Understanding Hybrid Warfare On The Russian-Ukrainian Conflict

The new concept of hybrid warfare has begun to be commonly used by countries and policymakers who must enforce their power in any way, this method of hybrid warfare in the war began to be used at a time when conventional war strategies were already less effective. 

The concept of hybrid warfare is very different and is predicted to be increasingly widely used by regimes in many countries.

The concept of hybrid warfare has emerged since the end of the Cold War in the 20th century, conflict is no longer by shedding blood and resulting in many injuries however, it is widening to other sides of human life such as life in cyberspace or the internet which is increasingly taking an important role in human life in the current 21st century. 

The hybrid warfare method began to be taken and the method was taken seriously by various actors. The use of such methods used by Russia is seen in the case of cyber attacks in Estonia.

Russia is one of the world's superpowers and is one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council since the end of World War II. This country left by the Soviet Union has a fairly strong influence in the Eastern European region and is a dominating country, especially in the region. 

Thus, Russia has considerable power and can intervene in other countries, both countries in the European region and outside the European region.

When the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia as the largest fractional state of its territory consistently maintained its national security and demonstrated its ability as an important and power-held state throughout its various domestic policy and foreign policy formulations. 

After the dismissal of the Soviet Union in 1990, relations between Russia and the former Soviet countries were unstable. Russia continues to maintain its dominance in the breakaway states of the USSR through a wide variety of economic, political, and even military activities to date.

In exploring its role and achieving its national interests, especially in Eastern European countries that are fragments of the Soviet Union, Russia uses the hybrid warfare method that seems to have been used since 2007. 

Where there was a cyber attack on Estonian infrastructure which at that time aroused the anger of the Russian people due to the removal of the Bronze Soldier statue by the Estonian government which was considered an act of discrimination.

As a result of the cyber attack, Estonian's government system was stopped and considerable losses were felt. Therefore, with its various interests, Russia can make various efforts in achieving this goal, one of which is using hybrid warfare which does not have to use force militarily overtly.