In early 2017 russian newspaper Kommersant wrote that Russia is one of five countries with the most developed level of cyber troops.
Russian website Gazeta.ru reported Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu recently speaking about the establishment of information operations troops in Russia: "information operations troops have been created during this time, and this is enormously more effective and stronger than that directorate which was called counterpropaganda".
According to Shoygu, propaganda must be "smart, literate and effective".
State Duma Defense Committee Chairman Vladimir Shamanov said that "a number of challenges have shifted to the so-called cyber sphere today, and information conflict essentially goes on today as a component part of overall conflict. Based on this, Russia took efforts to form structures which engage in this".
In USSR times there were subunits in the troops which were responsible for counterpropaganda against enemy troops. During the war the subunits worked on preparing leaflets which were supposed to affect the enemy, as well as on radio broadcasting to enemy troops.
In postwar times military departments of a number of institutes were training "psychological warfare" specialists who engaged in counterpropaganda.
Nothing was known for certain about actual progress in military organizational development in this direction until today's statement by Shoygu, but according to Association of Military Political Scientists expert Aleksandr Perendzhiyev,, an indirect sign of work being done was the appearance of a course on information conflict in the General Staff Academy syllabus.
According to information on the Defense Ministry official website, there are several subunits in the department's structure for now whose zone of responsibility can include information operations.
Above all this is the GRU (Main Intelligence Directorate), Main Directorate for Development of Information and Telecommunications Technologies under the direction of Colonel Maksim Bets, as well as the Press Service and Information Directorate headed by Major General Igor Konashenkov.
The General Staff Eighth Directorate's 6th Scientific Company located in Krasnodar probably also plays a certain part.
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