C4ADS Response to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale, unprovoked invasion of neighboring Ukraine. Still ongoing, this attack marks the largest conventional war on the European continent since World War II (WWII) — but it’s far from the Putin regime’s first assault on democracy in the region. Russia has conducted, and continues to conduct, myriad operations designed to undermine stability in Ukraine and around the world, even before deploying physical forces.

C4ADS is wholeheartedly committed to assisting the Ukrainian people in their struggle against this unprecedented Russian invasion. Russia’s military adventurism has long been enabled by a host of far-reaching illicit networks supporting their operations, and the events of this week have only deepened our resolve to dismantle them.

Russia has honed its hybrid warfare tactics to project power abroad, leveraging illicit transnational networks to maintain agility and deniability in the face of sanctions. If we want to understand this latest invasion of Ukraine, as well as other Russian global operations, it is imperative that we first understand these networks.

Take Russia’s malign overseas financial networks, for example — this is a key piece of the Putin regime’s strategy. C4ADS is actively tracing the activities of Russian oligarchs abroad to understand how they exploit international financial resources for State interests (i.e. Obscuring international property ownership and illicitly trading anthracite coal).

As we seek to untangle these financial webs, it’s clear that private networks are instrumental to the illicit procurement and military modernization efforts that have enabled Russia to invade Ukraine. C4ADS has traced many Russian procurement networks across land, air, and sea since 2013. Some examples include:

• In 2013, we mapped the facilitators of Russian and Ukrainian arms transfers in our landmark report, The Odessa Network
• In June 2020, we tracked the state-sponsored illicit networks contributing to the war in Ukraine, and the continent-wide trade in conflict coal. Read Black Earth.

Among the many tools it employs to obscure its nefarious behavior, Russia has advanced electronic warfare capabilities. In 2018, C4ADS discovered that Russia used GNSS spoofing on both civilian and military targets to hide State activities abroad. These techniques are powerful tools in Russia’s electronic warfare arsenal — and we know how to spot them.

Beyond electronic warfare, Russia also uses illicit networks to actually fight its wars abroad. It’s no secret that private mercenary armies have been at the forefront of the Putin regime’s push across Africa, and have been a crucial component of its war with Ukraine since 2014.

Ultimately, these malign networks that prop up the Putin regime are extracting a great toll, not only on innocent Ukrainians but on millions of people all over the world, including Russian citizens. C4ADS has a long history of mapping these networks, but this is only the beginning. 

C4ADS is committed to supporting the international community as it adapts to the expanding sanctions and export control regimes against Russia. Through our extensive work in examining the illicit networks that help authoritarian regimes evade accountability, we know that effectively upholding these sanctions will be key to ensuring their intended impact. Additionally, we will continue to expose the private networks supporting Russia’s actions, particularly those that sanctions may not directly reach. And we will use our analysis and agile relationships with global partners to achieve lawfare outcomes and interdictions beyond sanctions.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the malign activities it conducts worldwide, directly violate the principles and values that C4ADS stands for. We will continue doing our part to support the Ukrainian people in their struggle against this unprecedented Russian invasion, and we welcome allies in the fight for the peace and security of our global community.