Repress, coopt, persuade? Russia’s counterinsurgency warfare from Kabul to Kyiv

This study examines the development of Russia's use of repression and cooptation during the Soviet-Afghan War and Russo-Chechen Wars by tracing the origins of these practices to Tsarist Russia's imperial expansion. It further explores the role of information operations targeting domestic and foreign publics during these wars and in Ukraine since 2014, arguing that these narratives endeavor to frame Russia as a great power and regional hegemon. In this way, Russia sees Ukraine's shift Westward as an insurrection against Moscow's hegemony instigated by the collective West, and thus Russia's military intervention in Ukraine can be seen as constituting a sort of self-wrought pseudo-counterinsurgency.