Nestor walked over to another colleague, who was working on a story about the Iranians closing the Straits of Hormuz.
“Igor, did you know that you are actually writing a true story?” Nestor asked jovially.
“What do you mean, Boss?” wondered Igor.
“Well, in response to the press that we have been pushing, the Iranians are actually moving more of their warships to the sea. Our gossip is becoming truth,” smirked Nestor.
“This is great news. I will incorporate some of the real reporting in my next set of articles,” explained Igor, proudly.
The group was also busy posting propaganda videos. They had pieced the footage together from clips given to them from helmet cameras from Spetsnaz raids, frontline soldiers, fighter combat cameras — anything that showed the Russian military winning a battle or air strike against NATO. They also began promoting any videos of the apartment building and subway stations that were accidentally destroyed by the American bunker-busting bomb the night before.
President Petrov had visited the hospitals to meet with the victims and made several appearances on TV, pleading for the Americans and NATO to keep the war conventional and not kill innocent civilians. Those videos were gaining a lot of traction around the world, so they began to run a lot of info pieces on the victims. Their entire goal with pushing this narrative was to show the Americans and NATO as the aggressors and the Russians as the victims. The images of the casualties from the now famous “Moscow Massacre” were compelling.
The video of the US Supercarrier George H.W. Bush sinking was a particularly potent video that had gone viral the second it was posted. The sight of hundreds of sailors being rescued amongst a sea of floating dead bodies was truly horrifying to the American public.
While the media arm continued to propagate their material, a separate group of hackers was breaking into the French, German, Italian, and Spanish transportation systems. They were interfering with train schedules, communications, and traffic signals — anything that would cause chaos and confusion in the Allied nations. Most of their attacks were being carried out through the use of botnets, which would capture Internet of Things (IoT) devices and then slave those devices to act as a collective botnet army in order to accomplish DDoS attacks. When combined, these attacks were causing the electronic infrastructure of the Allies to grind to a halt.
Several of the more gifted hackers in this division were given the particularly hard task of coopting the companies’ Industrial Control Systems (ICSs). In one case, they successfully took control of a train engine on an extremely vital German rail line, causing the engine to burn out while it was in transit. Then they disabled the switching station so that the engineers in the control rooms could not remotely divert trains around the affected track. This caused a series of train delays.
In the US, the hackers took control of the Astoria Gas Generating Station in New York State and forced the generator to spin out of control until it blew up and destroyed the plant. Ten workers were killed, nineteen others injured. The loss of 1,296 megawatts of power was a huge hit to the city of New York and to the state as a whole. The hackers also hit four other power generators, which caused a series of rolling blackouts across much of the East Coast and parts of the Midwest. Power companies were scrambling to get old turbines turned on to pick up the slack and restore power.
While the hackers were sowing chaos on the internet against the NATO members, the disinformation campaign was having the desired effect amongst the population. Public opinion against the war was soaring in Europe, and the US media could not help themselves in trying to pin all the failings of the allies, on President Gates.
To make matters worse, two Spetsnaz teams carried out a devastating attack against two liquid natural gas (LNG) terminals — the Dominion Cove Point LNG depot in Maryland, and the Cheniere's Sabine Pass LNG station in Louisiana. The Spetsnaz members shot their way through the perimeter security of both facilities, and then blew the terminals up using C4 explosives that they detonated remotely. Following the attack, the two attack teams blended right back into the population and disappeared, at least until the FBI could hunt them down.
The destruction of these two terminals cut the US’s ability to export liquid natural gas to Europe by 68 %. This was a huge loss, especially considering Europe had been cut off from importing additional LNG from Russia once the hostilities had officially begun. The Continent would now be thrown into a widespread gas shortage.
Old Friend
Lieutenant General Mikhail Chayko was not happy with the progress of his forward units. They had been stopped from securing Kiev twice in the last twenty-four hours, and now the Americans and British had rushed in two armored brigades. Securing the city just became a lot more challenging… not impossible, but certainly a lot more difficult.
He sent a second message to the 4th Guard’s Tank Division, the 2nd Guard’s Motor Rifle Division and the 6th Tank Brigade. “We have to secure Kiev by morning tomorrow,” he directed. “It is imperative that we drive out the Americans now, before they hurry any additional combat forces into Europe.”
LTG Chayko wasn’t sure that all of his comrades were pulling their weight, but his Air Force counterpart had tried to reassure his fears. “A major air operation is well underway,” he asserted. “Your armored units will have continuous air support for the next twenty-four hours while you secure Kiev.”
He tried to remain optimistic about their chances. As Mikhail sat there looking at the various maps, an old friend walked in. His face lit up, and he immediately passed his comrade a flask of vodka. “Admiral Ivan Vitko, it’s good to see you. I feared you had been killed the other day when your base had been hit by the Americans.”
Admiral Vitko took the flask and downed several large gulps before handing it back and taking a seat opposite his friend. “Thank you, Comrade. It has been a long couple of days. The Americans will have to try harder if they want to kill me,” he said, snickering.
After only a moment, his face suddenly turned very serious again. “General Chayko, I wanted to talk with you about something of great urgency,” he said, lowering his voice as if discussing a secret.
Chayko sighed. “Ugh… I am already under a lot of pressure from Moscow,” he thought. “Why do I suddenly have the feeling that he is about to drop another problem in my lap? I don’t have time for that.”
“As you can imagine Admiral, I am dealing with my own problems. What is so urgent that you traveled all the way here to meet me in person?” he asked tentatively, not sure he really wanted the answer.
Vitko pulled out a map, and placed it on the table between them. “This is where the NATO fleet is currently located. As you know, most of my fleet has been sunk. I still have two Oscar submarines and a couple of Kilos trying to stay alive right now. This here is the problem,” he said, pointing to the map.
“The Americans have moved a second Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Black Sea. It will give them close to 7,000 Marines. I believe the Marines are going to try and launch a seaborne invasion along the coast of Ukraine. This could present a massive problem for you, my friend,” Vitko said as he pulled his own flask of vodka out and took a large drink from it.
“If I had known he had his own vodka, I wouldn’t have offered him some of mine,” Chayko thought, rather annoyed.
“This could certainly be a problem,” he responded aloud. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. How do you propose we handle this, if you have no fleet and I have to keep my forces focused on capturing Kiev?” he asked hoping he had a solution.