Shaken Russian Army Conscripts Make Perfect Targets For Morale-Crushing Operations

As the Russian military bogs down in Ukraine, low Army morale is becoming a serious problem. With Russian Army conscripts abandoning gear, deserting, and showing other signs of strain, an urgent push to further erode Russian morale could throw Vladimir Putin’s tottering military into complete disarray. 

Russian soldiers know nothing about the war they are fighting. U.S. briefers suggest Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, kept the average Russian soldier in the dark about the Ukraine invasion. Younger soldiers and conscripts seem blissfully unaware of the Ukraine war and lack basic information about their mission. This moment, while everything in the Russian side is in disarray—offers a tremendous opportunity for the West to “educate” Russia’s wavering conscript army. 

Russian soldiers are vulnerable to suggestion. With little food, no water, gas or other supplies, a massive, no-holds-barred effort to educate and further demoralize Russian soldiers, if put into action right now, will likely pay enormous dividends. 

A crash “hearts-and-minds” campaign may break the Russian Army.

Army morale is a tremendously sensitive matter for Russia. Morale problems broke the Russian Army before. In World War I, Russian battlefield setbacks, coupled with an economic collapse led to rampant embezzlement of military property, an erosion of discipline, and, within a few months, the demise of the ruling Tsar, Nicholas II. As the 105^th Anniversary of the “February Revolution” approaches on March 8, Putin, Russia’s modern Tsar, will be sweating it out in the Kremlin, scared and vulnerable.  

How To Break The Will Of The Russian Army

With Ukrainian civilians still able to mix with Russian soldiers and still able to print out basic documents, local Ukrainians must be directed to print and distribute leaflets crafted to tug on conscript heartstrings, offering basic information on how, exactly, Vladimir Putin betrayed the Russian Army and forced it to attack fellow Slavs and peaceful Ukrainians. 

Such work is a simple for any European intelligence organization. Russian language leaflets can be brought into the country right now, and quickly distributed across Ukraine. Basic, commercial drones can even distribute leaflets over troubled Russian formations, supplementing human efforts. 

But time is of the essence. Wide morale failure happens rarely, but when it strikes, it is contagious. The opportunity to take maximum advantage of Putin’s enormous strategic blunder won’t last forever. 

Despondent Russian soldiers need instructions—right now—on how to “opt out” of the fight. They need to know it is OK to defy their officers, degrade their vehicles, and quit. But they also must have information on how to safely surrender, defect, and receive benefits for doing so. 

There are lots of ways to reach out beyond simple leaflets.

Vladimir Putin appears to have sent many rank-and-file Russian soldiers into battle with cheap, dime-store Baofeng radios. With a little “help,” these flimsy, unencrypted civilian communicators can become educational nodes—transforming conscript radios into a friendly voice, offering basic Russian soldiers trusted information from kindly fellow Slavs. Mobile ground stations can be brought in and even specialized “Information Operations” platforms like the secretive U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command EC-130J Commando Solo aircraft can be employed beyond the Ukrainian border to provide detailed information to crumbling Russian units. Rather than provide instructions from far-off Russian officers, these radios can tell hungry Russian conscripts how Vladimir Putin betrayed the Russian Army and every single soldier in it. 

Low cost-wind up radios can be sent into Ukraine, coupled with a rapid enhancement of Radio Free Europe transmission capability. While low-cost radio is a morale boost for besieged civilians, it can also be a real drag on guilty, bored, and hungry Russian conscripts who are grappling with the morality of their mission.

These are all cheap, simple, and reasonably legal things that can be done quickly and with little effort. And all these measures can be done right now. Within a matter of hours, Ukrainian citizens in occupied areas—those areas that still have internet— can be emailed simple pamphlet templates, instructed to print them and then hand them out to Russian soldiers. Traditional social media outlets can be flooded with templates. If a simple leaflet campaign can help persuade a single troubled tank crew to walk away or encourage just one hungry artillery unit to leave the fight, the project will have paid for itself. 

Right now, secretive warriors in the West are probably being tempted to wage information warfare on Twitter, Instagram and Telegram messenger services. It’s what many of the “cool kids” in the intelligence community grew up with. And that’s fine. 

But old-school psychological operations, employing old technologies in interesting new ways, are, right at this moment, probably going to be far more effective than the highly-contested fields of social media. Old school influencing is easy and safe for both the employer and the receiver. Pamphlets are harmless. And nobody tracks a conscript who picks up a piece of paper or listens to a hijacked radio signal. On the other hand, any Russian who searches for “how do I defect” on his smartphone (if he still has one) will likely be in for a very interesting time when he returns to base. 

In short, we know that many soldiers of the Russian Army are troubled, and it is high time to take full advantage in the hours and days before Russian conscripts harden up and become inured to the harrowing business of modern warfare.