A Russian-language web site alleged Wednesday that locals had discovered “a sonar countermeasure system” washed up on the shores of Urup Island, south of Vladivostok on Russia’s western coast.
The story went on to counsel that the system had been launched by a Virginia-class submarine after the vessel allegedly was found in Russian waters on Feb. 12.
The article featured a photograph of a protracted, torpedo-like system mendacity on a seashore, partially submerged in water.
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None of it seems to be true.
The picture — which is of a bit of Russian {hardware}, not American — was apparently taken a number of months in the past on a unique seashore hundreds of miles away. And the U.S. Navy insists the alleged run-in between certainly one of its subs and Russian forces by no means occurred.
It is only one instance of the escalating info battle being waged by Russian operatives, a tactic designed to muddy the waters and probably give Russian forces a justification to invade Ukraine, in response to specialists.
Hours after the submit first appeared on-line, the story made it over to social media posts in English, with just a few added particulars. Now, the identical photograph was being described as having been “launched by the Russian Ministry of Protection” and that the submarine fired the system “to masks the acoustic signatures of the sub with a view to facilitate an exit from the realm.”
The story hinges on Russian allegations that an American submarine was chased out of its waters over the weekend — one thing the U.S. has strongly denied.
“To be clear, there was no engagement or interplay between U.S. and Russian forces Saturday as claimed by Russia,” Capt. Kyle Raines, a spokesman for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, advised Navy.com in an announcement Wednesday.
The “proof,” within the type of the included picture, has extra apparent points.
The photograph cited in each the Russian and English variations of the story is previous and would not really present American tools. A reverse picture search revealed that the photograph in query, together with comparable photos from different angles, first appeared on the web round October 2021. Captions for the photograph of a washed-up Russian submarine countermeasure described it as having been taken on the shores close to Severodvinsk in northern Russia.
Raines echoed Navy.com’s evaluation of the picture’s origins and famous that “as [office of the Secretary of Defense] talked about this week, this Russian info marketing campaign seems to be a bit of their playbook aimed toward laying a basis for navy motion.”
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser on the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, famous that he “would not be stunned if the Russians had discovered a U.S. submarine and performed a bit conceal and search.”
“I consider that there is a component of reality on which they’ve constructed a narrative … and perhaps it is a part of the broader narrative that they are attempting to construct for motion in Ukraine,” he added.
An earlier assertion from Raines did observe that he would “not touch upon the exact location of our submarines however we do fly, sail, and function safely in worldwide waters.”
The U.S. navy has struggled to push again towards the flood of Russian-driven narratives which have percolated throughout the web throughout the previous few weeks of the standoff with Ukraine. U.S. officers have repeatedly warned of Russian efforts to put the groundwork for a “false flag” assault that would justify pushing its massed troops throughout the border with Ukraine.
The state of affairs has gotten so murky that it is not clear whether or not the battle is even escalating or cooling. On Tuesday, a Russian Protection Ministry spokesman mentioned that most of the troops dug in close to Ukraine’s border could be leaving following the completion of navy workout routines.
But the U.S. Ministry of Defence mentioned that they “have seen no proof that Russian forces are withdrawing from Ukrainian border areas” in a tweet this morning.
On Wednesday, the U.Okay. intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Sir Jim Hockenhull, mentioned that there have been “sightings of extra armoured [sic] autos, helicopters and a discipline hospital shifting in direction of Ukraine’s borders.”
“Russia has the navy mass in place to conduct an invasion of Ukraine,” Hockenhull added.
To Cancian, this buildup is a crucial context by which to contemplate occasions just like the alleged submarine incident. Nonetheless, he’s fast to notice that “the Russians have a protracted historical past [of information warfare] that’s most likely extra elaborate than most nations — you return to the Soviet period and even again into the czars.”
Cancian notes that this historical past can typically make it difficult to inform whether or not an incident just like the one alleged within the Pacific is a one-off incident or a part of “a single tapestry” through which the Russians take an occasion and “weave it into a few themes of Russia as sufferer and likewise the competence of their armed forces.”
— Konstantin Toropin may be reached at konstantin.toropin@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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