The Principle of “Plausible Deniability” in Russia: The Limits of Propaganda and the Mistakes of the Kremlin’s Secret Services

While the Russian-Ukrainian conflict appears to be progressively relegated to the background of the international arena, first due to the attention aroused by the war between Israel and Hamas and subsequently, due to the interest fueled by the election of Donald Trump and his disconcerting political choices, at the same time a sort of habituation to the warmongering and reality-manipulating rhetoric of Vladimir Putin emerges. We live in a historical moment in which autocracies on the Planet seem to prevail over democratic models due to the logic underlying the political thought of many governments, based on the equation "West = weakness & amorality". Where, then, voices of dissent are raised and aimed at countering and fighting contemporary forms of dictatorship, the autocrats unleash their moloch intellectual to devour the critical spirit not only of opponents, but possibly of the entire human race:

"The aim is to persuade people to mind their own business, to stay away from politics and never to hope for a democratic alternative: "Our state may be corrupt, but so are all the others. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong and the democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying..»"¹

However, it is not enough to free the moloch: it is equally important to be able to deny being the ones who activated it and, to this end, we proceed to build a castle of rumours, news, insinuations, declarations, to be divulged in such a way as to conceal the real reasons that produced them or, simply, the truth about the facts to which they refer.

In general - and this is a principle that applies to all states - the will of a government to conceal its responsibility in carrying out a certain action is labeled as "plausible deniability" and is a distinctive feature of covert action. In US jurisprudence, a covert action is defined as

"An activity by the United States government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where the role of the United States government is not intended to be publicly apparent or recognized."²

The definitions adopted in other countries differ somewhat from the one reported, but the principle of “plausible deniability” is the same. The United Kingdom, for example, emphasizes the deniability of covert operations, considering in some cases “politically feasible to deny complicity in public statements."³ With this assumption, it is possible that, at times, even government officials respond to questions of public interest without confirming or denying the involvement of the State, maintaining an air of ambiguity around their responsibilities.

From a conceptual point of view, there is a distinction between “secret” and “clandestine” activities. The two terms are often used as synonyms, since clandestinity in itself implies secrecy: in both cases, one tries to hide something, and yet the difference is determined by what one wants to hide. In clandestine action, the activity is not intended to become public knowledge, but the perpetrators (planners and executors) are generally aware of who ordered it. In the case of a secret activity, on the other hand, not even the executors should be aware of who the “instigator” is. Among these activities we can include those of “political warfare”⁴ theorized by George Kennan, and which include many of the activities that today characterize the so-called "hybrid war": political intervention through information operations aimed at destabilizing an opposing government, unrecognized paramilitary support, sabotage and even assassination. It must be said that clandestinity and secrecy do not guarantee the concealment of the results; it is clear that an assassination or a terrorist act determines a great resonance, but the goal of the state instigator is to have the possibility of denying his involvement.

Let us see, then, in the bellicose post-Soviet Russia how these principles are applied and why the Kremlin's narrative is often fragile and ill-conceived, despite the arrogance of its architects. We do so by examining a series of well-known cases, now more part of History than of current events and which, however, are extremely effective in what we aim to demonstrate.

In the Russian language there are no conceptual nuances described above and the leadership politics systematically denies its participation in secret activities, using official declarations made publicly, reversing the scenarios and formulating accusations against those who reveal its hidden plots. In the Soviet era, secret activities carried out abroad fell within the category of the so-called activation meropriyatiya, the “active measures”, thus defined:

"Measures taken by operational agents aimed at exerting a useful influence on aspects of interest in the political life of a target country, on its foreign policy, on the solution of international problems, to mislead the adversary, undermine and weaken its positions, disrupt its hostile plans and achieve other purposes."⁵

These forms of interference are still implemented today and, among other procedures, characterize the modalities of the “hybrid war” conducted by the Kremlin in various areas of the globe. They are currently defined as “support measures” and are under the guidance of a dedicated directorate of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).⁶.

The effectiveness of these measures cannot be separated from the possibility of denying them. It is clear that if a target country becomes aware of an operation aimed at damaging it, it will take measures to protect itself from it and, nevertheless, to punish on a political level the adversary state identified as responsible for the hostile activity. During the Cold War, the revelation of the Kremlin's responsibilities, real or presumed, behind secret influence activities in various countries, led to hundreds of expulsions of Soviet embassy personnel.⁷; expulsions that have continued even in the last decade. The point is that, given the definitions of secrecy and clandestinity with their substantive logics, it seems inexplicable that Russia has been unmasked on so many occasions. Let us try, then, to understand how this could have happened.

Based on the type of actions carried out, Russian agents have been classified into three macro-categories. The first, active in the cognitive domain, consists of agents of influence and disinformation workers; the other two concern the physical domain: one includes agents authorized to conduct assassination operations against opponents of the regime and sabotage operations against infrastructural targets; the other involves the insertion of undeclared military or paramilitary forces in target countries for subversion tasks and covert support to foreign forces. The Kremlin's efforts in the cyber domain should not be overlooked. In fact, new technologies make Russia's secret activities "cheaper, faster and allow for maximum plausible deniability".⁸ Although the Internet offers enormous possibilities for anonymity, Russia's presence behind the covert activities online has been often and unequivocally revealed, effectively denying the previous postulate. The European Union East Strategic Communications Task Force, an agency established to raise awareness of Russia's covert disinformation activities, reported that in its first three years of existence (2015-2018) it “catalogued, analyzed and shed light on over 4.500 examples of disinformation from the Russian Federation"⁹. A clear example of “implausible deniability” is provided by the Russian occupation of Crimea with the so-called “little green men”¹⁰, Russian soldiers wearing nondescript uniforms who took over Ukrainian government buildings in Crimea in March and April 2014. The Russian government initially spun a thin cover story that the soldiers were Ukrainians or Cossacks.¹¹; Putin himself went so far as to indicate them as unspecified "self-defense forces"¹². There was little doubt that the soldiers were Russian, despite Moscow's denials. A year later, Putin himself acknowledged that the forces were Russian, but by then the denial was no longer necessary: ​​Crimea was firmly under Russian control.¹³.

It must be said that it is not easy to maintain secrecy, especially if the object of the secret necessarily involves several people and its scope is of macroscopic dimensions, such as a military invasion for which one wants to deny responsibility or interference. One wonders if this is the reason why Russia's sponsorship of secret activities is so easily unmasked. In fact, the packaging of the contents of the infowar Russian is rather crude, as well as the management of the same appears superficial; this crude way of acting in such a delicate area can be substantially traced back to a combination of two factors: indifference e incompetence. We can find both of them present and to a different extent depending on the operation. In particular, indifference concerns the extra-state public opinion in the event that the occult activities were discovered; incompetence, often demonstrated in the behaviors adopted, is the element that on numerous occasions has allowed the responsibilities that Moscow has tried to conceal to emerge. Let's see, then, some examples.

First of all, indifference Russian opposition to the reactions of states that highlight its warmongering spirit, is based on the propaganda of an unconditional faith in its own lifestyle, which is contrasted with the degeneration of Western liberalism:

"A wide range of illegal tools and methods are used, including the introduction of coercive measures (sanctions) to circumvent the UN Security Council, provocation of coups and military conflicts, threats, blackmail, manipulation of the consciousness of certain social groups and entire nations, offensive and subversive actions in the information space. A widespread form of interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states has become the imposition of destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes that run counter to traditional spiritual and moral values."¹⁴

In Russia, democratic principles and national sovereignty are relative and extremely elastic concepts, depending on the needs of the government. The government team created by Putin and closest to him is composed mainly of siloviki, men with similar experiences to his: military and intelligence officials with experiences of periods abroad gained mainly during the Cold War and, therefore, with a deep-rooted cultural aversion to the West. Although Putin has often spoken with Western representatives during his long presidential term, his conversations are often oriented towards a Russian historical narrative rather than a real dialogue aimed at listening to his interlocutors¹⁵.

La leadership Russian does not seem to realize, for example, that elections are a sacrosanct part of a democratic system and that trying to manipulate them can provoke a strong reaction. It is well known that elections within the Russian Federation are just a pro forma, to put it mildly, to give the appearance of democracy and, given the numerous cases of interference, Russian leaders seem not to give weight to the consequences of the attempts at manipulation conducted abroad as well. For a Russian leader, liberal democracy is a dangerous phenomenon that only generates instability and chaos¹⁶. It is worth remembering that the cognitive domain is an ideal place to achieve political goals, even more than the physical battlefield, and elections, due to the emotional load they entail, rely heavily on the cognitive domain. Based on these assumptions, the Kremlin seeks to strengthen itself internally and weaken its opponents externally, at the cost of appearing paradoxical in its attempts. In August 2023, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov even stated that the 2024 Russian elections “theoretically” could be considered an unnecessary expense due to the “unprecedented” consensus surrounding Putin’s presidency:

"The level of consolidation of society around the president is absolutely unprecedented and now we can say that if he is nominated, he will be re-elected with a huge advantage and the elections themselves, theoretically, are just wasteful expenses."¹⁷

For the leader Russians, then, elections, as a distinctive component of democratic processes, must be manipulated both to prevent any form of instability within Russia, and to inflame divisions in other countries. In Western democracies, as mentioned, elections are a founding element of the political system and, therefore, the states targeted by Russian interference cannot ignore the gravity of such attacks.

This is what happened, for example, in 2016, when Russian military intelligence (GRU) officials hacked into the computers of the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton's campaign offices.¹⁸, subtracting thousands of files. On that occasion, Putin firmly maintained that Russia had nothing to do with any theft of data from the Democratic Party's computers, but did not fail to praise their public disclosure.¹⁹.

Let us also recall the interference activities carried out in France when the hacker Russians unsuccessfully attempted to influence Emmanuel Macron's 2017 presidential campaign²⁰.

Regarding the 2016 event, the United States government has decided to declassify and publish a document containing the assessment of the National Intelligence Council on Russian interference in the electoral process²¹, implicitly admitting the presence of significant gaps in the country's security structure, which allowed Russian actors to act. This choice is strongly indicative of the importance given to the gravity of the episode and is the same choice made by the Romanian government more recently, on the occasion of the 2024 presidential elections. From the excerpt from a document released by the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), the Romanian Internal Security Service, it emerges that a cyber intrusion was blatantly aimed at supporting the pro-Russian candidate Călin Georgescu and, once again, an attempt to apply “plausible deniability” emerges:

"Through specific methods, on 24.11.2024, SRI obtained data regarding the publication of login credentials associated with "Cec.ro", "roaep.ro" and "registruIelectoral.ro" within cybercrime platforms of Russian origin; similar data were identified within a private Telegram channel known for disseminating data stolen from many countries, including the Russian Federation. … In this context, a large number of cyber attacks (over 85.000) were identified, which aimed to exploit existing vulnerabilities in information systems supporting the electoral process, in order to gain access to data from information systems, alter their integrity, modify the content presented to the public and make the infrastructure unavailability. … The attacks in question continued massively, including on election day and the night after the elections (25.11.2024). The attacks were launched using cyber systems from more than 33 countries, using advanced anonymization methods to make the attribution process more difficult. The mode of operation, as well as the scope of the cyber campaign, lead to the conclusion that the attacker has considerable resources, related to a specific mode of operation of a state attacker. … In the context of the issues circulating in the online environment, data was obtained that revealed that the reason for the massive and accelerated growth of Călin Georgescu's popularity on the social media platform TikTok is due to a very well-organized promotional campaign. Călin Georgescu benefited from preferential treatment on the TikTok platform, as the content he published was not marked as belonging to a candidate, which facilitated its mass dissemination, as the published videos were not officially associated with the election campaign. As a result, his visibility increased preferentially compared to other candidates, whose posts were massively filtered, exponentially reducing their online presence."²²

It is known that, as a result of the investigations carried out, the Romanian elections of November 2024 have been annulled.

Let us now consider a completely different area: the sensational cases of poisoning of opponents or those whom Putin's autocracy has considered traitors. Events in which to the category of indifference one can also add that of of incompetenceThis is what happened in 2006, with the murder of former Russian Internal Security Service (FSB) agent Alexander Litvinenko, using polonium-210 (a radioactive substance) and in 2018 in Great Britain, with the attempted assassination of former GRU agent Sergei Skripal using novichok, a military nerve agent produced only in Russia, banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention and classified as a weapon of mass destruction. In both cases, traces were left that allow one to attribute the operations quite unequivocally. In the Skripal case in particular, the “signature” is evident. Nevertheless, Moscow's initial reactions to the accusations were uncoordinated and contradictory and tried to direct attention in all directions except towards Russia²³. Without success, however. Six months after the incident, in fact, through the analysis of over 10.000 hours of surveillance camera footage, the British government identified the perpetrators as two men belonging to the GRU²⁴. A week later, the two appeared on Russian television to declare that they were two Russian citizens who had travelled to the UK, specifically to Salisbury where Skripal was living and where they were filmed passing in front of his home, just for tourism.²⁵. A journalistic investigation in August 2022, then, discovered that for almost a decade the GRU had provided its agents with consecutively numbered passports, including those of two Russian agents identified in the attempted assassination of Skripal. Incidentally, the same investigation also featured the figure of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera, whose real name is Olga Kolobova, a GRU agent in possession of a passport of the same numerical series. Leaving aside the details of the story of yet another fascinating "spy who came in from the cold", active for a period also in Italy in NATO circles²⁶, the detail of the approximate management of passports distributed for such delicate tasks is a further example of “implausible deniability” which highlights incompetence and superficiality in carrying out certain operations.

If we want to give another interpretation to these events, the operations against Skripal and Litvinenko may not have been intended to remain secret at all. In the framework of indifference Moscow's reaction to the rest of the world, and especially the democratic West, such operations could have enormous significance as deliberate moves to send messages to those who might entertain the insane thought of betraying Russia:

"Intimidation, propaganda narratives and dirty tricks or ‘active measures’ were the repertoire of Soviet subversive activity. The same components appear to be still present in current Russian doctrine. The obvious Russian provenance of the weapon used against the Skripals, the nerve agent novichok, must have been chosen by the perpetrators precisely so that the attack could be attributed to the Russian state. In this way the attack could fulfil the dual purpose of intimidating Russian émigrés in the UK and deterring any serving Russian officials, especially in the intelligence world, from collaborating with the West. The parallels with the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in London are striking. The only plausible explanation for such elaborate and dangerous methods of assassination is that both were designed to send the message to anyone sympathetic to dissent as repression in President Putin’s Russia intensifies that those he regards as his enemies will be hunted down, located wherever they are and killed in an unpleasant manner. While Russia will at the same time forcefully deny its responsibility, the world intends to prove that Russia is responsible. A policy of deliberately implausible deniability. "²⁷

A value considered far superior to the embarrassing effects that such decisions have. On the other hand, Putin himself has bluntly defined the traitors as "scum" worthy of death.²⁸. One might think, then, that Russia's secret operations become public knowledge because the leader Russians simply do not care how others react and resort to aggression not only to achieve their goals, but also to send a strong signal to their adversaries. The Russian government can afford to pay little attention to condemnation or criticism from foreign states if covert actions are suitable for achieving the following goals²⁹:

- protect Putin's regime;

- control the post-Soviet space;

- to oppose the unipolar actor in the world (the United States);

- present Russia as an indispensable player in the world;

- divide and disintegrate NATO and the European Union.

If an action is suitable to achieve one or more of these goals, it does not matter whether Russia is held responsible. From this perspective, one can better understand the reasons for the Kremlin's acceptance of an "implausible denial".

Let us now consider a significant event in which the line between indifference and incompetence is truly blurred. We are talking about the poisoning of Alexei Navalny in August 2020, another example of Moscow's paradoxical attitude in the exercise of its clandestine activities. The political activist, a staunch opponent of Putin, survived this assassination attempt by the FSB, but died in captivity four years later, in February 2024, in the penal colony No. 3 in Charp, Siberia. In the poisoning episode, not only was the novichok, with all the implications of recognisability that such a choice entails, but the Russian government allowed Navalny to go to Germany for treatment, where the competent medical personnel would certainly have revealed the presence and type of nerve agent used.³⁰. As if that were not enough, in December 2020, presenting himself as a high-level official of the same security agency, he made a phone call to an FSB officer, to obtain information about the poisoning operation against him.³¹. The officer, who was directly involved in the operation, spoke openly about it on the phone. The subsequent publication of the audio recording and the conversation by Navalny, of course, was very embarrassing for the FSB.³². Such behavior, at best, demonstrates a great disregard for operational safety procedures; at worst, gross recklessness (incompetence), to put it mildly.

If we go back a year, the FSB had already experienced an embarrassing moment, when in August 2019, one of its agents was identified a few months after the assassination in broad daylight in Germany of the Georgian emigrant of Chechen origin Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. In December of the same year, the German government, certain of Russian involvement, decided to expel two officials from the Russian embassy in Berlin.³³. German intelligence claimed to have received information that Russian agents were planning another assassination against Khangoshvili's murderer, who was arrested and held in prison.³⁴. Once again, a way of acting on the Russian side that, in terms of confidentiality, leaves one somewhat perplexed.

Finally, let us look at two other cases which, although profoundly different in terms of the gravity of the consequences they entailed, are both, once again, examples of the “implausible deniability” due to Russia’s indifference/incompetence in managing its clandestine operations.

On July 17, 2014, a passenger plane of the Malaysian Airlines was hit by a missile Beech (vertical) Russian-made aircraft, killing all 298 people on board. Initial suspicions, which a Dutch investigation later confirmed, pointed to elements of pro-Russian paramilitary groups operating in eastern Ukraine as the perpetrators³⁵. In an attempt to deny responsibility for supplying the missile, the Kremlin tried to explain away the incident with far-fetched claims. Russian narratives included allegations that the plane was full of dead bodies when it took off.³⁶, that the Ukrainian military had shot down the plane under a false flag to blame Russia³⁷ and that the CIA had ordered the downing³⁸. Beyond the conspiratorial tones, one gets the clear impression that the Russian government was more concerned with diverting attention from Moscow's involvement in the tragic event and, in general, from interference in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, rather than from the victims of the tragedy. Nonetheless, the implausible arguments used as justifications fit perfectly into the Russian narrative for the protection of its national interest.

The second is undoubtedly less serious, but it is equally representative of a certain attitude. In 2016, the hacker of the GRU have taken over the Password of the Russian athlete Julija Stepanova who had raised public awareness about the program doping of athletes sponsored by the Russian state and violated a server of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), accessing a database containing confidential medical information relating to athletes. WADA quickly identified the Russian hand behind the breach and announced it in a press release³⁹. The GRU then leaked some files of tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams, claiming that the International Olympic Committee was applying a double standard: it was essentially allowing some athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs, but punishing Russian athletes for doing the same. Moscow was unaware that the two U.S. athletes had undergone a formal approval process. Despite the group Fancy Bear⁴⁰claimed responsibility for the hacking, Russian spokesmen, as usual, denied the involvement of the Russian government and secret services in the hacking activity⁴¹.

We arrive, then, at the conclusions of this short essay, aimed at keeping attention alive on a threat that with the mellifluous techniques of dissimulation and denial, tends to make the moloch less dangerous than it actually is.

As Moscow's orchestrated actions are exposed, the government portrays its intelligence and security services as the last patriotic organizations protecting Russia's interests in the face of repeated aggression from outside.⁴².

I leader Russians react to some world events with blatant hypocrisy, blaming others for allegedly carrying out the same actions that the Russian government itself conducts. The Russian government declares among its international priorities the doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of other states. The “Concept of Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation” of March 2023 reaffirms Russia's adherence to this doctrine, repeatedly accusing Western powers of being gold in interfering in the affairs of other states, through criticism of human rights policies and the “imposition of destructive neoliberal ideological attitudes that go against traditional spiritual and moral values."⁴³

However, Russian agents have on multiple occasions been caught interfering in the affairs of other states, manipulating elections, disrupting investigations into Russia's aggressive actions, and supporting violent extremist groups.⁴⁴. Along with the open claim of non-interference in the affairs of other states, the Kremlin claims its responsibility towards Russian-speaking “compatriots” in other countries, which would give Russia the right to interfere in the policies of neighboring countries.⁴⁵. The most striking examples are provided by the arguments in favor of the annexation of Crimea and support for the insurrection in Donbass before and, subsequently, of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Russian spokesmen respond to the accusations of Russian interference by accusing, in turn, Western countries of interfering in Moscow's affairs, even without providing concrete evidence to support these accusations⁴⁶.

We have seen that Russian disinformation work is not always well conceived or well executed, and that it is not at all difficult to highlight its crudeness. A sloppy cunning can reveal a secret operation. It should also be said, finally, that if Russian intelligence services had accurately predicted the reactions of Western countries to events such as electoral manipulation or an assassination operation, they might not have dared to communicate their assessments for fear of losing influence. These would then be intelligence failures that appear as "a reflection of serious systemic weaknesses."⁴⁷