New spy playbook used in Ukraine crisis: tell public your secrets

The ‘spy and tell’ technique used to counter propaganda and false flag operations ahead of the invasion of Ukraine have changed the intelligence playbook.

Late in January, a senior Western intelligence official rolled out a map of Ukraine and accurately set out Russia’s battle plan.

There would be an invasion on many fronts with troops and tanks rolling in from the east and over the border from Belarus, a strike on Kyiv, an amphibious assault from the sea and up from Crimea, taking control of a crucial water canal.

Plans for a false flag operation were outlined in advance, with intricate detail of how Russia would mock up scenes of attack with corpses, Turkish-made drones and actors playing mourners.

Instead of keeping these ­theories contained in the shadowy intelligence world, however, Britain and the US decided to use a new playbook and tell the world.  

The tactics are groundbreaking, squarely aimed at pre-empting propaganda from an enemy, and are likely to be used for the foreseeable future.

A demonstrator holds a sign depicting the Russian president as Adolf Hitler in Barcelona during a protest against the invasion of Ukraine – an indication that Moscow’s propaganda about the operation has not been widely believed. Picture: AFP

During the synchronised release of declassified intelligence, Britain publicly claimed that Vladimir Putin wanted to install a pro-Kremlin candidate in Kyiv. The “puppet” was even named.

By the time the invasion began, there had, as expected, been ­numerous “false flag” incidents – a car-bombing, Ukrainian “saboteurs” destroying armoured vehicles – many put together clumsily.

As it unfolded, Western intelligence was vindicated, with many of their predictions coming true.

Christopher Steele, a former MI6 intelligence officer and now Russia expert and director of the consultancy Orbis Business Intelligence, said governments had learnt from the mistakes of the Iraq War and its infamous “dodgy dossier”, published in an attempt to justify invasion.

“The key difference is that with Iraq, the policy of military intervention and regime change was decided first and the intelligence sought to justify it,” he said.

Inevitably, the quality of intelligence on Putin was so accurate that it led to speculation there were spies deep in the Kremlin. Senior diplomats insist that gathering intelligence was less about spies and more about data.

“Although human beings are still fundamental, there are many other ways of gathering information,” said one.

Methods involve hacking computers, monitoring military communications and harvesting information freely available on the web before analysing it all.

Today, troops and spies work together on offensive cyberattacks. Ministers have never confirmed an activity targeting a state, but have been open about their use of such techniques on devices ­belonging to Islamic State.

It was the “first TikTok war”, said Mr Steele, referring to the fact of instant videos of tanks headed towards Ukraine and soldiers heading into battle on the video app and apps such as Telegram.

Officials in the government spent months working on “intelligence diplomacy” – how to use such information to strengthen ties between countries and prevent war. “Information is now part of the security picture,” said the Western security source.

The aim of declassifying intelligence was to “pre-empt” what was going to happen and “try to disrupt it, as it is harder to do once it has been made public”.

THE SUNDAY TIMES