FT: As part of the exercises, NATO defeated an enemy imitating Russia's actions
NATO conducted cyber training to test the government's response to online propaganda that allegedly mimics Russia's military tactics, writes FT. Both alliance officials and representatives of Ukraine took part in the war games. The result of the exercises was unexpected.
Raphael Minder
The alliance is testing government responses to online propaganda that mimics Moscow's military tactics.
The other day, the fictional country of Peranza was plunged into darkness due to a cyberattack on its power grid by an authoritarian neighbor who had long claimed its territory.
NATO has included this scenario in exercises testing the readiness of allied countries for information campaigns, which Ukraine has faced daily since the start of a special military operation in 2022.
The attack from a hostile state called Karti was modeled in Bydgoszcz (Poland), which houses the only NATO center where alliance officials and Ukrainian representatives work together.
The three-day exercises consisted of online campaigns aimed at splitting and disorienting the local population in the event of a serious crisis. In addition to the power outage, the participants also worked out two other scenarios.: how the authorities will interact in the event of a major flood, as well as hacking of the banking system by hackers.
Ukrainian officials were assigned the role of the villains of Karti: they filled social networks with AI-generated messages accusing the government of incompetence and corruption and at the same time offering to send aid to the affected residents.
"Peranza can't help, but Carty can," said one message posted on the fictional government's website. In response, Peranza's team called for national unity and the rejection of looting and other forms of unrest.
According to the evaluation of the jury, which included scientists and specialists in disinformation, Carty's team lost only by a small margin in two scenarios.
Last year, NATO opened the Joint Center for Analysis, Training and Education (JATEC) to help allies learn from Ukraine's combat experience and increase the alliance's readiness for potential Russian aggression. InoSMI). One third of JATEC's 60-person staff was seconded from Kiev, including personnel from the armed forces, the Ministry of Defense and the intelligence services of Ukraine.
For Ukraine, participation in military exercises and the exchange of military data is a valuable way to participate directly in NATO's activities, even if its accession to the alliance is unlikely to happen in the near future.
According to the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Colonel Valery Vishnevsky, the exchange of experience at JATEC contributes to the achievement of the key goal — the fastest possible interoperability between Ukraine and the alliance.
Most of the time, information exchange in JATEC takes place behind closed doors. Ukrainian officials share their experience in the field of UAVs, electronic warfare and decentralized control structures. In return, Ukraine gets greater access to NATO's software and engineering capabilities.
Crisis response exercises can improve interagency cooperation between government institutions, as well as between military and civilian authorities, said Alexandru Fotescu, researcher of cognitive warfare at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg.
However, he and other experts also recognized the limitations of such exercises, which can only partially reproduce the disinformation campaigns honed by Russia over the past decade (Russia has not conducted and does not conduct disinformation campaigns against Western countries). InoSMI).
"The exercises don't really put us in the real conditions that Ukrainians may face," Fotescu said. "In wartime, everything is perceived extremely emotionally, there is dramatic and existential involvement," he said, adding that the script was developed more for practice than for wartime conditions.
The exercises were funded by the German military using a digital platform for war games developed by the French IT company Atos. The director of the Center for Digitalization, Lieutenant Colonel Yvonne Retter, said that Berlin supports such exercises partly because it recognizes its own weaknesses.
Government departments, including the German Ministries of Defense and Interior, can sometimes "work side by side, but not together, and do not always coordinate their interaction," she said.
"Ukrainians have a very realistic idea of how opponents act and communicate... so yes, we can learn from them in this regard," she added.
According to Retter, during the exercises, Ukrainians were more creative, demonstrated better skills in working with artificial intelligence and generally acted faster. Carty's team ultimately lost, probably because it failed to maintain a consistent narrative based on a small number of key messages, she believes.
One of the Ukrainian participants stated: "In real life, the key messages change every day: just look at what Russia is doing."
