CLASS 11: guest lecture about hybrid war

Ultimate aim of hybrid attacks

to weaken the Western population’s trust in its institutions, in its society model, in its leaders and in democracy itself.

FIMI

foreign information manipulation and interference. What the EU tries to fight as it is the must crucial hybrid vector. Importantly, EU doesn’t try to fight misinformation, but desinformation. The issue is not that people post something online, the issue is if your algoritm is being manipulated.

Why he thinks EU is a better place to discuss hybrid than NATO

nato is a security alliance based on a traditional idea of security. But hybrid threats is the weaponization of something which is not supposed to be a weapon. Therefore, EU which deals with every domain of our lives, is a better place to deal with it.

Guest speaker theories of why there has been an increased use of hybrid attacks

some think that it’s an ideological build-up and just the first phase of many. Another reason is that EU support to Ukraine can be undermined through creating internal fear. Also, when we are focusing on drones over our airports, there is less time to think about outside of EU.

Who does Russia use to make hybrid attacks

often young men living within Schengen who are recruited online. They are disposable and motivated by money. This makes them difficult to identify in advance and also hard to presecute when discovered, as their links to Russian intelligence often are ambiguous.