US Publicizing Bad Intelligence in Information War Against Russia

In recent weeks, US officials, including President Biden, claimed that Russia was considering using chemical weapons in Ukraine. But three US officials told NBC News this week that there is no evidence Russia had moved any chemical weapons near Ukraine and that the claims were part of an information war against Moscow.

The US officials said that the Biden administration has been sharing declassified intelligence that wasn’t “rock solid.” The NBC report said that multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon against Russia “even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high.”

The report said the US has used “low confidence” information, like the chemical weapons claims, as a “deterrent effect.” One official told NBC that by sharing the information, the US is just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.”