How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

How the Biden administration is aggressively

releasing intelligence in an attempt to deter Russia
By Katie Bo Lillis, Natasha Bertrand and Kylie Atwood, CNN

Updated 1000 GMT (1800 HKT) February 11, 2022

Washington (CNN) — For months, the Biden administration has fueled alarming headlines and surprised
Washington with a remarkable drumbeat of o9cial disclosures of previously classified intelligence revealing
Russian moves as Moscow masses troops on the Ukrainian border.

Administration o9cials tell CNN the disclosures have been carefully coordinated among the National
Security Council, the intelligence community and other national security agencies in an eFort to disrupt
Russian planning, blunt the eFectiveness of any "false flag" operations and, ultimately, deter military action.

And there are signs the strategy is working, US o9cials say. The Biden administration believes Russian
President Vladimir Putin has been caught oF guard by some of the releases, according to one senior US
o9cial, and intelligence intercepts have picked up Russian military and intelligence o9cials grumbling about
the exposure of their plans, CNN has previously reported.

"The hope is that the Russians are surprised about the allied knowledge of these things, and that they have
an internal reaction," a senior Western intelligence o9cial told CNN. "Usually, what you'd expect to see
would be the Russians wondering if they have a mole."

"That's useful to make them doubt themselves. It's useful to make them question whether they can actually
execute some of these plans and still have secrecy and surprise," this person continued. "Sometimes, if you
put enough doubt in the system, they may actually remove some competent people who they suspect of
being spies who, in fact, aren't spies at all."

Although the United States has downgraded and publicized classified information in the past in service of
other foreign-policy goals -- sometimes eFectively; sometimes, as in the run-up to the Iraq War, disastrously
-- the sheer volume of disclosures makes Biden's approach to the slow-rolling crisis notable.

Clashes with the media

The strategy has also led to clashes with the US media over the administration's unwillingness to show proof
of its claims. The disclosures have largely come in the form of statements from agency spokesmen and
o9cials have provided little by way of evidence -- in eFect, asking reporters to report the material without
confirmation. (Other media reports on the crisis, of course, have come from conventional reporting and
unauthorized leaks.)

"If you doubt the credibility of the US government, of the British government, of other governments and want
to, you know, find solace in information that the Russians are putting out, that is for you to do," State
Department spokesman Ned Price said when challenged last week. He subsequently called the reporter in
question to apologize.

1 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31
How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

Last week, spokespeople for multiple US agencies said

the US had intelligence showing Russia planned to
release a scripted video showing staged attacks by
Ukrainian forces to drum up a pretext for military action.
In January, the US said it had credible information
indicating Russia had prepositioned a group of
operatives to conduct a separate false-flag operation in
eastern Ukraine. And in December, the White House
released a declassified document that said Russia was
planning an oFensive in early 2022 involving up to
175,000 troops. O9cials have also been remarkably
detailed in public about the number of Russian troops
Related Article: New they see amassed on the border -- intelligence that has
been backed up by commercial satellite imagery
satellite images show released by private companies.

continuing Russian military "We're not instrumentalizing the press. What we're
doing is conducting a strategic communications
buildup on three sides of campaign," the Western intelligence o9cial said. "Keep
in mind that there are many potential audiences of
Ukraine these disclosures, whether they're made from the
podium or they're made in a background briefing or in
other formats. I would judge that the State Department
was probably also trying to tell the American people
that 'This is the nature of this crisis. This is what we see.' "

The tactic has some high-profile Cold War precedents. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy's administration
released photographs of Soviet ballistic missiles positioned in Cuba amid the escalating crisis there, in part
to convince a skeptical press corps in the US and the UK.

In 2022, the goal is more operational: It's an eFort to deny Russia the same element of surprise that it took
advantage of in 2014, when it annexed Crimea. Many of the same US o9cials in government now had front
row seats to the decision-making in 2014 and are "absolutely" responding to lessons learned from that
experience, Western diplomats told CNN.

In 2014, Western o9cials were caught flat-footed by

Russia's denials that it was sending unmarked troops
into the peninsula ahead of the actual assault,
according to one Western diplomat. O9cials told
reporters on background that they were skeptical of
the "little green men" on the ground, but did not go on
the record to counter Russia's denials.

The United States has long struggled to respond to

Russia's use of so-called "grayzone" warfare tactics --
things like disinformation and false-flag operations --
which the US military historically isn't set up to carry
Related Article: Biden on out or counter. Intelligence o9cials have for decades
debated how and when to make early disclosures of
Ukraine situation: 'Things intelligence to disrupt those sorts of asymmetric
tactics. Those discussions have only escalated as
could go crazy quickly' Putin's Russia has capitalized on the digital age to
conduct sophisticated information warfare, current and
former o9cials say.

But the Biden administration's strategy of repeated

disclosures oFers one of the first sustained examples of a relatively new and untested doctrine.

"The new doctrine is the potential to use intelligence as an information operations weapon," said former

2 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31
How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who noted that the Obama administration had made similar
disclosures after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014.

Case-by-case basis
The releases have also drawn attention because much of the information could not have been learned from
satellite images alone -- which are often duplicated in public channels -- instead signaling clear US access
to Russian military and intelligence channels.

Satellite images oFer comparatively limited insights, current and former intelligence o9cials note. It's
impossible to glean Putin's intent from mere tank formations, which can be used as decoys. US o9cials are
aware that Russian military doctrine explicitly embraces deception -- a concept known in Russian as
"maskirovka," or "masking."

But the intelligence releases on alleged false-flag operations are also the riskiest to the United States, former
o9cials say.

"Obviously, the downsides to doing stuF like this is, 'Is whatever source we got that from going to dry up on
us?' " Clapper said. "That's always the risk-gain assessment that you have to do."

Another source familiar with the intelligence admitted that he has been "personally a little surprised at how
much has been publicly revealed, though I can appreciate the balance between revealing Russian schemes
and burning sensitive sources and methods."

Current US o9cials say the decision to downgrade any one piece of information has gone through normal
processes, led by the O9ce of the Director of National Intelligence, and that no disclosure has been made
that could expose the means by which the United States gathered the information in the first place.

"The intelligence community used its standard

declassification procedures, which are in place to
protect sources and methods," said a US intelligence
o9cial.

Meanwhile, an extraordinary amount of the Russian

buildup has played out in public, freeing the
administration to publicly discuss the kind of hard
intelligence about troop numbers and force positioning
that in past confrontations would have been classified.
As commercial satellites have proliferated and
advanced in recent years, high-resolution photos of
Related Article: US intel Russian troop and tank formations that would once
have been the sole purview of government satellites are
indicates Russian officers now made public by private companies like Maxar.

have had doubts about full The strategy has also been part and parcel of a larger
eFort by the Biden administration to share intelligence
scale Ukraine invasion to keep its partners and allies on the same page about
the nature of the threat.

"I have never seen it work like this. It is a whole-of-

government approach. US o9cials are thinking about
who should we bring into the conversation in a very proactive way," said a State Department o9cial familiar
with the process. "And a lot of these conversations about intelligence sharing are happening because
certain countries just do not believe what we are saying is true."

Publicly, Russia has responded by flatly denying the American reports, characterizing them as propaganda
and hysteria.

3 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31
How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

"So far, all these statements have been unfounded and have not been confirmed by anything," Dmitry
Peskov, the spokesman for Putin, said after a recent disclosure.

Reporters, often explicitly recalling credulous reporting

of Bush administration claims of intelligence in the run-
up to the Iraq War, have pressed o9cials to provide
evidence backing up the releases. In 2003, much of
the intelligence deliberately released to reporters and
the global community, alleging evidence that Saddam
Hussein was reconstituting a nuclear weapons
program, turned out to be grievously wrong -- in part
thanks to the US reliance on a single, unreliable source.

A National Security Council spokesman said Tuesday

that the administration cannot make any of the
Related Article: Here's underlying information public "without compromising
intelligence sources and methods," adding that "there
where Alliance forces are is value to the public in exposing these operations and
to dissuading Russia from pursuing them."
deployed across Eastern
Still, Biden's disclosures have broadly earned positive
Europe reviews as a judicious and eFective use of intelligence,
according to sources across the US government who
are familiar with the underlying information.

"I think it's a good thing to do, because by diming out

the Russians, particularly if you can do it preemptively, then you may prevent that very thing from happening
-- and it would appear, at least so far, that may be the case," Clapper said.

Search CNN...

4 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31
How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

World

US Politics

Business

Health

Entertainment

Tech

Style

Travel

Sports

Videos

Features

Weather

More

FOLLOW CNN POLITICS

Terms of Use Privacy Policy Accessibility & CC Ad Choices About Us Modern Slavery Act Statement

Advertise with us CNN Store Newsletters Transcripts License Footage CNN Newsource Sitemap

© 2022 Cable News Network. A Warner Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
CNN Sans ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network.

5 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31
How the Biden administration is aggressively releasing intelligence in ... https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/biden-administration-russia...

6 of 6 2/15/22, 15:31