Security scholar Omar Ashour explains how Russian tactics in Ukraine parallel terrorist extremist strategies and examines deradicalization models to reintegrate youth subjected to Kremlin disinformation.
From: Euromaiden Press BY ALYA SHANDRA
Security expert Omar Ashour identifies alarming similarities between Russia’s military operations in places like Crimea and Donbas and the playbook extremist organizations like ISIS have deployed: infiltration, improvised explosives, false-front organizations, weaponized disinformation. For young people in occupied zones undergoing such intense psychological warfare, Ashour recommends tailored Ukrainian deradicalization programs integrating emotional, educational, and vocational support.
Euromaidan Press met with Dr. Omar Ashour, security and military studies professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, at the Crimean Global Conference in Kyiv.
How Russia’s military style is similar to ISIS
Please tell us about the similarities between Russia and ISIS, their fighting styles and tactics, and what lessons we can learn from this.
I’ve been coming here since the start of the war in 2014 and have noticed that there are a lot of similarities between how Russia has fought in Ukraine since 2014 and what ISIS and its predecessors, ISI and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, have been doing.
When I was studying Russia’s takeover of Crimea, I looked at what was happening in Syria and Iraq, and the ways that a small outgunned and outnumbered organization managed to somehow control 120 towns between southern Philippines all the way to western Africa, including large cities, like Mosul in Iraq, and smaller cities like Raqqa.
They have done this via a series of infiltrations of senior ranks and false front organizations, where they pretend to be civilians or religious organizations, which act like an ideological front for the armed extremist movement.
Voice of Ukraine 