In Episode 226 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Dmitri Alperovitch, the former CTO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, the world's largest cybersecurity company, which has been involved in investigations of several high-profile cyberattacks including the 2014 Sony Pictures hack, the 2015–2016 cyber-attacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and the 2016 email leak involving the DNC. Alperovitch currently serves as Chairman of the non-profit Silverado Policy Accelerator, where he focuses on advancing American prosperity and global leadership by working directly with both the executive branch and Capitol Hill on issues related to cyber, trade & industrial security, and ecological & economic security.

What prompted this conversation was a Twitter thread that Dmitri published recently, in which he explained why he believes the Kremlin has already made its decision to invade Ukraine later this winter—in late January or possibly early February—and that military confrontation is in fact the preferred route for Putin at this point. It's a fascinating thread and we encourage you all to read through it after listening to today's episode.

Kofinas and Alperovitch spend the first half of their conversation discussing the various signals that Dimitri believes point to the increased likelihood of a military invasion of Ukraine and the partitioning of the country by Russia in the next several months, as well Putin's possible motivations and objectives in doing so.

The second part of their conversation, which is available to premium subscribers focuses on the cyber component of this conflict, including evidence of increased cyber intrusions into the Ukrainian government and civilian networks, what the targets have been, and what can be further inferred about the Kremlin's objectives based on the nature of those targets. Alperovitch also shares his views on how he thinks the Biden administration can credibly respond to the mounting pressure on Ukraine's defenses, the effectiveness of sanctions as a tool for dissuading Russian aggression as well as for punishing Kremlin leadership after the fact, and the similarities between Ukraine and Taiwan and what lessons the Chinese communist party may be drawing from our response or failure to respond to mounting Russian aggression on Ukraine's eastern border.

You can access the second part of this episode, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week's conversation through the Hidden Forces Patreon Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

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Producer & Host: Demetri Kofinas

Editor & Engineer: Stylianos Nicolaou

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Episode Recorded on 12/27/2021

Putin and his entourage