Spot the Op: Controlled Opposition
Third in a series exposing Russian hybrid warfare operations
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Author’s note: the Spot the Op series focuses on exposing Russian hybrid warfare techniques — as rooted in Soviet ‘active measures’ — with the goal to destabilize target nations by weakening political unity, causing economic disruptions, and undermining trust in institutions. Often non-kinetic and covert, the attacks are below the threshold of open conflict, although they’re coordinated by Russian military intelligence (GRU), foreign intelligence (SVR) and domestic intelligence (FSB) — and are highly strategic. Attacks often appear organic, as domestic actors from target nations are employed to deliver pro-Russian, anti-Ukraine, anti-Western narratives. Common techniques include Russian-sponsored referendums, malinformation campaigns, and third party spoiler candidates. More visible are poisonings, defenestrations, assassinations, and hacking. This series aims to clarify how these operations work.—hsc
Spot the Op — Controlled Opposition
Controlled opposition: the aim is political subversion through proxies. Political actors in target nations will deliver pro-Russian narratives, often disguised as ideological and organic, dividing communities and stoking disunity in public opinion. Controlled opposition actors can create entire movements, crises, protests, and/or infiltrate existing movements to disrupt cohesion.
I find controlled opposition actors to be among the most pernicious threats to domestic security. In the US, people want to believe in heroes, we want to believe when someone has turned over a new leaf, and we want to believe and support people who are willing to admit they were wrong. However, only time will reveal someone’s true intentions.
In addition, it’s also useful to pay attention to how Russian media is covering other nation’s political actors. Since Russia is ruled vertically, and active measures are coordinated by all intelligence agencies, when we see someone like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie celebrated on RT, that should be an indicator that he’s no hero. Recall, Massie sponsored a bill to withdraw the US from NATO — the destruction of NATO has always been Putin’s first goal.
These threats are difficult to analyze, and it was never supposed to be left in the hands of reporters to be the frontline. We should have had entire divisions set up to protect Western nations from Russian threats, but that’s not what happened.
So I bring in experts every week to help us better understand how to defend our minds and countries in this time of ongoing threat acceleration.
Among the most useful tools to explain Russian hybrid warfare comes from Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak, which I published as An Undeclared War for All Mankind:
Boriak wrote:
It was supposed to be an ordinary historical study. Not entirely ordinary because of the war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine in 2014 and already opened up for all Ukrainians and the world in 2022. But in general, as a historian should, it is routine: formulate a hypothesis, work through literature and primary sources, present arguments in favor or refutation of the hypothesis and formulate conclusions. But when I discovered another original source, my breath caught in the literal sense of the word, and then, not figuratively, my heartbeat accelerated. It was the last puzzle I was missing.
Mental war through the eyes of Russian ideologues
Here is this quote that became the last puzzle in the puzzle for me. It was said in 2021 by the adviser to the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation (2015-2024). A. Ilnitsky (by the way, was born in post-war Lviv). According to him, humanity in the 21st century has entered a new stage of wars - “mental”, the purpose of which “is to destroy self-awareness, change the mental, civilizational basis of the enemy’s society... It is possible to destroy the state and destroy the country by changing the self-awareness, worldview, goals, values and priorities of society. Mental war is aimed at changing the worldview. Moreover, if the Armed Forces [armed forces] and infrastructure can be restored, then the evolution of the worldview cannot be changed. ... The information space is completely filled with “necessary” content. ... Mental wars are fought without declaring” (A. Ilnitsky, “Mental War”, 2021)
The former adviser to the Russian Defense Minister cynically points to the “objects” of mental war: “everything - from news to analytical and sociological data, from training programs in higher education institutions and schools to television programs and available archival data.” Using its terminology, your brains are literally rebooted (”reformatted”), like old software that needs to be brought to the modern level. You were thrown off the pedestal, where human genius reigned, and lowered to the same infamous cog of the soviet system, which should work stupidly as a component of a large mechanism, handing over to the driver of this mechanism his “benvictions” and “worldview”, and receiving in return a Russian/rashist matrix.
For a better understanding of the context, let’s turn to the rhetoric of the ideologist of racism V. Surkova. This is a former advisor. Putin, the author of the quasi-ideology of the Russian world and the concept of “sovereign democracy”.
In his last three articles from 2019, 2022, and 2025, he cynically emphasizes the reformatting of the world with the help of the ideology of the Russian world. Surkov writes about the “special, sovereign” development of the Russian Federation; about the “natural and only possible state of great [Russia], growing, one that gathers the lands of the community of nations”, about the need of Russians for a “tsar”.
He states that since the 2000s, Russia “began to produce meanings itself and went on to an information counteroffensive to the West.” Surkov transfers the concept of “mental matrix, archetypes of our national consciousness” to the sphere of foreign policy… He says that work is being done with mental spaces that are influenced by the “mythical environment, the relief of collective historical memory,” and only then is politics used as a tool for achieving goals - but emphasizes that politics is based on previously prepared boundaries: on already implemented changes in the heads…
It is significant that in one video Surkov frankly admitted that he was looking for a fig leaf to cover Russian imperialism - and this element of clothing, which hid the imperialist inside of the Kremlin from the world, became the phrase Russian world (Russky mir). The latter, as he says, “has no borders. The Russian world is everywhere where there is Russian influence, in one form or another: cultural, informational, military, economic, ideological and humanitarian... In other words, it is everywhere. Sometimes it is difficult to notice because Russia adapts the tools of its influence from region to region, but it is “never zero.”
So how does Russia do this? How does it “destroy self-awareness, change the mental, civilizational basis of the enemy’s society...”
The answer: with very low-cost, strategic and coordinated measures, and with the help of controlled opposition.
We know from our reading of Peter Pomerantsev’s books, that political technologist Vladislav Surkov created entire political movements out of whole cloth — designed to give people hope, the feeling that they could participate in something new or different from the status quo, only to find that the movement’s goal would deliver them right back to Putin.
I had disinformation analyst Dietmar Pichler take a look at the US actors who were staunchly in the MAGA camp — and MAGA being a Russian op, that meant they were staunchly the pro-Kremlin camp — until suddenly, they emerged as proselyters for full Epstein disclosures. Curiously, Marjorie Taylor Greene brutally stalked Parkland shooting victim David Hogg, but now, she’s pro-victim’s rights. Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna proudly announces her meetings with Russian propagandists, under the guise of ‘peace,’ but she, too, is ‘outraged’ over unredacted Epstein files, although she thinks it’s ‘unfair to implicate’ the president.
Here is what Pichler noted:
As I am not an expert on US party dynamics, I can only observe from a European perspective and look for similarities. What we see, regarding the individuals you mentioned, are differing views, sometimes loudly expressed, on certain issues. This can include, for instance, a more radical anti-Ukraine position, a different stance on Israel and Iran, demands concerning the Epstein files, or other topics. The broader right wing populist outlook itself remains largely unchanged.
We have also seen that the highly influential journalist Tucker Carlson, known for his interviews with Putin and Jeffrey Sachs, holds views on issues such as the Middle East that differ from those of Donald Trump.
The Democrats have also had individuals with very, let us say, controversial views within their party. Some of them later changed parties and are now part of this administration.
In Europe, we have parties that contain internal wings with differing positions on key issues, for example regarding the conflict between Turkey and the Kurds, support for Ukraine, or center left parties that include a communist, almost Stalinist wing, as well as far right parties that include a radical neo Nazi wing. The strategy for parties that want to maintain their size or even grow is to allow this internal opposition in order to retain existing voters and attract new ones. It can also function like a political à la carte menu, in the sense that you may prefer a particular dessert, but the main courses remain the same.—Dietmar Pichler for Bette Dangerous
So Americans are given the feeling that there is movement and division within MAGA, but ultimately, all roads deliver them back to Trump, and if not, Trump, then the technofacist movement as embodied by JD Vance. Or perhaps Marjorie Taylor Greene will emerge from the MAGA swamp as a blonder but equally orange ‘alternative’ to Trump. Each still representing Russky mir.
Within Russia, controlled opposition can refer to political parties that are permitted to exist, so as to create the veneer of democracy, but are actually managed by Kremlin operatives and receive state funding.
Any real opposition is excluded from the political process by being labeled as foreign agents, criminals, and then, incarcerated, poisoned or assassinated, as in the case of the last true opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered in front of the Kremlin 11 years ago this week.
It’s important to note that in autocratic countries controlled opposition actors may say things that align with pro-democracy values, but any real threats to current leadership are identified, as in the case of Turkey.
The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who won on a radical love platform, literally offering people hugs in the streets, emerged as a popular rival to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s strongman president. So where is now? In prison, facing 142 charges, including bribery and extortion, that could keep him jail for 2,000 years. Or at least long enough to remove him from the ballot in 2028, denying him the ability to challenge Erdoğan.
Among the most important tells of determining controlled opposition actors is where they get their funding. You can bet if Peter Thiel funded a leftist politician’s rise or other Russian oligarchs and Russian-aligned oligarchs, they’re likely a bad actor whose job is to deliver us to fascism, perhaps in an indirect route.
Controlled opposition actors by their very nature exist to neutralize any real dissent, they often are deployed to manage any real or emerging threats.
One of the most maddening examples of controlled opposition are the cyber choruses that emerge on social media platforms. They may appear organic and seem to be a loose-knit group of concerned citizens from one particular country, when in fact, they are strategically knitted together from many countries with the goal of democratic subversion.
These operations are particularly tricky, because the chorus may appear to be a part of the resistance to the MAGA movement, and may love-bomb people into joining their cyber crew. But over time, the core group will suddenly target true and emerging opposition leaders — the transition is coordinated, quick, and obvious, with independent reporters ending up in the crosshairs of these cyber militia attacks, as well as politicians. Suddenly, a reporter who’s been going about their work will find themselves gang-trashed online, made to appear they are not who they say they are, with reputation smears designed to make them radioactive and unemployable. These attacks often come from groups who appear to be leftists — acting as gatekeepers — but ultimately, these groups also deliver us to fascism.
Who doesn’t want to see peace, right?
But the peace movement writhes with controlled opposition, and has done since the Soviets first discovered its utility.
Truth Will Out
I thought Americans would awake from the spell cast by influencers acting as reporters doing pro-Russian work under cover of patriotism/conservatism, when it was found they were actually paid by Russia. Instead, Trump was re-installed, and the Russian-paid influencers performing as reporters got promoted from YouTube to the White House press pool.
For now, any way.
If truth is the daughter of time, then truth will out.
Controlled opposition actors always reveal themselves. They have to, that’s their job.
It may take time.
It should be accelerated when the source of the money is exposed, as was the case in the Tenet Media operation, where the Russian-linked front companies were revealed. But in a noisy world, more effort required.
Keep your wits about you.
Always ask whenever you hear words that sound representative of democratic values, where does this person stand on Putin and Ukraine? If they trash Trump, but are radio silent on Putin and are unsupportive of Ukraine, they might be controlled opposition.
Alternately, if they appear supportive of Ukraine, but are deeply entrenched in MAGA/Kremlin values, keep your eyes wide open.
Westerners who did not grow up under Soviet rule have far less inoculation to these operations than our friends in Eastern and Central Europe.
Today is an excellent day to get savvy.
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The Kremlin knows that this Epstein / Trump scandal will tear our country apart.