Preparation for Seizure, tactic TA0002 - Russia

ID	Name	Description
T0015	Bribery of Elites	Aggressors may use systemic corruption and the distribution of privileges, titles, and large-scale financial resources to win over members of the target state's top leadership, intelligentsia, and military ranks. This technique permeates every stage of colonization: from preparation for seizure (recruiting agents of influence) to the seizure of governance (sabotage during defense) and institutional consolidation (buying the loyalty of a puppet government). By encouraging the personal ambitions of the elite at the expense of national interests, the colonizer destroys the local population's capacity for organized resistance.
T0011	Buying Up Media and Assets	Aggressors may covertly, or through front persons, acquire controlling stakes in key mass media outlets, strategic enterprises, and infrastructure facilities of the target region. Monopolizing the informational and economic space allows the colonizer to shape the desired public agenda, manipulate the opinion of the local population, and weaken the autonomy of the Indigenous people's institutions even before the start of open forcible intervention.
T0039	Collusion with a Third Party	Aggressors may conclude secret or open diplomatic agreements with other geopolitical players on the division of spheres of influence, completely ignoring the sovereignty and interests of the Indigenous people. This technique is used for diplomatic preparation for seizure and the subsequent seizure of governance. Deals made behind the back of the colonized society allow the aggressor to deprive it of potential international allies, legitimize the occupation at the foreign-policy level, and dismember the territories of the local population unimpeded.
T0150	Comprehensive Reconnaissance of Territories	Aggressors deliberately organize the collection of strategic, geographic, demographic, and economic data on target territories. Within this technique, the colonizer sends diplomats, merchants, explorers, or specialized expeditions to determine the population size of a potential object of colonization, assess its defensive capacity and infrastructure, and survey mineral deposits and natural resources. The information obtained is used by the metropole to plan a subsequent seizure by force, the establishment of control, or economic exploitation. The colonizer's emissaries often attempt to win over the population with gifts it values (for example, glass beads resembling objects used as money and perceived as foreign currency) or through mutually beneficial trade exchange. In some cases, people are drawn into participation in rituals that the colonizer later construes as a declaration of allegiance. Thus, for example, an exchange of gifts is constructed by the colonizer as the payment of tribute and an acknowledgment of subjecthood, while the people designated as the object of colonization are far from always aware of this.
T0013	Creation of Agents of Influence	Aggressors may deliberately recruit, bribe, or ideologically motivate ordinary members of the local population, marginalized groups, and criminal elements to create a covert network of loyal operatives in the target territory. Forming a controlled agent network, including provocateurs, street militants, informers, and saboteurs, allows the colonizer to organize artificial mass riots, exert physical pressure on civilian activists, gather intelligence, and destabilize the socio-political situation within the colonized society before the start of an open intervention.
T0143	Cultivation of an Imperial Diaspora	Cultivation of an imperial diaspora is a deliberate policy of the former metropole aimed at maintaining and reproducing a distinct identity among the descendants of colonists and settlers who remained in territories that have left its control. This policy is implemented through an infrastructure of linguistic, educational, and media reproduction: funding of schools and cultural centers, television broadcasting in the metropole's language, simplified granting of citizenship and 'compatriot' status, and state and quasi-state diaspora support funds . Alongside this institutional framework, the metropole cultivates an affective infrastructure: nostalgia for the imperial past, a narrative of cultural superiority, and, simultaneously, a narrative of the diaspora's victimization in the new state. This work aims to sustain identification with the metropole among the second, third, and subsequent generations, who have long had no personal experience of imperial life, and to prevent their social and political integration into the states in which they live. The ultimate goal of this activity is revanchist: the metropole regards the cultivated diaspora as a resource it can rely on at the moment it attempts to revise post-imperial borders, whether through the outright annexation of territories where the diaspora lives compactly, the instrumentalization of its protests as a casus belli, or the destabilization of the new states from within. Historical examples lay this mechanism bare: the Sudeten Germans in interwar Czechoslovakia, who served as the pretext for the 1938 Munich Agreement and the subsequent liquidation of Czechoslovak statehood; the Russian-speaking communities in Moldova and in Crimea, which became the rhetorical grounds for the Russian interventions of 1992 and 2014; and the Russian-speaking population in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as an ongoing object of the same policy.
T0136	Cyber Operations	Aggressors may conduct multi-stage attacks in the digital environment for espionage, data theft, destruction of critical infrastructure, and paralysis of state institutions. These operations span a wide range of tactics: from reconnaissance, gaining initial access (for example, through phishing, account compromise, or supply chain attacks), and establishing persistence in the system, to defense evasion, credential theft, and information exfiltration. The final stage is often a destructive effect (Impact), such as data destruction, disk wiping, or Denial of Service attacks. These techniques are covered in more detail in the specialized MITRE ATT&CK framework.
T0108	Economic Blockade	Aggressors may impose financial and trade restrictions, block bank transfers, and halt the operation of the Indigenous people's enterprises. This technique is used for preparation for seizure and neutralization of defenses. The artificial strangulation of the economy deprives the colonized society of the resources needed for self-sufficiency and defense, provoking an internal crisis and weakening institutions before the start of an open intervention or in the course of an active conflict.
T0132	Infiltration of Legitimate Political Structures	The aggressor deliberately infiltrates its agents and loyalists into the victim's already existing, legitimate representative bodies, parties, or congresses. This makes it possible to hijack the governance of the structure from within, sabotage its work, or force it to make decisions in the aggressor's interests.
T0152	Pitting Neighboring Peoples Against Each Other	The metropole deliberately sows and sustains enmity between neighboring Indigenous peoples so that they weaken one another and do not unite against it. Instead of confronting a united resistance, the colonizer divides it: it sets one people against another, arms and rewards the loyal against the defiant, and converts the shared hostility toward the empire into mutual discord among those being subjugated. The mechanism relies on already existing or artificially inflamed differences — clan-based, territorial, confessional — and entrenches them as a permanent line of division, depriving Indigenous peoples of the ability to act together. The metropole meanwhile preserves its own troops, shifting part of the suppression onto the incited side and presenting itself as an arbiter. Thus, General Gudovich, commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, directly formulated the objective with regard to Kabardians and Chechens — "to set these two peoples at odds with each other and bring them into enmity against one another, thereby weakening them over time" (1807); General Tormasov armed loyal Ingush and directed them against Chechens, rewarding them for attacks on them and for handing over captives (1810).
T0088	Sham Treaty	Aggressors may use diplomatic agreements as an instrument of legal entrapment for an Indigenous people. When concluding a treaty of protectorate or alliance, the colonizer refuses from the outset to assume symmetrical obligations, using the text of the agreement solely to curtail the rights of the local population. This creates a legal basis for subsequent unilateral interference and the dismantling of independent institutions without a formal declaration of war.
T0014	Sponsoring Domestic Extremism and Radicals	Aggressors may covertly finance, train, arm, and provide informational support to marginal or radical groups within the colonized society. The artificial escalation of internal conflicts and the incitement of violence from outside weakens the law-enforcement system of the Indigenous people, destabilizes the region, and creates a convenient pretext for the colonizer's external intervention under the guise of a peacekeeping operation or the restoration of order.
T0131	Support for a Controlled Opposition	The aggressor covertly or overtly provides comprehensive support (financial, media, organizational, and political) to controlled political forces within the colonized society. The goal is to create a legal fifth column that will act in the interests of the metropole, disguising external interference as an internal political process.
T0012	Support for Separatism	Aggressors may covertly or openly finance, arm, and politically support radical groups advocating the secession of part of a sovereign state's territory. Artificially inflaming internal conflicts from the outside weakens state institutions, destabilizes the region, and creates a convenient pretext for the colonizer's subsequent open intervention under the guise of a peacekeeping operation or the protection of an allegedly oppressed minority.
T0107	Transport Blockade	Aggressors may deliberately cut off air, rail, sea, and road connections with the target region. The physical isolation of the territory from the outside world allows the colonizer to paralyze the logistics of the Indigenous people, interrupt deliveries of vitally important goods, and deprive the society of the ability to receive external aid or coordinate its actions with allies.

T0015

Bribery of Elites

Aggressors may use systemic corruption and the distribution of privileges, titles, and large-scale financial resources to win over members of the target state's top leadership, intelligentsia, and military ranks. This technique permeates every stage of colonization: from preparation for seizure (recruiting agents of influence) to the seizure of governance (sabotage during defense) and institutional consolidation (buying the loyalty of a puppet government). By encouraging the personal ambitions of the elite at the expense of national interests, the colonizer destroys the local population's capacity for organized resistance.

T0011

Buying Up Media and Assets

Aggressors may covertly, or through front persons, acquire controlling stakes in key mass media outlets, strategic enterprises, and infrastructure facilities of the target region. Monopolizing the informational and economic space allows the colonizer to shape the desired public agenda, manipulate the opinion of the local population, and weaken the autonomy of the Indigenous people's institutions even before the start of open forcible intervention.

T0039

Collusion with a Third Party

Aggressors may conclude secret or open diplomatic agreements with other geopolitical players on the division of spheres of influence, completely ignoring the sovereignty and interests of the Indigenous people. This technique is used for diplomatic preparation for seizure and the subsequent seizure of governance. Deals made behind the back of the colonized society allow the aggressor to deprive it of potential international allies, legitimize the occupation at the foreign-policy level, and dismember the territories of the local population unimpeded.

T0150

Comprehensive Reconnaissance of Territories

Aggressors deliberately organize the collection of strategic, geographic, demographic, and economic data on target territories. Within this technique, the colonizer sends diplomats, merchants, explorers, or specialized expeditions to determine the population size of a potential object of colonization, assess its defensive capacity and infrastructure, and survey mineral deposits and natural resources. The information obtained is used by the metropole to plan a subsequent seizure by force, the establishment of control, or economic exploitation. The colonizer's emissaries often attempt to win over the population with gifts it values (for example, glass beads resembling objects used as money and perceived as foreign currency) or through mutually beneficial trade exchange. In some cases, people are drawn into participation in rituals that the colonizer later construes as a declaration of allegiance. Thus, for example, an exchange of gifts is constructed by the colonizer as the payment of tribute and an acknowledgment of subjecthood, while the people designated as the object of colonization are far from always aware of this.

T0013

Creation of Agents of Influence

Aggressors may deliberately recruit, bribe, or ideologically motivate ordinary members of the local population, marginalized groups, and criminal elements to create a covert network of loyal operatives in the target territory. Forming a controlled agent network, including provocateurs, street militants, informers, and saboteurs, allows the colonizer to organize artificial mass riots, exert physical pressure on civilian activists, gather intelligence, and destabilize the socio-political situation within the colonized society before the start of an open intervention.

T0143

Cultivation of an Imperial Diaspora

Cultivation of an imperial diaspora is a deliberate policy of the former metropole aimed at maintaining and reproducing a distinct identity among the descendants of colonists and settlers who remained in territories that have left its control. This policy is implemented through an infrastructure of linguistic, educational, and media reproduction: funding of schools and cultural centers, television broadcasting in the metropole's language, simplified granting of citizenship and 'compatriot' status, and state and quasi-state diaspora support funds . Alongside this institutional framework, the metropole cultivates an affective infrastructure: nostalgia for the imperial past, a narrative of cultural superiority, and, simultaneously, a narrative of the diaspora's victimization in the new state. This work aims to sustain identification with the metropole among the second, third, and subsequent generations, who have long had no personal experience of imperial life, and to prevent their social and political integration into the states in which they live. The ultimate goal of this activity is revanchist: the metropole regards the cultivated diaspora as a resource it can rely on at the moment it attempts to revise post-imperial borders, whether through the outright annexation of territories where the diaspora lives compactly, the instrumentalization of its protests as a casus belli, or the destabilization of the new states from within. Historical examples lay this mechanism bare: the Sudeten Germans in interwar Czechoslovakia, who served as the pretext for the 1938 Munich Agreement and the subsequent liquidation of Czechoslovak statehood; the Russian-speaking communities in Moldova and in Crimea, which became the rhetorical grounds for the Russian interventions of 1992 and 2014; and the Russian-speaking population in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as an ongoing object of the same policy.

T0136

Cyber Operations

Aggressors may conduct multi-stage attacks in the digital environment for espionage, data theft, destruction of critical infrastructure, and paralysis of state institutions. These operations span a wide range of tactics: from reconnaissance, gaining initial access (for example, through phishing, account compromise, or supply chain attacks), and establishing persistence in the system, to defense evasion, credential theft, and information exfiltration. The final stage is often a destructive effect (Impact), such as data destruction, disk wiping, or Denial of Service attacks. These techniques are covered in more detail in the specialized MITRE ATT&CK framework.

T0108

Economic Blockade

Aggressors may impose financial and trade restrictions, block bank transfers, and halt the operation of the Indigenous people's enterprises. This technique is used for preparation for seizure and neutralization of defenses. The artificial strangulation of the economy deprives the colonized society of the resources needed for self-sufficiency and defense, provoking an internal crisis and weakening institutions before the start of an open intervention or in the course of an active conflict.

T0132

Infiltration of Legitimate Political Structures

The aggressor deliberately infiltrates its agents and loyalists into the victim's already existing, legitimate representative bodies, parties, or congresses. This makes it possible to hijack the governance of the structure from within, sabotage its work, or force it to make decisions in the aggressor's interests.

T0152

Pitting Neighboring Peoples Against Each Other

The metropole deliberately sows and sustains enmity between neighboring Indigenous peoples so that they weaken one another and do not unite against it. Instead of confronting a united resistance, the colonizer divides it: it sets one people against another, arms and rewards the loyal against the defiant, and converts the shared hostility toward the empire into mutual discord among those being subjugated. The mechanism relies on already existing or artificially inflamed differences — clan-based, territorial, confessional — and entrenches them as a permanent line of division, depriving Indigenous peoples of the ability to act together. The metropole meanwhile preserves its own troops, shifting part of the suppression onto the incited side and presenting itself as an arbiter.
Thus, General Gudovich, commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, directly formulated the objective with regard to Kabardians and Chechens — "to set these two peoples at odds with each other and bring them into enmity against one another, thereby weakening them over time" (1807); General Tormasov armed loyal Ingush and directed them against Chechens, rewarding them for attacks on them and for handing over captives (1810).

T0088

Sham Treaty

Aggressors may use diplomatic agreements as an instrument of legal entrapment for an Indigenous people. When concluding a treaty of protectorate or alliance, the colonizer refuses from the outset to assume symmetrical obligations, using the text of the agreement solely to curtail the rights of the local population. This creates a legal basis for subsequent unilateral interference and the dismantling of independent institutions without a formal declaration of war.

T0014

Sponsoring Domestic Extremism and Radicals

Aggressors may covertly finance, train, arm, and provide informational support to marginal or radical groups within the colonized society. The artificial escalation of internal conflicts and the incitement of violence from outside weakens the law-enforcement system of the Indigenous people, destabilizes the region, and creates a convenient pretext for the colonizer's external intervention under the guise of a peacekeeping operation or the restoration of order.

T0131

Support for a Controlled Opposition

The aggressor covertly or overtly provides comprehensive support (financial, media, organizational, and political) to controlled political forces within the colonized society. The goal is to create a legal fifth column that will act in the interests of the metropole, disguising external interference as an internal political process.

T0012

Support for Separatism

Aggressors may covertly or openly finance, arm, and politically support radical groups advocating the secession of part of a sovereign state's territory. Artificially inflaming internal conflicts from the outside weakens state institutions, destabilizes the region, and creates a convenient pretext for the colonizer's subsequent open intervention under the guise of a peacekeeping operation or the protection of an allegedly oppressed minority.

T0107

Transport Blockade

Aggressors may deliberately cut off air, rail, sea, and road connections with the target region. The physical isolation of the territory from the outside world allows the colonizer to paralyze the logistics of the Indigenous people, interrupt deliveries of vitally important goods, and deprive the society of the ability to receive external aid or coordinate its actions with allies.

Preparation for Seizure

Techniques

Techniques: 15