Battlefield Pacific

Operation Strawman

Alexei Kasyanov added a few bullet points to his upcoming broadcast. True to his word, the Der Spiegel reporter, Gunther Brinkbaumer, had introduced him to a couple of men from the CIA, who had taken him in and become responsible for his personal security and housing. Now he was moved from one safe house to another after every broadcast to keep them one step ahead of the Russian FSB, which was dedicating more and more resources to finding him.

Once Alexei had agreed to work with the Allies, they’d collaborated on a social media campaign that would be designed to sow discord and distrust between the population and the Petrov administration. All the while, they continued raising the prospect of an alternative government to the corrupt Petrov regime that the country had been enslaved by for the past eighteen months. The CIA arranged a steady stream of news about the war to be provided to Alexei, who then compared that information to the official stories being shown to the people by RT and the other Russian news agencies.

The initial goal of the podcasts and radio broadcasts was to provide the people of Russia with a reliable alternative source of news to what the government was putting out. This caused the number of followers and listeners Alexei Kasyanov had garnered up to that point to swell from the tens of thousands to nearly a million people within a month and a half. People were starved for information and more importantly, the truth about the war. While there had been many victories by the Russian forces, there were also a number of major defeats, and these facts were being kept hidden from the Russian people.

The CIA had also provided Alexei with a list of Russian prisoners of war that had been captured up to that point — as soon as he’d published this list on his website, the number of followers on his site had ballooned to nearly six million people. The government had been withholding the names of POWs and openly downplaying the number of casualties, causing many family members to wonder what had happened to their sons during the major battles, so they were starving for any explanation of what had really happened to their loved ones.

After several months of this, along with subtle questioning of the government’s motives, an underbelly of frustration and anxiety with the government was growing. Now that Alexei’s list of followers had grown substantially, he was prepared for a new phase in his broadcasts — one of more direct challenges to the Petrov regime.

Gordon Welsh, the MI6 agent who was helping to craft the speech for the evening, walked up to Alexei to try and pump him up for the night’s event. “This speech is really going to get people riled up,” he said with a smile.

Alexei was deep in thought and just nodded. He hated working with these foreign intelligence agents, but he knew that without them, he had no hope of saving his country from the destruction Petrov was bringing upon their homeland.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he reminded himself.

“As long as we get the people to come to our side and we can rid Russia of Petrov, then that is all I care about,” Alexei responded.

The British agent got the camera ready and made sure everything was recording correctly on the computer before he signaled that they were ready.

After looking down at his notes one last time, Alexei looked at the camera and signaled he was ready to begin. The small red light next to the camera flashed on. They were recording.

“My fellow Russians, welcome to today’s Broadcast of the Truth, where we bring you the stories Petrov does not want you to know about,” he began. “As many of you are already aware, President Petrov has signed a no-longer-secret agreement with the countries of China, India, and Iran to form a new alliance called the Eastern Alliance. His never-ending conquest for war will surely lead to the ruin of Russia.”

“In response to Petrov’s new alliance, the Allies, led by the United States, have formed their own global alliance to defeat us. Just this past week, our forces were defeated in Finland, and even now, the Allies are less than two hundred miles from St. Petersburg. It won’t be long until we have foreign invaders marching in our streets.”

“We must demand an end to this war,” he continued, his voice becoming more forceful and passionate. “If you haven’t seen the list of casualties on our website, I highly encourage you to scroll through them. We’ve updated our lists with the most recent casualties from the battles in Finland. It’s time that we as Russians wake up to what the Petrov regime is doing to our great nation. We’re systematically being destroyed by Alliance bombing attacks, lied to about our young men and women dying in combat, and deceived about the causes of this war and its continuation. While I’ve called on the people of our great nation to protest peacefully, there’s going to come a time when peaceful protests won’t be enough.”

Gordon Welsh gave him a signal from the sidelines to say it was time to really push it home. Alexei nodded slightly, then went on. “We must be the masters of our future, not Petrov. Our nation has a wealth of oil, natural gas, and minerals, yet all that prosperity has been squandered for the last twenty years by the rich few who rule us like kings, and the military that protects their power. The time is coming when we must say enough is enough. I call on each of you to talk with your family members, to talk with your friends. When do we take control of our futures and end this war? Until next time, stay tuned for more information and instructions on what to do next.”

With that, Alexei ended his short speech. Immediately, he wanted to watch it and see if he needed to make any changes before they published the video. Once ready, the short speech would be transmitted multiple times a day across numerous radio frequencies on the AM and FM bands and promulgated across dozens of Russian-language websites and streaming services.

After a few minor edits, Alexei was satisfied with the speech. They uploaded it to the various servers that would spread the message across the internet inside of Russia.

Once the file was safely online, Mitch Lowe, the CIA agent in charge of Alexei’s security, announced, “It’s time to go.”

“Another day, another safe house,” thought Alexei in annoyance. All of the constant moving was getting tiring, and there was always the worry that someone might follow them. Constant vigilance was exhausting.

Still, Alexei had a certain respect for his handler. Prior to the war, Mitch had been a deep-cover CIA agent working for a Russian tech firm. When the war had started, he’d conveniently arranged for his official death to occur from one of the many American bombing strikes that had hit Moscow during the opening days of the war. This allowed Mitch to roam free within the city without him suddenly being missed by his employer. When Operation Strawman had become a reality, it had been determined that the CIA would run the security and financial arm of the underground resistance, while the British would focus more on the social engineering of the speeches and the stirring up of civil unrest in the major Russian cities. They did this by providing a lot of young people with money to protest and generally encouraging a lot of mischief between the youth and the government.

When played out over many months, Operation Strawman was having the desired effect. Popular Russian support for Petrov and the war had plummeted, and while he didn’t need the popular support to wage his war, their apathy to it was having a negative effect on the production of war materials and other essential tools needed to fight in the various conflicts. The popularity of the People’s Freedom Party, or PARNAS, and Alexei Kasyanov as an alternative to the Petrov regime continued to grow. Posters and pictures of Alexei and PARNAS symbols popped up all over Russia, and so did calls to end the war — especially once the people were able to get their hands on unfiltered casualty reports from the battles.

The next phase in the operation would call for direct recruitment of military commanders to switch sides and to openly rebel against the Petrov government.