*This article also appears as a chapter in the 2023 KCIS Conference volume that was published Nov. 2024

Abstract

In the current era of globalization, development of information technology and the revolution in management, military science is looking for new theories and concepts that reflect new realities. New Russian military doctrine is named after General Gerasimov, Commander of the Russian Army that invaded Ukraine. Hybrid war is a broad, “framing” concept; The Russian version of hybrid war may be referred to as a form of controlled chaos. The definition of “war of controlled chaos” is not strictly professional, but rather publicist, emphasizing the characteristic essence of this type of war—the creation of global chaos.

Russo-Ukrainian War is regional in terms of territory but not in terms of its influence on the global geopolitics and the development of hybrid war theory. It has shown that the Russian Hybrid War Doctrine in its real essence is not about military technology at all—but rather it is a collection of covert special operations. Russian interpretation of twenty-first century war put an end to a traditional approach. The Clausewitzian formula of war is turned inside out; war is no longer the continuation of politics by other means, but politics is war waged by other means.

Introduction

The commander of the Russian Army, General Valeriy Gerasimov, is one of the few Russian generals globally known, but not because of victories or military skills. General Gerasimov is the author of the Russian military doctrine adopted in 2014 and associated with hybrid warfare, which the Kremlin has waged in various countries: Georgia, Syria, but mostly in Ukraine since February 2014.

By the time it was formulated, Vladimir Putin had already delivered the famous Munich speech of 2007, in which he had declared that “for the modern world, a unipolar model dominated by Western countries is not only unacceptable, but even impossible.”[1] This was not just a call for a multipolar world; behind its façade lay a call for the chaotization of the world order.

Russian military doctrine of hybrid (non-linear) war specifies that aggressive approach. Contrary to the provisions of 3rd Hague Convention of 1907, according to which a state of war must necessarily be preceded by a warning in the form of a justified declaration of war, doctrine clearly states in the very first phrase that “In the 21st century, there is a tendency to erase the distinction between the state of war and peace. Wars are not declared, and having started, they do not follow the pattern we are accustomed to.”[2]

According to doctrine, war begins not with an invasion of troops but instead with a “hidden genesis” during which the armies perform “military measures of strategic deterrence,” while a political opposition is formed, coalitions are created, and information warfare is waged. As an aside, information warfare is the only thing that, according to Gerasimov, is waged throughout all stages of the “new war.”[3] Gerasimov identified eight phases of war, coupled with the established goals. Each phase is a prerequisite for the success of the next phase. In the first five non-kinetic phases, only non-military means and methods are presented; the last three (kinetic) are weaponized. However, five non-kinetic phases identify military means of intimidating the enemy in the form of false air attacks, temporary military exercises, and major maneuvers near the borders of the enemy’s territory.

The Doctrine Principles

Russian military thinker, Aleksandr Bartosh, in his monograph “Issues of the Theory of Hybrid War” revealed some peculiarities of the Russian approach to this kind of war. In the Russian mainstream, the United States of America (U.S.) and the NATO have already declared a hybrid war on Russia. The monograph emphasizes the conflict’s global geopolitical, civilizational nature, since, in the author’s opinion, the U.S. seeks to defeat Russia as one of its main geopolitical opponents, the only one who can destroy the U.S. by armed means. Russian experts refer to the principles of Russian hybrid warfare as a new type of interstate confrontation as below:

·      the principle of using corrupt local political and intellectual elites as a tool for weakening and disintegrating the state;

·      the principle of the formation of the grey zone as a theatre of hybrid war;

·      the principle of denial of the fact of hybrid war;

·      the principle of multilevel deterrence;

·      the principle of secrecy of application of a complex of hybrid threats;

·      the principle of comprehensive coverage of any territory in hybrid warfare operations, including outer space and cyberspace;

·      the principle of anticipatory reflection in hybrid war strategy development;

·      the principle of prioritization of operations to exert a cognitively destructive impact on the consciousness and psyche of people to accelerate the collapse of the state;

·      the principle of specificity of the development of the military technological sphere of a hybrid military conflict.[4]

These principles of hybrid warfare reveal the purpose of the Russian military doctrine; that is, to create a permanent geopolitical front on the entire world territory, including outer space; meanwhile Russia is not an aggressor, but rather, a victim.

Gerasimov vs. Clausewitz

The world is a globalized space, perpetually transitioning to a new world order, in which norms, values, and ideals are being reassessed and the new change factors are being revealed. As J. Lyotard noted, postmodernism in the sphere of knowledge has changed “the rules of the game in science, literature and art.”[5] One can include the rules of war to this logic. The latest phenomenology of war and armed struggle emerges through the fog of postmodernism.[6]

The philosophy of postmodernism believes that there is no clear division between reality and simulation. No one anymore appeals to the “real” object with the entire world dominated by artificial models. Human life becomes illusory, inauthentic, evoking a sense of emptiness, meaninglessness, and chaos. Jacques Baudrillard wrote, “We produce an abundance of images, simulacra, which do not convey any meaning and thus appear as fakes, falsified copies that do not correspond to the original.”[7]

Russian military doctrine envisages the use of postmodernist methodology to actively influence mass consciousness, constructing a special vision of reality, in which several opposite truths can exist simultaneously (e.g., five versions of the downing of the MH-17 passenger airliner in 2014).[8] Or exist in a sphere in which “good” and “evil” are inverted, Ukrainians are aggressors and neo-Nazis,[9] all ultimately increasing the effectiveness of modern information warfare. “Facts” can be deconstructed; inhumane ideas can be imposed under the guise of humanism that dramatically increase the effectiveness of hybrid wars.[10]

At first sight Russian doctrine in some respects is not in conflict with well-known Clausewitzian concept of absolute war. For Clausewitz, war is not an ordinary act of violence only, but an extreme degree of its application. Violence is the first component of Clausewitzian “trinity”: war is a pulsation of violence to which there are no limits.[11] Russian hyperbolizing of violence was developed in their doctrine. Clausewitzian absolute war, with its crushing power, in Russian interpretation, pushes to the extreme its most dangerous quality, the ability to destroy, which knows no boundaries. Ideal war leads to the destruction of the alien, the incomprehensible and the unacceptable if it is defined as a threat to one’s own existence.

In Putin’s interpretation, war is the destruction of order and the establishment of total chaos. Hybrid warfare spreads to all public relations spheres becoming global, universal, permanent, and endless. War is waged with the simultaneous use of conventional weapons and methods of unconventional violence in various operational spaces: military, political and diplomatic, economic, psychological, informational, etc. It is the violence, which passes through a phase shift from states to quasi-state actors, from the local to the global, from the public to the private, from the organized to the chaotic. In this war, everything becomes a weapon: civilians, social networks, corrupted political elite, refugees, starvation, nuclear power plants, nuclear blackmail, etc.

It does not fit postmodernist theory of deconstruction which is at least looking for something new. In the Russian interpretation, war is the destruction of order and the establishment of total chaos, concealing the true purpose of the war in Ukraine: the destruction of the state, the seizure of territory, the extermination of Ukrainian identity, history, and language.[12] For this purpose, children on occupied territory are taken away from their parents for the purpose of proper “Putin-style” re-education that has already led to the issuance of an arrest warrant for Putin by the International Criminal Court.[13]

Clausewitz saw the war as a political act, a genuine instrument of politics, the continuation of political relations, and the realization of them by other means; according to him, war plays a subordinate role to politics. Politics determines the objectives, the scale of the war, and the scope of the effort. Clausewitz’s approach is the rejection of the notion of war as an independent phenomenon; outside of politics, war is impossible. For Clausewitz, war is only an instrument of politics, a special form of political relations and politics determines the nature of war.[14]

Additionally, Clausewitz fights against all attempts to subordinate the political point of view to the military one. He says: “political intention is the end, while war is only a means, and one can never think of a means without an end.” Consequently, it remains only possible to subordinate the military point of view to the political. War in no way abolishes diplomacy, supplements it, being in relation to it, but not replacing it.”[15]

One of the drawbacks of Clausewitz’s linear approach is the separation of politics into categories as something external to the war itself. In relationships between the parts of the whole, politics is assigned the role of a hierarchically superior controlling element that determines all aspects of war. But the non-linear hybrid war of the postmodernist world feels cramped in the frame of that linear, hierarchical approach. Involving non-state actors, multimodal and total hybrid war does not fit into the existing theoretical framework. If war is an expression of the will of the state, this means that it does not involve irrational aspects, non-state actors, and other motives that influence war. But hybrid war does. Clausewitz describes what the nature of war should be, but in no way its actual nature.[16]

Politics tends to become an instrument of war; war, once started, always generates its own politics, creates its own momentum, renders obsolete the political goals in the name of which it was started, by putting forward its own political goals. Military conflict, especially when it passes to total forms, subordinates politics to itself.[17] Postmodernist culture becomes “responsible” for all aspects of society, including war, which becomes an integral part of culture.[18]

In Russian hybrid war, the role of the military in determining foreign policy objectives becomes dominant. The goals of the war are not defined or are being concealed; the war of aggression against Ukraine is called by Putin the “special military operation for denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine” instead of “armed international conflict.”[19] War is no longer an extreme situation and a tear in the fabric of ordinary social existence but has become a stable form of public relations. The political consciousness of the ruling elite is replaced by military consciousness, the paradigm of war has overcome the paradigm of politics. Clausewitzian “trinity” of war in Russian interpretation penetrates the postmodern world with military hysteria of population, military thinking of “siloviki,” or military and enforcement elite and ends in total violence.[20] Politics and war in the in-linear world spill over each other; politics may be dominant in hybrid peace period, but war dominants during hybrid conflict during a “hot war.” Under the new conditions, Clausewitz’s formula is turned inside out: war is no longer the continuation of politics by other means, but politics is war waged by other means; politics is one of the instruments, one of the embodiments of war.

No War, No Peace

Clausewitz sees war and peace not only as two alternative means of politics, but also as enduring values of human existence, which politics must include in determining its strategic goals. In traditional war, the new order of peace defeats the chaos of war. The state of peace is the starting point and the goal of any war, including “absolute” war, aimed at complete suppression of the enemy. Clausewitz gives a detailed description of ideal war, which would necessarily have to begin with a declaration of war and end with the conclusion of peace, once again emphasizing the priority of peace over war as the starting point and final goal of politics.

Conversely, Russian military doctrine supports the concept of undeclared war and ignores the role of peace, as previously observed contrary to the provisions of International Law. A principal feature of Russian hybrid warfare is a paradoxical logic: it is a situation of neither war nor peace when the state of war is simultaneously a state of peace. This is because, unlike ideal wars, hybrid wars focus on creating a situation of uncertainty and chaos. Hybrid war in the Russian version does not need order—it is always an expanse of uncertainty, of chaos. At any given moment, war is not war in its pure form and peace is not peace. This is particularly evident in the Russian-Ukrainian war, when, for example, missile strikes are launched across the territory of Ukraine, but simultaneously, Russian gas and oil are pumped to the EU countries via Ukrainian-controlled territory.[21]

Many talk about hybrid war but few talk about the opposite concept—hybrid peace. If there is a hybrid war, it can be transformed into a hybrid peace. The analysis of Russian hybrid war against Ukraine since 2014 shows that a state of peace is temporary and at any moment can turn into a state of war. There were two peaks of “hot” war phases (2014–2015 and present) and hybrid peace between which was filled with hacker attacks, sabotage acts, false air attacks, military exercises, and major maneuvers near the borders of Ukraine.[22] So, hybrid peace is the same hybrid war but in its passive modus. It is the state of an active volcano before the next eruption.

Russian hybrid war is not declared and therefore has no beginning as well as no end; a peace agreement is impossible in the processes of war formation since hybrid war is in the field of media, social networks, social movements, and other areas of hybrid confrontation. The main problem with hybrid warfare is that it is easy to start and even easier to accelerate but hard to stop because it is waged in all spheres with different states, quasi-state, and private actors. War can only dry up due to a lack of resources or will. The global world was created for Kantian eternal peace, but it has become the theater of the eternal hybrid warfare of chaos.

War of Chaos

Clausewitz defines war as a chameleon, easily changing its appearance with the changes in its environment.[23] The peculiarities of the current wars should be sought in the peculiarities of modern societies. Today hybrid warfare is acquiring a new quality in view of unprecedented interdependence and the development of information technologies. Globalization has brought not only the achievements of technological progress, but also new uncertainties and risks tied to the interdependencies of states and societies.

Clausewitz also mentioned the uncertainties of war, but two hundred years ago there were no such vulnerabilities as atomic or hydroelectric power plants, telecommunication cables, social communication networks, pipeline networks, space technologies. The most important target for chaotization is atomized people. One of the social characteristics of the new wars is the violent spread of particularistic identity, which is fueled by monstrous brutality. The main victims of such wars are civilians.[24] Chaotization of social life with a subsequent point, with impacts to channel processes in the right direction, has become a combat weapon.

The distinctive character of the Russian-Ukrainian war is that the factor of chaos has increased tremendously. This applies to all sides of the war—both the enemy and Ukrainian society. In physics and philosophy “chaos” does not refer to systems that are impossible to calculate at all and in which there is no regularity. Chaos can be calculated, influenced, explained, and modelled.[25] But when the doctrine of chaos is being transferred to the socio-political level behind Putin’s rules, chaos was proposed not to be eradicated but to be comprehended and partially deepened. Control and moderate, not overcome chaos—this is the instance of war of “controlled chaos.” And since the level of chaos was far from being advanced everywhere, chaos must be artificially provoked.

In hybrid war of chaos, psychological confrontation acquires dominant significance. Therefore, the center of gravity of the struggle is shifting from its power component to the psychological one, to human consciousness as the battlefield. In the information sphere there are invisible fierce battles for the possession of information; in this war new means have been added to theory such as “electronic warfare,” “internet troll” and “cyber war.”[26] The peculiarity of modern warfare is that it is waged in conditions where the world space is narrowed by intensive communications and the denser nature of the interaction between peoples contributes to the growth of contradictions between them. Without social networks, outside the global communication space, Russian hybrid information war would not make sense.

To achieve information advantage, Russia has settled several so-called “troll factories” that used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram under the guise of Ukrainians to criticize the authorities and spread panic rumors.[27] This space of social networks allows mass consciousness according to certain ideological clichés, to tune the population to the desired emotional state.

Hybrid warfare creates a space of uncertainty. In traditional warfare, information and psychological confrontation accompanies military operations, providing the appropriate motivation for fighting and justifying its necessity. In hybrid warfare the emphasis is shifted to imposing one’s own vision of reality and one’s own model of world order and interstate relations. This makes it possible to carry out tough (forceful) operations under the cover of attractive slogans, to construct certain simulacra, introducing them into public consciousness to justify the need for further forced actions. Therefore, armed, and other force operations are presented as aimed at protecting the offended, traditional values; fighting against the “oppression” of the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.[28]

Everything becomes a weapon of spiritual violence: religion, ideology, quasi-electoral technologies, and technologies of manipulation.[29] As a dismembering and annihilating mechanism, war turns into an uncompromising “crusade”—destroying the old and not to build new, but to immerse everybody in the pleasure of Soviet-style decay, to succumb to the charm of the ruins.

The war of chaos is a total war penetrating deep inside societies. It is waged everywhere through information networks, through the mental states of people. Everybody is close to each other and at the same time infinitely far away. The war does not disappear but is placed inside the individual. The chaotic individual is at war with himself.[30]

Chaos Technologies

Hybrid warfare is characterized by a drift from conventionality to unconventionality. Russia uses resources that are not weapons as such but are used as weapons with a destructive effect. Thus, a hybrid war of chaos is a more complex phenomenon than armed aggression against a particular country. Therefore, hybrid warfare has no meaning of its own. It does not offer a well-defined outline of a new world order but gives the impression that it is a reformatting of the world’s geopolitical schemes (poles of power), and meanings are formulated in the process of war. Using “hybrid warfare” one can seize other people’s territories with near impunity—because the international community can limit itself to condemnation and economic sanctions. With the help of “hybrid warfare” one can engage in destabilizing the situation in the victim state. After the “hybrid war” it is also possible to declare a “hybrid peace,” which can also become a tool of destabilization.

As Russian aggression has shown, war as a military clash between two countries or blocs of countries with certain political goals is becoming outdated. “Controlled chaos” is not an end, but rather a means used by Russia. Therefore, controlled chaos should be regarded not as a strategy, but as a technology. Through the introduction of this technology, the task of weakening and destroying the country as a political organization of society can be solved followed by external control of a weakened state. The term war of controlled chaos is not strictly professional, but rather publicist, emphasizing the characteristic essence of a new type of war. In this war, everything becomes a weapon: civilians, social media, corrupted political elite, refugees, starvation, nuclear power plants, etc.

Privatization of War

In hybrid war the traditional two sides of a military conflict are joined by other actors—criminal gangs, volunteer battalions, and other armed formations, most often of an irregular type. Acting independently, these formations actively contribute to the additional escalation of chaos and confusion and lead to unjustified and unjustifiable casualties among civilians and other war victims. They are often called “warriors” rather than soldiers.[31] The difference between warriors and soldiers lies in their lifestyle and activities. Unlike soldiers, warriors follow no rules other than their own, and they do not obey any orders they do not like. It was reported that during the war against Ukraine about 100,000 Russian murderers, looters, and rapists were released from Russian prisons in exchange for participating in the war.[32]

Terror Against the Civilians as a Weapon

Unable to wage modern warfare, Russia during invasion extensively used the entire arsenal of weapons available ignoring the norms and principles of International Humanitarian Law. Missile strikes on power plants, water supply, and heating systems in peaceful cities and villages are intended to return society to the dark and cold ages.[33] The goal is to force the civilians through the creation of an atmosphere of total fear to put pressure on the political authorities in Ukraine to stop resistance. The Russian side has not acknowledged a single war crime committed against the civilian population and other victims of the war; The Kremlin always uses technology of “false flag,” blaming the Ukrainian side for their own crimes.[34]

The covert operations, directed against the civilian population, include sabotage of critical infrastructure facilities of other countries. The damaging of an underwater telecommunications cable between Sweden and Estonia in October 2023[35] and an underwater gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia[36] can be mentioned as examples of such actions.

Refugees as a Weapon

The Kremlin expected that the war against Ukraine would become so chaotic that it could cause a tsunami of refugees and create a migration crisis in the European Union. According to the UN statistic, the European countries have received and accommodated almost 6 million Ukrainians.[37]

Natural Gas as a Weapon

After the failure of the rapid occupation of Ukraine and the capture of Kyiv in three days, the Russian leadership began to look for new strategies to create chaos. One of these was to exploit the dependence of European countries on Russian energy resources, notably oil and gas. The goal of the blackmail was to put pressure on the EU leadership to stop military and non-military assistance to Ukraine. Rapid reduction of supplies was aimed at freezing the European Union in the winter of 2022/2023 but failed.[38]

Human-Made Famine as a Weapon

On the occupied Ukrainian territories, human-made starvation is used as a hybrid warfare method against Ukrainians. Russians seize Ukrainian grain on unprecedented scale and transport it to Russia; that is supposed to deprive the Ukrainian population of food. Experts from International human rights law firm, Global Rights Compliance, have collected evidence of human-made famine to submit to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be prosecuted for the war crime of starvation.[39]

In addition, the Kremlin is provoking a global food crisis with continuous rocket and drone attacks on grain storage facilities and seaport infrastructure of Ukraine, increasing global food insecurity: in 2021 and 2022 Ukraine supplied more than half of the wheat grain to the most food insecure regions of the globe under the United Nations World Food Program.[40]

War Fatigue as a Weapon

Having failed in its previous plans, Russia is trying to gain a foothold in the occupied territories, turning the war into a protracted conflict. This is fully in line with the policy of hybrid warfare of “neither war nor peace.” Their efforts intended to exploit the fatigue of the Ukrainians and their allies from the almost two-year long exhausting war. In the Kremlin’s view, the weakening of the international community’s interest in the war may lead to a decrease in support for Ukraine, primarily from the EU and the United States; and, as a result, to diplomatic pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to force them to make territorial concessions (the entire occupied territory has already been annexed by Russia).[41]

Nuclear Blackmailing as a Weapon

The threat to unleash World War III, has been successfully used by Russia a long time ago. Due to that kind of blackmailing, Ukraine was earlier refused admission to NATO. Besides that, Russia got a very moderate international reaction to the annexation of Crimea and the unleashing of war in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Putin likes to repeat successful practices and in the current conflict, the Russian approach has not changed: if conventional forces cannot win, the threat with nuclear weapons can be used.[42]

Conclusion

The current era of globalization, development of information technology, and the revolution in management has been marked by fundamental changes in the world and society, in the economy and military affairs. Military science is looking for new theories and concepts that reflect new realities: it is impossible to resist the modern technology of warfare in the old ways.

When Russian military doctrine was announced, many experts considered it as “New Generation Warfare.” Hybrid (non-linear) war is the main idea of the doctrine, but hybrid war is a broad, “frame” concept. The Russian version of war may be called a hybrid war of controlled chaos. The definition of “war of controlled chaos” is not strictly professional, but rather publicist, the characteristic essence of a new type of war—creation of global chaos. The doctrine in its real, not declared, content is not about military technology—it is a collection of covert special operations. Russia uses resources that are not only weapons as such, but are used as weapons with a destructive effect. Everything can be a combat weapon: civil population, social media, corrupted political elite, refugees, criminals, natural gas, nuclear power plant, starvation and even children.

The war against Ukraine was the first full scale practical test for the doctrine. It showed that chaos technologies also have vulnerabilities. The covert operations, on which Russian doctrine is based, cease to work when understanding the degree of threat, its goals, and the mechanism of such threats. Controlled chaotic technologies are highly dependent on initial conditions: any minor change in the initial state leads to disproportionately divergent negative consequences and then chaos becomes a boomerang. In June 2023, the “Wagner” rebellion of thousands of pardoned criminals seriously influenced the stability of the Putin regime.

However, the danger of doctrine should not be underestimated. Instead of seeking constructive ways to resolve crises as a nuclear-armed country and as a permanent member of the most influential UN Security Council, Russia under the sway of destruction is only picking at the painful boils of the international community. Here lies the true power of hybrid warfare: resisting an adversary you cannot predict is exceedingly difficult. The Russian hybrid war has shown how easy the vulnerabilities can be transformed into weapons of hybrid warfare. Under the new conditions, Clausewitz’s formula is turned inside out: war is no longer the continuation of politics by other means, but politics is war waged by other means; politics is one of the instruments, one of the embodiments of war.

Hybrid wars are replacing traditional armed conflicts of the twentieth century. Their characteristic features are asymmetrical confrontation, the lack of a clear distinction between a civilian and a military person or object, between organized violence, terror, crime, and war. The hybrid war of the twenty-first century has become cramped within the framework of the classical ideal war; it has escaped from the tight embrace of classical postulates into the expanse of absolute chaos and uncertainty. The global world was created for Kantian eternal peace, but it has turned out to be the theater of the eternal hybrid warfare of chaos. The chameleon of Clausewitzian ideal war has become the hybrid one.

End Notes:

[1]. Putin, V. Speech and the Following Discussion at the Munich Conference on Security Policy, February 10, 2007. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034.

[2]. Gerasimov, V. The Value of Science in Prediction, Connections: The Quarterly Journal, 4/2014.

https://connections-qj.org/article/value-science-prediction.

[3]. Военная доктрина Российской Федерации. Указ Президента РФ от 25.12.14 г. № 815 [Military doctrine of the Russian Federation. Order of the Russian President dated December 12, 2014 # 815],  http://static.kremlin.ru/media/events/files/41d527556bec8deb3530.pdf.

[4]. Bartosh А. Вопросы теории гибридной войны. [Issues of the theory of hybrid warfare], Goryachaya liniya- Telecom, ISBN 978-5-9912-0980-9 (2022), 15–24.

[5]. Polulyakh D., Гибридная война сквозь призму постмодернизма и критических теорий [Hybrid war from the perspective of postmodernism and critical theory]. Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/12545860/Гибридная_война_сквозь_призму_постмодернизма_и_критических_теорий

[6]. Bartosh A. Туман гибридной войны. Неопределенности и риски конфликтов XXI века  The fog of hybrid war. Uncertainties and risks of conflicts of the XXI century Moscow: Goryachaya liniya Hotline Telecom, (2022),43.

[7]. Lucas Freund, Beyond the Physical Self: Understanding the Perversion of Reality, https://www.qeios.com/read/F3Y8IG; doi.org/10.32388/F3Y8IG.

[8]. Rudin M., "Теорії змови": хто збив MH17? [Conspiracy theories: who shot down MH17] May 16, 2016, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/ukrainian/politics/2016/05/160503_mh17_film_vj_longread_dk.

[9]. Katz, J., Ukraine is the number one victim of Russian disinformation. Here is how it can fight back, RPR, February 12, 2022, https://rpr.org.ua/en/news/ukraine-is-the-number-one-victim-of-russian-disinformation-here-is-how-it-can-fight-back/.

[10]. Thousands of civilians have been killed in Mariupol – UN report, 24TV, May 12, 2022, https://en.24tv.ua/thousands-of-civilians-have-been-killed-in-mariupol-un_n1978106.

[11]. Clausewitz, C. Природа війни  [On war]. "Vivat" (2018), 35.

[12]. Как население Малороссии отвергло чужой и искусственный «украинский язык» [How the population of Little Russia rejected the foreign and artificial “Ukrainian language”], Military Review, April 1,2022, https://topwar.ru/194215-kak-naselenie-malorossii-otverglo-chuzhoj-i-iskusstvennyj-ukrainskij-jazyk.html.

[13]. Situation in Ukraine: ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Putin, International Criminal Court Press Release, March 17, 2023, www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue- arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin.

[14]. Clausewitz, C. Природа війни  [On war]. "Vivat" (2018), 43.

[15]. Clausewitz, C. Природа війни  [On war]. "Vivat" (2018), 49.

[16]. Creveld, Martin, Трансформация войны [The transformation of war], Alpina Book, (2005), 37.

[17]. Weigley, Russel, Американская модель войны [The American Way of War], Logos, (2009), 79.

[18]. Keegan, John. История войны [The history of warfare], Vintage, (1999), 149.

[19]. Putin announces a ‘military operation’ in Ukraine as the U.N. Security Council pleads with him to pull back. New York Times, February 23, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/putin-announces-a-military-operation-in-ukraine-as-the-un-security-council-pleads-with-him-to-pull-back.html.

[20]. Shumeyko I., Против теоремы Клаузевица: Война не продолжает политику, она ее заканчивает [Against Clausewitz’s theorem: War does not continue politics, it ends it], Independent Military Observer, November 2, 2023, https://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2023-11-02/14_1260_war.html.

[21]. Газ і нафта: чому Україна не зупиняє російського транзиту? [Gas and oil: why does Ukraine not stop Russian transit?], LB, November 16, 2023, https://lb.ua/economics/2023/11/16/584379_gaz_i_nafta_chomu_ukraina_zupinyaie.html.

[22]. Doroshko M., Balyuk V., Гібридна війна Росії проти України після Революції гідності [Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine after the Revolution of Dignity], Nika-Center, (2018), 135.

[23]. Clausewitz, C. Природа війни  [On war]. "Vivat" (2018), 255.

[24]. Kaldor, Mary,  New and Old Wars, Polity Press, Cambridge, (2008) ,74–80, https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/654678/mod_resource/content/1/kaldor%20-%20old%20and%20new%20wars.pdf.

[25]. Ovshinov A. Хаос и порядок - модусы социальной диффузии как процесса [Chaos and order - modes of social diffusion as a process], Cyberleninka journal, #10/2021, 156–161, https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/haos-i-poryadok-modusy-sotsialnoy-diffuzii-kak-protsessa-kommunikativnyy-podhod-1.

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