Russian Strategic Information Attack for Catastrophic Effect

The report examines Russia’s Strategic Information Attack (SIA) concept, a doctrine combining psychological influence operations and technical cyberattacks to inflict catastrophic, non-kinetic effects on national critical infrastructure and pressure adversaries into negotiations under an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy. It maps Soviet-era and modern targeting models (e.g., SODCIT) to likely focus areas such as leadership, communications, energy, finance, and government networks, and highlights how influence and cyber effects can be sequenced or combined. The outlook urges Western critical infrastructure operators to strengthen defenses against both cyber and influence threats through monitoring, collaboration, and exercises that simulate SIA-style scenarios.