler, inspired by Soviet experience, had sian Defense Ministry newspaper Krasnaya his own commissars and version of GLAVPUR Zvezda in June 2011, “it is present wherev- called the National Socialist Leadership Of- er there is a conflict, where active hostilities fice, or NSFO, whose officers embedded begin. Prior to that, the special propaganda with the Wehrmacht to kindle a fighting spirit bodies are, so to speak, in a waiting-prepa- at the late stage of World War II.) ratory mode, they assess the situation, im- After the war, ideological overseers in prove their methods, their technical base.” the Soviet military proliferated. By the late Whether by accident or design, this ex- 1980s, there were 20,000 political depart- act doctrine was articulated in a slightly more ments with 80,000 “political workers” – excitable fashion by Margarita Simonyan, the new designation for commissars – and the editor-in-chief of RT, the Kremlin’s En- all were supervised by the ubiquitous and glish-language propaganda channel. “Right all-powerful GLAVPUR. The Special Propa- now, we’re not fighting anyone,” Simonyan ganda Directorate was part of that empire. told the Russian newspaper Kommersant in a Then, in the early 1970s, the Soviet military 2012 interview. “But in 2008 we were fight- established special propaganda training ing. The Defense Ministry was fighting with facilities in the Military Institute of Foreign INTRODUCTION 5 Georgia, but we were conducting the infor- always been a full-scale intelligence service, mation war, and what’s more, against the running operations all over the world. Unlike whole Western world. It’s impossible to start the KGB, which was dissolved and then re- making a weapon only when the war [has] fashioned into several separate agencies, already started! That’s why the Defense Min- the GRU has remained a constant institution istry isn’t fighting anyone at the moment, but throughout the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. it’s ready for defense. So are we.” It has recruited spies and run “illegals” from Except “Aquarium Leaks” definitively Manhattan to Tokyo; it’s stolen industrial, shows that the distinction between war and military, and atomic secrets; it’s attempt- peace was completely elided after 1991. ed coups and assassinations; it’s propped up disinformation portals masquerading as Golyev observes in his memoir that “news” agencies; and, as we’ve been am- when the Soviet Union collapsed, the new ply informed over the last five years of gov- Russian army, which was still very much the ernment reports and legitimate news investi- same as the old Red Army, was undergoing gations, it’s run ambitious cyber operations the trauma of depoliticization. With the al- that have inveigled or damaged democratic mighty Party gone, GLAVPUR was destined electorates, shut down national power grids, to follow it into oblivion. And yet, accord- and temporarily halted international com- ing to Golyev, the army wanted to salvage merce to the cost of billions of dollars. Unit at least some parts of GLAVPUR, especially 54777 has provided plausible deniability or the Special Propaganda Directorate. Where shaped the narrative of many of these more might it find a powerful and permanent new recent interventions, most spectacularly the patron? It was a difficult question for the mil- GRU-led invasion and occupation of Crimea itary bureaucracy to answer, although they in 2014. finally did by transferring the directorate to the GRU – to the second floor of the Aquari- The encompassing of military psyops by um, as the service’s Moscow headquarters is military intelligence forever changed the na- colloquially known, where it was rebranded ture, scope and character of the former.

Load more