This article highlights the importance of offensive cyber as an instrument for Russia to generate strategic effect against NATO and its core states. It focuses on the use of offensive cyber by the Russian military at the strategic level. This military is perceived to be the lead actor in the operationalization of offensive cyber by Moscow. Because the Russian military sees itself at an overall disadvantage vis-à-vis NATO’s conventional capabilities, it is offensive cyber that it is looking to provide a means of fundamentally redressing this imbalance. Offensive cyber is a vital tool for the Russian armed forces. It is indeed viewed as being the only available instrument that can, short of the use of nuclear weapons, bring about the neutralization of core NATO states; that is, to defeat them. This neutralization can be engendered, according to Russian military logic, in two ways: either through cyber-psychological or cyber-technical attacks. This article unpacks these terms and indicates how both can theoretically generate the degree of impact that could lead to the neutralization of core NATO states. Finally, there will be a review of the Russian use of offensive cyber in the Ukraine conflict.
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