[War & Business] False Flag Operations

On the 17th (local time), soldiers are inspecting a school building bombed by Ukrainian government forces in Molodyzne, an area controlled by the Luhansk People's Republic, a pro-Russian rebel organization in the Donbas region of Ukraine. The pro-Russian rebels claim that the Ukrainian government forces launched a preemptive strike. Molodyzne (Ukraine) = Reuters·Yonhap News Agency

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyunwoo Lee] As clashes intensify between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian rebel groups in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, concerns are growing that Russia's "False Flag" operations will escalate in earnest.

The false flag operation originally began as a deception tactic used by pirates plundering the Caribbean in the 16th century, who would fly the flags of enemy or neutral countries to approach enemy ships stealthily and launch surprise attacks. Since the 19th century, it has been incorporated into formal military operations and used as a key strategy by various countries. It was mainly employed as an act of disguising as enemy forces to infiltrate enemy lines and conduct disruption operations before battles.

In the 20th century, the tactic evolved into agents deliberately flying enemy flags to ambush and sabotage friendly railways or roads to create a pretext for war. A representative false flag operation is the "Lugouqiao (Marco Polo Bridge)" incident on July 7, 1931, which ignited the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although there was no actual attack by enemy forces, the incident was fabricated to justify war. During the Winter War in 1939, the Soviet Union under Stalin also used false flag operations as a pretext to invade Finland.

In the current Ukraine crisis, Russia is already evaluated to have conducted multiple false flag operations in the Donbas region. Cases where Russian regular troops and Russian-made weapons were disguised as pro-Russian rebel forces and infiltrated into Donbas have been pointed out repeatedly since the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

When newly introduced Russian-made tanks and armored vehicles, which do not even exist in Ukraine, were filmed with pro-Russian rebel groups, the Russian military could no longer deny involvement. However, they have consistently responded shamelessly, claiming that Russian soldiers from Ukraine voluntarily took tanks to defend their hometowns without military orders. This depicts their military intervention justification as a so-called "Tang Dynasty army," where soldiers can take tanks out at their own discretion.

Currently, Russia is blatantly engaging in false flag operations, claiming that Ukrainian government forces first shelled the pro-Russian rebel regions of the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic. They are trying hard to create a pretext for full-scale war, but the false flag operations, which were effective until the 20th century, are reportedly failing to succeed properly.

The reason false flag operations no longer wield significant power as before is attributed to the development of information and communication networks. It has become virtually impossible to control information due to satellite images of Russian forces released in real-time by private satellite companies and numerous local photos flooding social networking services (SNS). The world’s attention is focused on whether Ukraine will be the last battlefield where traditional false flag operations are effective.