By Oleksandar Levchenko

A few months ago, Foreign Policy published an article titled “Russia’s War Is Also a Cognitive War,” arguing that the Kremlin’s modern aggression extends well beyond the traditional battlefield. Russia is systematically seeking to influence how its adversaries and their allies perceive events, assess risks, make decisions and ultimately act.

This campaign cannot be reduced to disinformation or propaganda. Its effects extend into the media, diplomacy, expert communities, international conferences and peace initiatives. The objective is not simply to demoralize Ukraine, but also to weaken the political will of Western governments to act: to encourage hesitation, delay decisions, question established assumptions and accept compromises increasingly aligned with Moscow’s interests.

The prolonged war in Ukraine, growing information saturation, public fatigue and political debates in Western societies over the scope and duration of support for Kyiv have created an environment in which such influence can become particularly effective. Rather than relying exclusively on threats or overt coercion, Moscow increasingly promotes narratives of “reasonable compromise,” emphasizes the “need for negotiations,” and uses diplomatic channels, international platforms, media outlets and sympathetic experts to shape perceptions of what is possible, necessary or inevitable.

The battlefield, therefore, is not only physical. It is also cognitive: the space in which governments and societies interpret events, assess alternatives and make strategic choices.

From Soviet Active Measures to Digital Cognitive Warfare

Cognitive warfare can be understood as an attempt to influence the perceptions, beliefs, decision-making processes and behavior of an adversary in ways that advance the interests of the actor conducting the operation. Unlike conventional military operations, its immediate objective is not the physical destruction of an opponent but the alteration of the opponent’s decision-making environment.

Contemporary Russian cognitive warfare has important historical roots in the Soviet concept of “active measures,” which combined disinformation, propaganda, subversion, psychological influence and covert political activity. Digital technologies have significantly expanded the reach and speed of these methods. Social media, online platforms, cyber operations, artificial intelligence and the fragmentation of the information environment allow narratives to be produced, amplified and adapted at a scale that was impossible during the Soviet period.

A central concept associated with Russian strategic thinking is “reflexive control”: the attempt to shape an adversary’s perception of reality so that the adversary independently arrives at a decision favorable to the initiator. The mechanism is therefore indirect. Rather than openly forcing an opponent to act, the objective is to influence the information environment in which the opponent makes what appears to be an autonomous decision.

This approach has been identified in Russian information and influence operations directed at Ukraine and Western countries. Narratives concerning separatism, instability, NATO expansion, Western “provocation” and the alleged inevitability of Russian dominance have repeatedly been used to influence perceptions of the conflict and the range of legitimate policy responses.

Ukraine as a Long-Term Cognitive Battlefield

Russia’s information campaign against Ukraine predates the full-scale invasion of 2022 by many years. Following the 2003 Rose Revolution in Georgia and the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the Kremlin increasingly viewed the political orientation of neighboring states as a strategic issue. Moscow’s concern was not simply geopolitical influence, but also the possibility that successful democratic transformations in neighboring countries could challenge the political model promoted by the Kremlin domestically.

Russian narratives portraying Ukraine as unstable, divided or inherently vulnerable to separatism were subsequently developed and amplified. By 2014, elements of this information environment were incorporated into Russia’s broader hybrid strategy surrounding Crimea and the Donbas. By 2022, the information dimension had become an integral component of the Kremlin’s preparation for and justification of the full-scale invasion.

The significance of such operations is not necessarily that they persuade entire populations. Their strategic value can lie in producing narrower effects: increasing uncertainty, deepening divisions, encouraging political hesitation or making particular policy options appear excessively risky.

For Western governments, this is particularly important. Even when Russian narratives are not accepted outright, they can influence the boundaries of political debate by repeatedly presenting certain assumptions—for example, that escalation is inevitable, that Ukraine cannot regain occupied territory, or that continued Western assistance is futile—as self-evident facts rather than contested propositions.

Beyond Disinformation

Russia’s cognitive strategy is broader than the production of false information. It also involves the manipulation of context, selective presentation of facts, amplification of genuine disagreements, emotional pressure and the creation of competing interpretations of the same event.

This makes conventional fact-checking necessary but insufficient. A demonstrably false claim can be corrected, yet the broader narrative framework in which that claim operates may remain intact.

The more consequential question is therefore not only whether a particular statement is true or false, but why it is being promoted, through which channels, to which audiences, and what decision it is intended to influence.

This distinction is particularly relevant to diplomatic and political messaging. A narrative does not have to persuade its audience that Russia is right. It may be sufficient to convince decision-makers that the situation is too complicated for decisive action, that the costs of resistance are too high, or that compromise is the only realistic option.

The European Information Environment

Russia has devoted considerable attention to Europe, where political polarization, fragmented media environments and debates over security and economic policy provide multiple opportunities for influence.

Pro-Russian political actors, online networks, sympathetic commentators, covert influence operations and manipulated digital content can reinforce one another even when they are not centrally coordinated. The result may be less a single coherent propaganda campaign than an ecosystem in which narratives favorable to Moscow circulate through multiple channels and are repeatedly reintroduced into mainstream political discussion.

This presents a challenge for democratic governments. Countering cognitive warfare requires more than removing individual pieces of disinformation. It requires understanding networks of influence, identifying recurring narratives, increasing transparency around political and financial connections, and improving coordination among governments, technology companies, researchers and civil society.

Cognitive Warfare as a Tool of Strategic Asymmetry

The principal attraction of cognitive warfare for Moscow is its potential asymmetry. Russia does not need to match the combined economic, technological or military capabilities of its opponents if it can persuade those opponents to underuse their own capabilities.

The strategic objective can therefore be expressed simply: Russia needs others to do less.

The combined resources of the United States, European allies and other partners substantially exceed Russia’s economic and technological capabilities. Moscow’s strategic challenge is consequently not only to strengthen its own position but also to influence the willingness of its opponents to use their advantages.

This helps explain the importance of narratives suggesting that a Russian victory is inevitable, that continued assistance to Ukraine is futile, that Russia possesses an exclusive sphere of influence, or that supporting Ukraine carries unacceptable risks. If such assumptions become sufficiently widespread, Moscow can obtain strategic benefits without achieving them directly on the battlefield.

The Limits of Russian Cognitive Warfare

However, Russia’s cognitive warfare is not without limitations. Influence operations cannot permanently overcome realities that contradict the narratives they promote.

Russian operations can produce uncertainty, polarization or political hesitation, but their effects are uneven. Some campaigns fail, while others generate unintended consequences by exposing Russian methods, strengthening public awareness of foreign interference or increasing support for defensive measures.

The Kremlin’s dependence on information manipulation is itself a potential vulnerability. The more Moscow relies on the ability to shape perceptions, the more its strategy depends on maintaining credibility and controlling the interpretive environment. When Russian narratives repeatedly conflict with observable realities, their effectiveness can diminish.

Western governments have also become more aware of the problem. European and transatlantic institutions have strengthened mechanisms for countering foreign interference, improving cyber resilience, monitoring information operations and exposing coordinated influence campaigns. Yet institutional adaptation remains uneven, and the information environment continues to evolve rapidly.

The Strategic Response

The appropriate response is not to attempt to control information in the same manner as authoritarian regimes. Democratic societies are unlikely to eliminate hostile narratives—and should not attempt to eliminate legitimate disagreement.

The more sustainable approach is resilience.

That means identifying the narratives Russia seeks to introduce into political debate, examining the assumptions on which they depend, exposing the mechanisms through which they are amplified, and ensuring that strategic decisions are based on independently verified evidence rather than artificially constructed perceptions of inevitability.

The same principle applies to cognitive operations originating from Iran, North Korea and China, although the methods, objectives and capabilities of these actors differ and should not automatically be treated as identical.

Ultimately, the central challenge posed by Russian cognitive warfare is not whether Moscow can make Western societies believe every piece of Russian propaganda. It is whether Moscow can make them hesitate long enough, doubt themselves sufficiently, or perceive decisive action as too costly.

Russia therefore does not necessarily need to win the argument. It may only need to shape the conditions under which others make their decisions.

The most effective response is consequently not simply to refute individual falsehoods, but to protect the integrity of the decision-making process itself. Democratic governments need to distinguish between genuine strategic uncertainty and uncertainty deliberately manufactured by an adversary; between legitimate debate and manipulated narratives; and between compromise based on interests and compromise produced by sustained psychological pressure.

In cognitive warfare, the decisive advantage may belong not to the actor that controls the most information, but to the society that remains capable of distinguishing information from manipulation and making strategic decisions on the basis of reality rather than the reality an adversary seeks to construct.

Oleksandr Levchenko is a Ukrainian diplomat, independent analyst and professor at the State Tax University in Ukraine. He served as Ukraine’s ambassador to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2010–2017) and as a consul in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1993–1997). During the war, he has written some 5,000 articles on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine for online media outlets in nine countries.

Written for CIVIL Today.

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