The Real Reason Ukraine Is Only Taking Responsibility for Some Attacks on Russia | Opinion

As the war in Ukraine rages on, a parallel contest is taking place in the information domain, where Ukrainian officials have been managing the fallout of their violence on international opinion. With violence bleeding into western Russia and even Moscow, the Ukrainian government is shrewdly calculating which attacks to claim and which to disavow. And the decision-making process behind which attacks inside Russia Ukraine owns up to and which it distances itself from has been anything but arbitrary.

Research from other contexts is useful to understanding the conflict in Eastern Europe. Political scientists have found that credit-claiming when it comes to warfare follows a strategic logic. It turns out, both states and non-state actors are concerned with public relations to maximize their supporters around the world and avoid needlessly provoking adversaries. In practice, this means claiming credit for only a portion of their attacks—usually ones directed against military and other government targets which are seen as more legitimate. By contrast, statistical studies have found that international actors are far more likely to distance themselves from attacks on civilians and from other controversial acts of violence, denying their side committed the attack or at least denying intent by pinning the violence on politically sympathetic rogue actors acting independently of the leadership.

This public relations strategy is at play in Ukraine. Especially when attacks inside Russia risk evoking international controversy that could undermine Ukrainian support, the Zelensky government has been denying Ukrainian involvement or at least denying that the Ukrainian leadership directed the strike. This PR strategy is essential for Ukraine, given its reliance on international military support and the costs of losing it if Ukraine appears unrestrained in a way that could expand the war.

It's important to note that Russia has killed far more civilians than Ukraine at this point in the conflict. And yet, the evidence suggests that Ukraine has killed more Russian civilians than it has admitted to.

Examples of Ukraine denying attacks on Russian civilians abound. The Ukrainian government recently denied any direct involvement in the May 2023 drone attack on residential areas in Moscow, the first of its kind in the war against Russians. Some geopolitical analysts have expressed a high level of confidence that the Ukrainian government was behind this drone attack against a Russian civilian target, given the weaponry employed. But it makes PR sense not to claim credit for such attacks when American politicians have threatened to oppose arming Ukraine if it attacks Russian civilians.

Ukraine has also denied involvement in high-profile assassinations against Russians, which are legally suspect. In April 2023, a Russian military blogger was killed in an explosion at a café in St. Petersburg. The Russian government placed blame on the Ukrainian government, an accusation that the Ukrainian government naturally denied.

Similarly, in August 2022, a car bomb blew up the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist on the outskirts of Moscow. The Ukrainian government predictably denied responsibility—even after a U.S. intelligence community assessment concluded it was likely involved. If Ukraine indeed carried out this attack, the New York Times noted, it would have been "one of the boldest operations to date."

The Ukrainian government has also denied involvement in other controversial attacks that risked drying up international support or escalating the conflict. In September 2022, a series of blasts notoriously targeted the Nord Stream pipelines, which carried gas from Russia to Germany. Ukraine and other Western governments blamed Russia for the attack, alleging that Russia wanted to create panic in Europe by choking energy supplies ahead of the winter. In fact, U.S. intelligence authorities subsequently pinned the blame on a pro-Ukrainian group even as Ukrainian officials have strongly denied involvement. An advisor to President Zelensky has said the government "was absolutely not involved," just as one might expect given the potential international fallout.

To distance itself from the most controversial attacks, the Ukrainian government frequently attributes them to amorphous anti-Russian groups, shadowy elements of their intelligence and security services, or other groups operating outside of their command and control. It's how Zelensky leaves open the possibility of Ukrainian involvement while maintaining plausible deniability of the Ukrainian leadership.

Thus, following a drone attack against the Kremlin in May 2023 that the Russian government framed as an assassination attempt on Putin, Zelensky denied that Ukraine played any role in the attack. But a Ukrainian presidential advisor indicated that the attack may have come from politically allied "resistance forces." Reports later emerged that U.S. intelligence believed that Ukrainian special military or intelligence units helped orchestrate the Kremlin attack.

Similarly, in May 2023 a cross-border attack in Russia's Belgorod region injured at least eight people. A Ukrainian defense intelligence official acknowledged that the attack was carried out by pro-Ukraine forces, but emphasized that they were acting on their own.

And in August 2022, Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials publicly denied that Ukraine was behind the Russian Saki Air Base explosions on the Crimean coast. But unnamed sources within the Ukrainian military intimated the attack was carried out by local pro-Ukraine supporters—again acting independently.

The desire for Ukraine to distance itself from such attacks is understandable, as Russia has threatened that strikes against Crimea represent a significant escalation.

And yet, while the Ukrainian government distances itself from attacks that risk eroding international support and expanding the war, it is quicker to claim less controversial attacks, especially against Russian military targets.

For example, in a serious blow to a major Russian supply line to southern Ukraine, a blast destroyed the Kerch Strait Bridge in October 2022. A senior Ukrainian official confirmed Russian accusations of Ukrainian involvement, admitting that Ukraine's intelligence services were behind the explosion. The attack was described as "the most significant explosion" of the war to date because of the message it sent to Russia that Ukraine was capable of striking within a Russian-occupied area.

The Ukrainian government also claimed credit for a New Year's Eve 2022 missile attack on a Russian barracks in Russian-occupied Donetsk region that killed dozens of Russian soldiers. The attack sparked criticisms within Russia about whether military leaders had done enough to protect its soldiers. In the end, Ukraine appeared to benefit from claiming this attack while absorbing few costs.

What all this means for the future is clear: Increasingly, Ukraine will strike targets inside Russia, and the Zelensky government will continue to claim only some of these attacks. For the really controversial ones that risk backfiring, officials will deny Ukrainian involvement—or at least attempt to scapegoat the violence on forces beyond their control.

We do not claim to have perfect knowledge of which attacks against Russia are carried out at the behest of the Ukrainian government. It's possible that some attacks are "false flags" committed by Russia itself to undercut Ukraine's international standing or rally domestic support behind Putin. The truth is often difficult to discern in modern warfare. But the Ukrainian government has perceptively navigated this cloudy battle space with traditional PR strategies in accordance with the blame-game well documented by political scientists. Expect more to come.

Max Abrahms, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at Northeastern University and author of Rules for Rebels: The Science of Victory in Militant History.

Joseph Mroszczyk, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College. The views presented here are those of the authors alone and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Naval War College, the U.S. Navy, or the Department of Defense.

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.