Scarecrow: The art of deception

“Misdirection, what the eyes see, and the ears hear – the mind believes” – John Travolta from the movie “Swordfish”, quoting Harry Houdini

Scarecrow graphic from the 1963 Disney movie ‘The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh.”

School is in session. The world is being treated to a postgraduate level course in Psychological Operations (PSYOP) and Military Deception (MILDEC) hosted by the Ukrainian Department of Defense.

A few weeks ago, the Russians monitored a Ukrainian buildup in southern Kherson Province. Anticipating a Ukrainian attack in the south, the Russians subsequently thinned out their eastern defenses to reinforce the south. That is precisely what the Ukrainians wanted them to do. It was all part of a carefully crafted ruse.

On 6 September, the Ukrainians attacked, pouring through the weakened defenses east of Kharkiv City in the northeast resulting in a catastrophic setback for Putin’s forces. The vaunted Russian 1st Guard Tank Army (1 GTA) was routed, leaving most of their equipment behind. The Russian troops ran away, leaving their dinners cooking on the stove and over 300 tanks, and fled east.

The attack caught the Russian command completely by surprise. Many soldiers simply threw off their uniforms, donned civilian clothes, and drove off in stolen cars and bicycles to evade capture.

The Ukrainian attack was the main ingredient in a carefully spun ruse carried out for several months by Ukrainian PSYOP teams and influence operators. Throughout the summer, the Ukrainians were signaling their intention to launch a counteroffensive in the south aimed at retaking Kherson. The ruse entailed frequent artillery barrages coupled with advancing troop movements toward Kherson interwoven with an elaborate PSYOP campaign. The Russians bought it.

That opened the door for Ukrainian forces farther north.

Once the Russians shifted the preponderance of their effort to Kherson, the Ukrainians quietly moved their northern forces into position. Once the Intel picture was clear, the Ukrainian brigades raced through Russian camps pushing their tanks and infantry through holes in the Russian lines and crashing into Russian rear areas.

In the 5th Century BCE Sun Tzu wrote: “Military commanders must set up decoys and feign confusion to cause the enemy to miscalculate our intentions. All warfare is based on deception.”

A sample of Ukrainian Influence Operations:
Earlier this summer, the Ukrainians took a page right out of General Eisenhower’s D-Day playbook. Ukrainian forces employed dummy tanks, fake artillery, “Scarecrow soldiers” and fake radio traffic and social media chatter to fool the Russians.

Their use of Scarecrows or mannequins dressed in military fatigues was most impressive. The scarecrows were strapped to trees and armed with fake rifles and rocket launchers to trick Russian aerial reconnaissance. “Scarecrow soldiers” carrying mock portable anti-aircraft missiles routinely fooled Russian pilots wary of being shot out of the sky by Stinger-type missiles. As soon as the pilots spotted the scarecrows with stinger missile platforms, they departed the area hastily. The last thing Russian pilots want is to be shot down over Ukrainian territory.

The use of scarecrows and wooden decoys near Kherson diverted Russian attention away from the true Ukrainian objectives. The confusing ruse also acted to pin down the Russians in the south, ensuring they did not make a push against the Ukrainian staging areas in the north. Meanwhile, Russian forces continued to target wooden replicas they believed to be high-value artillery and rocket. systems. As a result, they expended valuable high-tech missiles against dummy targets, systematically reducing their inventories for use against Ukraine’s actual forces.

Ukrainian success with this ruse is remarkable considering Russians traditionally pride themselves as masters of “maskirovka” [military deception]. The Ukrainian forces ironically turned Russia’s PSYOP playbook against them. The extensive use of dummy systems allowed the Ukrainians to protect their High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) for use against high-value Russian targets.

The rocket systems given to them by the United States have recently destroyed rail hubs, large Russian ammunition and fuel dumps in southern Kherson. That made them a priority target for the Russians. That also furthered the ruse that the Ukrainian attack would be in the south. The inexpensive decoys are nearly indistinguishable from the real systems when spotted by Russian drones or helicopters. The drones relay battlefield intelligence to headquarters resulting in Russian warships needlessly expending precision cruise missiles against them. You know your ruse is effective when the Russian news media claims to have hit more HIMARS that the U.S. has sent Ukraine.

Ukrainian PSYOP and the use of social media

When you are outnumbered, you must reach into your asymmetric bag of tricks and find alternatives. Ukrainian telecom specialists have been using hacked telephone databases to track down the personal communications of Russian soldiers on the front line. Many of these exchanges were recorded and posted on social media platforms. The interaction with the Russians fostered the use of leaflet drops on front line Russian positions.

Ukrainian Leaflets: The social media interaction confirmed that the Russian soldiers lacked the will to fight and just wanted to go home. The Ukrainian PSYOP campaign preyed upon that vulnerability. Below is an example of Ukrainian Leaflets disseminated to Russian front-line troops with instructions on how to escape and surrender:

No One Wants This War
We will help you get out safely.
1. Wait until your boss is busy.
2. Quietly walk away, don’t run.
Call 1648 or (044) 287 81 65.
Come up with your arms raised to the Ukrainian checkpoints on the line of contact with this flier.
The Ukrainian side guarantees your safety and good treatment!
We will give you food and the opportunity to get in touch with your relatives

Simultaneous Information Campaign aimed at Belarus:
Putin has continually pressed his Belarus ally in the north to launch a supporting offensive into Ukraine. Obviously, Ukraine doesn’t want that. So far, Minsk remains a non-combatant, but to sustain that thinking, Ukraine PSYOP used a rather ingenious tactic. The Ukrainians routinely send all Russian war dead taken from the battlefield to Belarus for transport back to Russia. These shipments of war dead, known colloquially as “Cargo 200,” travel out of Ukraine and into Belarus daily. We’re talking about hundreds of dead Russians continually streaming into Belarus. You can imagine the effects. The influence campaign is working. Belarus doesn’t want any part of that meat grinder. Consequently, they have remained on the sidelines.

The overall Ukrainian influence campaign is comprised of multiple interwoven functions: spreading disinformation, jamming communications, deception, and creating narratives through selective photos, video clips, and news releases to get inside the mind of the enemy. This dark art blends techniques in both the physical and information domains. The combination of battlefield successes and PSYOP go hand-in-hand. As Ukrainian battlefield successes mount, their influence campaign becomes more believable.

The Impact on Russian morale: The destruction of the 1st Guards Tank Army has forced Vladimir Putin to issue a call for 30,000 new volunteers. Battlefield losses don’t usually aid in recruiting.

Who wants to join a losing team? In the short term, these untrained recruits will be little help on the battlefield anyway. Training a tank crew takes at least 6 months. The 300-plus Russian pieces of hardware abandoned on the battlefield over the past several days won’t be easy to replace either.

Stories of defeat are spreading through the army and to relatives back home. Russia’s propaganda machine will not be able to contain the truth. Intercepted communications from Russian soldiers speak of fuel and food shortages, dead comrades, and logistical nightmares that adversely affect morale. The Ukrainian PSYOP department knows this and are piling on. Russians are losing the will to fight.

The territory Russia captured in Ukraine over seven months, at the cost of tens of thousands of Russian casualties, has been lost in a week. Putin has fired most of his senior military leadership.

The last one was fired after only three weeks in charge. Who wants that job? The troops have little trust in Russia’s senior military leadership.

With 1-GTA and other commands degraded, Russia’s conventional forces are severely weakened. It will likely take years for Russia to rebuild this capability.

All told, Ukraine has retaken around 2,300 square miles of its territory since the start of September. A little ruse can go a long way.