To save Putin’s victims, launch an information war against the Kremlin

Kidnapping, maiming and killing Ukrainian civilians is not enough for indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin.

Thousands of innocent people around the world will now be among the victims of the Russian president’s destruction of Odesa’s grain export facilities. Hunger, starvation and, for the weakest, death will be their lot.

What more can be done to thwart this heartless tyrant?   

As the White House and Congress contemplate further aid to the beleaguered, heroic people of  Ukraine — over $75 billion in military, humanitarian and financial commitments thus far — it is time they bring to bear an inexpensive yet powerful tool that helped win the Cold War.

We once persuaded Soviet citizens that life was better on this side of the Iron Curtain. Now it is time to help Putin’s Russian victims see that they are getting a very bad deal from Putin, and to persuade them that a much brighter future can be theirs when he’s gone. 

Employing our most creative talent and making extensive use of those social media still accessible in Russia, the campaign should offer the Russian people information so credible, engaging and persuasive that they’ll keep coming back for more. 

The campaign should flow from a strategic vision: the kind of Russia we want to see emerge after Putin. The stated goal of “a stable and predictable relationship” with Russia is neither an expression of visionary strategy nor an inspiring call to to the oppressed Russian people. The strategic  goal should be for a Russia that returns to the path on which she embarked after the dissolution of the Soviet Union — toward human rights, freedom, the rule of law, real elections, respect for borders and mutually beneficial relations with the West.

The campaign should be neither polemical in tone nor wounding of Russian pride. It should sometimes have a light touch, including entertainment — even humor. Russians have a wonderful sense of humor, especially when the jokes are aimed at higher-ups.

There are many powerful memes at hand — for example, the prosperity of peaceful nations versus the growing poverty of most Russians under Putin; the success of Russians who have fled abroad; the stark division of Russian society between the people whose children are sent to the Ukrainian front, and the elites — security officials and oligarchs who keep Putin in power and who enjoy personal palaces, private planes and yachts, foreign vacation properties, and enrollment of their children in top Western universities.

Under Putin, Russians face a future so bleak that many choose to have few or no children. The decline of Russia’s standing in the world is another matter of concern to those who dearly love their country.

CIA Director William Burns, our ambassador to Moscow 2005-2008, recently assessed that “Disaffection with the war will continue to gnaw away at the Russian leadership.” Burns disclosed that the CIA is using social media “to let brave Russians know how to contact us safely on the dark web.”

Meanwhile, the FBI is openly recruiting informants, using Russian-language social media. 

In unapologetically seizing the moment to thwart the Putin regime, the CIA and FBI set examples the executive and Congress should follow without delay. 

The acclaimed State Department 50-second video produced last year — “To the People of Russia” — could serve as a campaign prototype.

Dmitri Medvedev, former president and current Putin bootlicker, called the producers “sons of bitches” after viewing the video. Not a bad review!

What are the steps? First, President Biden should enunciate an explicit vision for a post-Putin Russia. Second, he should put one senior official in charge. Third, he should provide far greater resources for an ambitious public diplomacy campaign addressed to the Russian people directly.

During the first Cold War, Voice of America took the lead. That’s no longer possible, because VOA since 2016 has dwelled behind a stronger legal firewall such that neither the White House nor Congress can influence its program content.

Since the U.S. Information Agency was abolished in 1999, responsibility for messaging foreign citizens has been broken up among 14 agencies and 28 commissions, according to the recent report of the Gates Global Policy Center, which is headed by former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

When the USIA was axed, Congress created a new office, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, to take on many of its duties. The Senate recently confirmed the exceptionally well-qualified Elizabeth Allen as under secretary after a five-year vacancy in the office.

Yet the office lacks a clear mandate to lead.

The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, in its 2022 annual report, recommended that Congress “designate the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs as the government-wide coordinating authority…” In other words, please put someone in charge, for crying out loud.  

Congress has yet to act on this recommendation. We respectfully but urgently appeal to our former colleagues to do so. Short of that, the White House could make the designation by executive order.

Further, the under secretary’s inflation-adjusted appropriations have been flatlined for seven years. To the extent permitted by law, funds should be transferred from other departments. And going forward, Congress should provide far larger appropriations commensurate with the national security imperative.  

“Russia and China are running rings around us…”, to further quote Secretary Gates. They are doing so by means of far larger budgets, and of course they resort to lies and disinformation.

The Russian people can be our greatest allies in changing their country’s aggressive and inhumane international direction. It’s time to rally them to the cause of freedom, a better life and international respect for the country they love. At present, we’re failing by default.

The stakes are enormous, the moment is propitious and the hour is late. As the Russians say, “Da-vai!” Let’s go!

Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, represented Connecticut in the U.S. Senate as a Democrat and independent from 1989 to 2013. He is founding co-chair of No Labels. Gordon Humphrey represented New Hampshire in the U.S. Senate as a Republican from 1979 to 1991.