Opinion: The UK must urgently adapt to Russia’s ’dark power’ tactics

Professor Mark Galeotti (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies) discusses the ways Russia seeks to divide and destabilise Western democracies like the UK, arguing that we must learn how to adapt and respond to their methods. In the wake of the release of the Intelligence and Security Committee Russia Report, we need to come to terms with the ways potentially hostile nations mount influence operations in the 21st-century. Russia, after all, is using a very different approach than the old ones with which we have been accustomed. Western politicians like to talk of countries' 'soft power'; their ability to get their own way through persuasion and attraction. According to most international indices, Britain scores consistently well, in the global top three. From the British Council to the Premiership League, the Queen to Banksy, our national 'brand' still counts. Russia has been able to find common ground with some states, essentially those run by authoritarians, kleptocrats and populists, but what about countries such as the UK, where its propensity for invading neighbours, hacking vaccine research programmes and murdering critics means your chances of making new friends and rather gets in the way of accruing 'soft power' Here, Russia's approach has been instead to pivot to what we might call 'dark power:' looking so aggressive, unpredictable and vindictive that you get your way through fear.