Nach_Shtabu: Who is behind the anonymous Telegram channel

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For more than ten years of aggression against Ukraine, the Russian Federation has been conducting multichannel information operations. The enemy seeks to influence all groups of Ukrainian society, both the civilian population and servicemen of the Defence Forces of Ukraine.

Social networks such as Telegram are one of the means of influence the Russian special services rely on. To spread anti-Ukrainian disinformation narratives, Russian propagandists and provocateurs actively use Telegram, openly or covertly involving Ukrainian citizens in sabotage, adjusting missile strikes against civilian and military infrastructure, and espionage against the Defence Forces of Ukraine.

For this reason, the Russian special services create pseudo-Ukrainian channels on Telegram. For example, channels with Ukrainian military personnel as a target audience. Such pseudo-military channels spread fakes and so-called “inside information” from Ukrainian military units and educational institutions, covertly promoting Russian propaganda narratives. Having gained a certain degree of the audience’s trust, pseudo-military channels are engaged in collecting personal data of military personnel themselves, as well as confidential and secret information related to the defence of Ukraine. Thus, the Russian intelligence agencies become final addressees of the collected data.

Nach_Shtabu is one of such hostile Telegram channels. Its connection with Russian military intelligence has already been established. This resource covertly and openly promotes Russian propaganda messages and conducts espionage against Ukrainian military personnel.

Since June 18, 2018, under the guise of an allegedly Ukrainian military channel, Nach_Shtabu has been collecting military secret data. In particular, the following information:

• places of deployment of military personnel during combat missions;
• course of operations of the Defence Forces of Ukraine;
• command staff of Ukrainian military units and military educational institutions;
• places of Russian missile strikes;
• collection and publication of military documents or their projects;
• morale and psychological state in Ukrainian military units, etc.

Furthermore, the Nach_Shtabu Telegram channel actively spreads disinformation, as follows:

• anti-mobilisation narratives;
• panic reports about the course of hostility with the aim of disorganising the Defence Forces of Ukraine at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, and then with the aim of undermining the moral and psychological state of the Ukrainian militaries;
• Russian fake messages and other content, including advertisements for hostile and anonymous Telegram channels.
• pseudo-insides from Ukrainian military units, reports about the “comprehensive moral decline of the Ukrainian army” connected with allegedly widespread cases of crime and shameful behaviour of servicemen in other military formations;
• discredit information about Ukrainian military command at all levels and the political leadership with the aim of reducing the motivation of Ukrainian military personnel to defend Ukraine and creating conflict situations among the Ukrainian military.

Thus, the Nach_Shtabu Telegram channel is one of the tools of informational, psychological, and intelligence operations of the Russian Federation.

Please find more information in the joint study of the Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security (CSCIS), the Department for Counterintelligence Protection of the State’s Interests in the Field of Information Security of the SBU, and the Main Communications Directorate of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.