The Russian-Ukrainian conflict that shocked the world was only on the third day, and the Ukrainian capital Kiev was surrounded by Russian troops on three sides, will the United States predict that "Kiev will fall within 96 hours" come true?
The Ukrainian side once said that it would decide on the negotiating agenda with Russia, but this does not mean that the war between Russia and Ukraine will soon stop, it has ignited an unprecedented "global war", in which you and I have been involved.
The old driver is not alarmist. This is the first time that the "hybrid warfare" of the new era has demonstrated its terrible power to mankind.
Looking back at the large-scale local conflicts that have broken out in recent years, if the Gulf War 30 years ago let the world know what a high-tech war is, then the Russian-Ukrainian conflict this time shows how hybrid warfare will affect and tear apart the entire world in the era of high informationization and globalization.
The first thing that broke out was information warfare.
Unlike any previous war, relying on highly developed social media, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has been broadcast live to the world in countless "first-point" ways. In the videos circulating on the Internet, you can even see cruel battlefield scenes such as "the Russian army destroyed the Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile vehicles" and "the armored vehicles in Kiev suddenly lost control and crushed the cars".
The Ukrainian army's "beech" air defense system, which is suspected to have been destroyed by Russian helicopter gunships
The video was confirmed to be an earlier training video of the Russian army
However, a large number of fake news was intentionally or unintentionally mixed on social media, especially the russian military's previous training videos were inserted into it, creating rumors such as "On the first day of the conflict, the Russian army carried out a large-scale airborne landing in Kharkiv" and other rumors that are difficult to distinguish between true and false.
At the same time, both Russia and Ukraine are releasing contradictory messages.
For example, the Russian Defense Ministry said on the 26th that it destroyed 87 tanks, 28 multiple rocket launcher systems and 8 speedboats of the Ukrainian army, destroying a total of 821 Ukrainian military targets.
The Ukrainian army released photos of Russian armored vehicles being blown up by "Javelin" anti-tank missiles
Ukraine, on the other hand, claimed that more than 3,500 Russian troops had been killed and nearly 200 captured.
Such contradictory news has led supporters of Russia and Ukraine to draw very different conclusions about the progress of the battlefield.
A more typical example is Snake Island.
Western media quoted a lot of Ukrainian claims, saying that the 13 Ukrainian soldiers on the island did not flinch in the face of the threat of Russian ship shelling, ukrainian President Zelenskiy said, "All 13 Ukrainian defenders were killed in the Russian bombing on the 24th." ”
Russia, on the other hand, said there was no "snake island defense war" at all, and that "the 82 Ukrainian soldiers on the island laid down their arms and voluntarily surrendered to the Russians." ”
The Russian satellite network provided the latest progress on the 26th: the Russian Black Sea Fleet said that more than 80 ukrainian border guards who surrendered have been sent from Snake Island to Sevastopol.
It should be said that it is not uncommon for both sides of the war to deliberately release voices in their favor, during the Iraq War, the Iranian side repeatedly declared until the fall of Baghdad that "it will plunge the US military into a bloody urban street battle."
But the biggest difference between this Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the previous one is that information warfare has evolved from simply releasing news to competing for control of public opinion on the global Internet.
After the Russian army began to attack, in addition to the social media mentioned by the old driver earlier, the major news organizations around the world were also continuously reporting on the progress of the local battlefield. However, the Russian side relied on network warfare and electronic warfare to suppress The Ukrainian communication system and network connection, and used these advantages to continuously take the initiative to release the progress of the battlefield, thus seizing the headlines of major media. Even Ukrainian President Zelenskiy tweeted the way he shot with his phone, and the degree of embarrassment is evident. Even if the Western media is deliberately inclined to Ukraine, it still has to quote a lot of Russian statements in this case.
Of course, after the initial chaos, the West has begun to re-limit Russia's control over this global information war. Mainstream Western social media have restricted the permissions of Russian media, and Facebook has also said that it will further label Russian media through labeling.
The world's largest hacking organization "Anonymous" has also "declared war" on Russia, and mainstream websites released by Russia such as the Official Website of the Kremlin, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Red Star Television were all attacked on the 26th.
In addition, including Chinese social media, a large number of "anti-war" voices have suddenly emerged on the global Internet, tearing the public opinion field of the virtual world into two distinct parties.
Not to mention the legitimacy of the Russian military's attack on Ukraine in international law, but when the United States used the same pretext to airstrike the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, continue to bomb Afghanistan and Syria and cause a large number of casualties, these "anti-war" calls have not appeared, so their voices at this time are naturally particularly abrupt.
Obviously, in this information war that has swept the world, in addition to Russia and Ukraine, a third party has already gone down.
The role of this kind of information warfare is, first of all, from a military point of view, it can cover up the combat progress, real objectives, and combat direction of the other side as much as possible, and strive for the time for combat operations, while at the same time disturbing the military and people's hearts and minds of the opponent and disintegrating the fighting spirit of the other side.
Second, in the era of highly developed social media, online public opinion is increasingly under pressure on governments, so this kind of information warfare is also of great significance to seize global public opinion.
Another point that needs to be emphasized is that in the past two world wars, the non-participatory countries were able to avoid the direct threat of war, and the victims of this Russian-Ukrainian conflict are far beyond the control of national borders.
Although the United States and other NATO countries have announced that they have no plans to directly intervene in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict for the time being, the Russian Space Agency has chosen to issue a direct threat to the space sanctions imposed by the West on Russia: "If cooperation with us is frozen, who can save the International Space Station so that it does not leave orbit uncontrollably and fall into the territory of the United States or Europe." The 500-ton device doesn't fly over Russia. So all the risks are yours. Are you ready? ”
Whether this is a threat of war or not, the old driver does not know how international law stipulates it, but the United States quickly relented. NASA said that the people-to-people cooperation between the United States and Russia in the field of space, especially on the International Space Station, will continue. The new U.S. sanctions in the area of export controls will not affect Russian-U.S. cooperation in the field of civil space.
A group of Russian helicopters swooping down on Kiev from low altitude
In short, the old driver believes that this Russian-Ukrainian conflict shows that the concept of front and rear on the modern battlefield is increasingly blurred, and there is no place for absolute safety. The wide application of long-range precision strike means, the combination of strategic airlift and large-depth interspersed strategy, there has been a strange war situation in which the main force of the Ukrainian army is still fighting hard in the eastern part of Ukraine, but the capital Kiev is about to fall.
Second, modern warfare has long since transcended the traditional military realm. This combination of frontal battlefields, "proxy wars (Wudong militia forces)", network warfare, information warfare, financial warfare, and the new era of "hybrid warfare" within public opinion warfare has greatly changed the world's understanding of war and involved the whole world.
To be sure, no matter how the Russian-Ukrainian conflict ends, the various characteristics it exhibits will inevitably greatly affect future military research.