In any war, there are strategic and tactical weapons. Firearms, grenades and tanks often come to mind, but experts say false narratives and false information can be equally dangerous. Disinformation is right out of Russia’s long-term political playbook. In 1923, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin started a government disinformation office, to aggressively spread lies and mislead public opinion.

In the 1980s, Russia employed ‘Operation Infektion’, where the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency, falsely accused the U.S. military of inventing the AIDS virus. More recently, during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found that the Russian government had interfered in the election.

Russian trolls are again hard at work in the war in Ukraine. Russia is using a personal touch to cause confusion in this conflict. Ukrainian soldiers are receiving fake messages from hacked accounts of family and friends, urging them to surrender.