OSINT Techniques Reveal Russia’s Strategy to the World

In May 2022, Russian military forces attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets river in Ukraine. Russian forces constructed pontoon bridges to ferry tanks and armored vehicles across the river to capture the city of Lyman, 17 miles away.[1]  

Waiting for the convoy was Ukrainian artillery. Instead of reaching Lyman, nearly 100 military vehicles were destroyed, and 1,000 Russian troops were killed. The pontoon bridges sank to the bottom of the river.[2]

Russia later claimed the vehicles were Ukrainian. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) research and analysis revealed that this claim was Russian disinformation.[3]

OSINT reveals Putin’s strategy and vulnerabilities  

In the Babel Street webinar “Following the Fight: Using Open Source Intelligence to Understand Russia’s War Against Ukraine and Russia’s Challenge to the US,” Nataliya Bugayova, Director of Strategic Intelligence at Babel Street and a non-resident fellow at ISW, pointed out that Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk proves what many people overlook, “Russia is not invulnerable.”  

She explained that Russia has vulnerabilities and weaknesses the West has not been exploiting.

Although Putin can adapt, he takes time to do so. Putin is decisive but not extemporaneous. He does not pivot rapidly because he is averse to risk. He was slow to react to Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk. Another example Ms. Bugayova used to illustrate Putin’s rigidity is his response to his failed effort to conquer Kyiv in a matter of days at the onset of the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. Russia planned to overrun the Ukrainian capital with 72 hours. [4] When that plan failed, it took Putin months to mobilize more troops even though his forces were undermanned for the military objectives they were set to accomplish.  

Instead of taking advantage of Putin’s slowness to act, Ms. Bugayova argued the West is stuck in a playbook of “incrementalism,” even though this approach eliminates the advantage that a fast and decisive response would yield.  

Bugayova also highlighted that Putin is accumulating a lot of risk. For example, Putin is borrowing from Russia’s future capability. His invasion of Ukraine exacted a high toll on military resources. Russia has been able to absorb these costs — so far, but not without risk.  

Ms. Bugayova concluded that to take advantage of Putin’s vulnerabilities, the West must act decisively and persistently.  

You can read Ms. Bugayova’s full assessment of Putin’s vulnerabilities published by ISW.

Russia’s first war

To understand Russia’s global strategy, one must recognize that Putin is fighting two wars. The first war is the military invasion of Ukraine. This war began 10 years ago, and its conclusion is not imminent.  

During the webinar, Kateryna Stepanenko, Russia Deputy Team Lead at the Institute for the Study of War, presented the status of Putin’s first war. [6] Since October 2023, Russia has maintained the initiative on the battlefield. Its military strategy is attrition: exhaust Ukrainian soldiers in every region of conflict. Russia’s advance is concentrated in the Donetsk region.  

On August 6, 2024, Ukraine launched an offensive into the Kursk region of Russia, and, for the first time since World War II, a foreign military occupied Russian land. [7]  

The map below illustrates the status of the war as of October 17, 2024, illustrating the outcome of these opposite battlefield advances.  

(Map courtesy of the Institute for the Study of War)

Ms. Stepanenko offered critical insights into Putin’s decision-making, pointing out two challenges Putin faces:

• Putin must allocate resources and manpower from the front lines or the reserves to counter Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk.
• Putin has not mobilized additional forces by formally declaring war because he cannot afford the social unrest this declaration might create within Russian society.

The power of OSINT

How did Ms. Stepanenko gain these insights? The answer is OSINT.  

For over 900 days ISW has been monitoring the conflict in Ukraine and creating its maps and detailed reports exclusively using OSINT techniques.  

Babel Street, as a tech partner of ISW, plays an important role in helping ISW achieve these insights.

Putin’s center of gravity

In our recent webinar, McDaniel Wicker, Senior Vice President at Babel Street, read a quote from an assessment by Ms. Bugayova: “Putin’s center of gravity is the ability to shape the will and decisions of the West, Ukraine, and Russia itself.”

Elaborating on her quote, Ms. Bugayova explained that over the last 20 years, Putin has used his authoritarian powers to expand the control of the information space in Russia. Along with tightening restrictions on the open flow of information, Putin constructed and maintained the perception that any alternative to his rule would be either worse than Putin or too costly to oppose.  

Putin’s strategy globally relies on his ability to shape perceptions of others. Ms. Bugayova said that after Putin’s failed three-day military invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin’s main effort shifted to shaping Western decision-making to offset the limits of Russia’s military capability. What was the goal of this information war? To convince the U.S. and its allies to stay on the sidelines and let Russia fight Ukraine in isolation.  

The information campaign and the military campaign work together to undermine Russia’s foes and expand Russia’s influence. Of these two approaches, the information war takes precedence in Putin’s global strategy and is supported by military action.  

Russia’s information-based warfare  

Writing in Foreign Policy, Ian Garner states that, because of Putin’s grand strategy to isolate Ukraine, the “war over Western opinion is… at least as existential for Putin as the fight on the ground in Ukraine.” [8] A Russian military textbook terms the war for public opinion “information-psychological warfare.” Russia engages in this type of warfare to achieve its preeminent objective: undermine and destroy the democracies of the West.  

Ms. Stepanenko offers an example. When the Ukrainian military successfully retook the region of Kharkiv in 2022, the Russians launched their own information offensive in which they touted the thousands of nuclear weapons Russia has ready to launch.

The goal of this information attack? Russia wanted to slow down Western military aid to Ukraine so the Ukrainian military could not maintain the battlefield initiative.  

Ms. Stepanenko adds that Russian information operations go beyond Ukraine. The Russians, for example, target the Balkans — Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina with the goal of undermining the Dayton Agreement brokered by the U.S. in 1995 to bring peace following the Bosnian War.

Ms. Bugayova gave another example. Russia has long falsely asserted that the U.S. uses research laboratories in Ukraine to produce biological weapons. What’s the goal of this false claim?

• First, to undermine the image of the U.S. globally
• Second, to create a negative perception of the U.S. in Ukraine and the region

If we accept that Putin and Russia are “waging a war on the West in which all citizens are already a part,” [9] how do we fight back?

OSINT techniques to counter Russia’s information and military action  

OSINT is gleaned from publicly available, global information, and therein lies its value. Seasoned and disciplined analysts use tools such as Babel Street Insights to collate, summarize, and analyze open source data from over 95 countries in more than 200 languages.

Ms. Stepanenko pointed out that OSINT techniques are empowering the people of Ukraine to both counter Russia’s information war and to combat Russian military operations.  

The Ukrainian people understand how important Russia’s disinformation campaign was to its illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014. Russia spent millions on that campaign, which proved successful. [10]

The Ukrainian government, as well as NGOs operating in Ukraine, have adopted strong programs to counter Russia’s information war. Citizens of Ukraine, for their part, employ OSINT techniques to record combat footage and to geolocate Russian military positions.  

As always, though, Russia is adapting. They are using OSINT techniques to advance their information war by disseminating disinformation. Uploading online footage with false geolocations is one example.  

The price of liberty

Speaking in 1852, Wendell Phillips said, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” In today’s world, OSINT techniques comprise one of the most effective methods we have for practicing daily vigilance over the variety and veracity of the information we consume.  

End notes

1 Ax, David, May 11, 2022, “The Russians Lost An Entire Battalion Trying To Cross A River In Eastern Ukraine”, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2022/05/11/the-russians-lost-nearly-an-entire-battalion-trying-to-cross-a-river-in-eastern-ukraine/

2 Shull, Abbie, May 12, 2022, “Photos show dozens of wrecked Russian tanks and armored vehicles destroyed in failed river crossing, Ukraine's military says”, https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-show-wrecked-russian-tanks-destroyed-in-failed-river-crossing-2022-5

3 Babel Street, August 20, 2024, https://www.babelstreet.com/resources/webinars/following-the-fight-using-open-source-intelligence-to-understand-russias-war-against-ukraine-and-russias-challenge-to-the-us/thank-you

4 Newsweek, April 20, 2023, “Russian State TV Denies Believing Putin Could Take Kyiv in Three Days”, https://www.newsweek.com/russian-state-tv-guest-denies-past-claims-taking-kyiv-three-days-1795732

5 ABC News, June 25, 2023, “What Happened During the Wagner Group Mutiny Against the Russian Military — and What Comes Next? Here’s What We Know”, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-06-25/what-happened-during-the-wagner-group-mutiny-and-what-comes-next/102521134

6 op cit Babel Street, August 20, 2024,  

7 Associated Press, August 29, 2024, “Why Russia Has Struggled To Halt Ukraine’s Incursion in the Kursk Region”, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-putin-kursk-incursion-ca6d18d06606794580bdc779d2c98134

8 Garner, Ian, March 9, 2024, "The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia's Information War", https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/03/09/russia-putin-disinformation-propaganda-hybrid-war/

9 ibid

10 ibid