The National Academy of Land Forces of the Hetman Sagaydachniy

Abstract

In the article the authors attempted to analyze the character of changes in forms of confrontation and armed struggle as one of its elements. They turn the spotlight on views of Russian theorists who purposefully prepared to the war. The article clarifies main forms and means of conducting hybrid war as a phenomenon that emerged long before but received exact definition at the beginning of the millennium. The authors confine attention to redistribution of roles when methods of information, political and economic confrontation take center stage instead of classical armed struggle. The main instrument in hybrid war becomes the notorious «the fifth column» that is turncoats, controlled by the enemy legal and clandestine opposition groups, their active social basis, different irregular armed formations of local population. The following difference is in accelerated legalization of political forces that oppose the state authority by means of their right to represent people who allegedly clamor against tyranny of the acting rulers. Meanwhile, all methods of struggling for power (including armed struggle) on the part of controlled by the aggressor turncoats and opposing political groups (including insurgents) are acknowledged as legitimate. Characteristic peculiarity of wars of modern type is the fact that political elites and state population do not straightaway recognize what happens. Uncertain attempts of political authority to stabilize situation in the country appear to be inefficient in most cases. Waging war against Ukraine, Russia tries to overcome its own inferiority complex regarding The United States laying claim to the status of a hyper-power state. And though nowadays nobody threatens to attack Russia, anti-Western frenzy is used once again to deflect attention away from domestic economic and social problems. Key words: struggle; hybrid war; armed forces; confrontation; military conflict; forms and means of struggle.