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During our discussions about the implications of the conflict, Charlie highlighted a number of lessons that armed forces around the world can learn from Ukraine, and we also discussed valuable takeaways that businesses should take note of as they plan ahead for risk management and disaster recovery.
The failure of Russia’s cyberwarfare
One of the first points of discussion was how the power of military cyberweapons is not truly evident until they are actually used in conflict. Ukraine had been hardening their digital infrastructure against potential cyber attacks since the 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula. This played a huge part in strengthening their defence against the rise in Russian attacks during the Donbas Invasion.
‘Russia sought to sow chaos and cause major disruption to television broadcasts, government services and businesses, leading to public panic’, began Bradbury. ‘A combination of hubris and poor preparation led to a disappointing outcome, with the most significant attack being the disruption of the KA-SAT satellite, operated by Viasat. This attack provided little tactical advantage to Russia, and viewed through this lens it was a failure.’
Managing Disinformation
Disinformation made poor progress through a population not only used to such Russian propaganda, but actively educated through government-driven initiatives. Strong leadership and clear messaging is key to combatting a disinformation campaign on the scale that Ukraine faces from Russia. Bradbury commented, ‘President Zelensky has played a crucial role in controlling the narrative around the war, tailoring his speeches to each audience and tackling disinformation head on.’
The Ukrainian Centre for Countering Disinformation could prove instrumental in tackling the problem by fortifying the independence of the Ukrainian press and attempting to tackle online trolls, AI generated content, propaganda and other fake news before it spreads. Digital literacy on this subject around the world will be essential to learning how to safeguard democracies from disinformation.
Open Source Intelligence
‘Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has provided key information to help shape military strategy’, said Bradbury. ‘A community of volunteers has risen online to support Ukraine by filtering through publicly available information, providing insights that would be difficult to obtain with computer analysis alone. The most notable example of this occurred at the cusp of the invasion, where researchers were able to spot a formation of Russian tanks on the border, and used Google Maps traffic data to spot a traffic build-up which indicated the advance of the military convoy. Several organisations such as Bellingcat and Oryx have mapped war crimes, and some groups have gone further and used facial recognition to attempt to find those responsible for such atrocities as the Bucha massacre.’
Consumer grade military tech
In my previous article, I mentioned how Ukrainians have improved their strategy by using mass market consumer technology in place of traditional military-grade hardware. Bradbury pointed out that ‘lessons should be learned here for our own military procurement, where long cycles of research and development could be replaced by iterative lean processes that minimise waste.’
He continued: ‘Rapid commercialisation of supposedly military-grade technology, including communications, optics and drones has made this available to anyone who wishes to buy it. Cheaper drones had already proven effective in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War, where Azerbaijan used them for reconnaissance and more precise air strikes. Ukraine has learnt from this and taken advantage of donated drones, providing aerial intelligence for their frontline troops.’
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