Today we do a quick analysis on the big news of the week, the unannounced visit to Kyiv by US President Joe Biden. This will be a short one (for a change) where we’ll have a quick discussion about how to evade OSINT to quietly travel undetected and we’ll also share a quick opinion on what we can infer by President Biden’s trip and what we can take away from the short visit.

But first, as you may be figuring out, we’re nerds in a big way and we love our chatGPT. Given there’s little our electronic brain can add to this situation we’ll simply throw in a random fact. We tend to write a lot to clear the air around propaganda , so today we’ll start there.

Input: Give me a random, but little known fact about propaganda usage in the internet age.

Response: One little known fact about propaganda usage in the internet age is that governments and political groups often use "sockpuppets" to spread propaganda online. A sockpuppet is a fake online persona created to deceive others into thinking that it is a real person. These personas can be used to spread propaganda, engage in political astroturfing (the practice of creating fake grassroots support for a political cause), and manipulate online discussions.

In fact, a 2017 report by the Oxford Internet Institute found that at least 29 countries used "cyber troops" to manipulate public opinion online, and that these operations often involved the use of sockpuppets. These Cyber troops are typically made up of government employees or contractors who are tasked with creating and disseminating propaganda on social media and other online platforms

Thanks GPT, ever informative as usual.

If we look at visits by sitting Presidents / Vice Presidents to a war zone, we find this has actually occurred quite regularly over the years, with probably the most obvious one the thanksgiving 2003 trip to Iraq by then President Bush. What doesn’t occur regularly, is these visits being carried out with an external military providing force protection. It is reasonable to say that prior to this, VIP’s traveled under the umbrella of US military protection, with contained airspace, Secret Service details and QRF in place should there be any “issues”. This is one of the many reasons that this visit demanded a write up, if only a short one.

However as the analytical type who loves to track things with OSINT we are always impressed by the planning that is involved to make these come together with as little risk as possible to the president. This usually means some quite good obfuscation in regards to present location, scheduling and logistics at the other end. The old WW2 saying “loose lips sinks ships” may have been relevant to submarine warfare, but the easiest way to protect and mitigate risk to a VIP during transit is to travel by stealth where ever possible, flying under the radar (not quite literally, but almost) and ideally leave people at the destination none the wiser until its wheels down, on the ground and “good morning Mr President”

And a brilliant job was done by the planners, we tend to keep a close eye on things happening in the area and we didn’t see murmurs until just before landing where savvy Kyiv residents realized something was even more amiss than usual as areas were secured prior to 46’s arrival.

So if we have a little look at 46’s schedule in the 24hrs preceding the visit, we’ll see exactly that. A typical schedule, mostly mundane with open denials of travel to Ukraine and even a later red herring put in to play, by confirming a UA trip later in the year.

We also have a change of call sign and airframe type for Air Force One for the transit. This helps the discretionary component as when aircraft aren’t traveling with POTUS on board, they use secondary call signs which is usually SAM XXX (special air mission). We can see for this trip however that rather than using the typical AF1 747 airframes, the Boeing C32 was used. This is the military designation for the 757 Airframe, which is typically used for lessor ranking, traveling govt officials. This adds another layer to the discretion as flight and airframe tracking is a well honed, and well known art in the field of open source intelligence. In a brilliant decoy, Airframe # 99-0003 a Boeing C32A, departed Joint Base Andrews as SAM-060 in what looked like a boringly mundane flight to reposition the aircraft for VIP transit. In reality it was subtly playing the role of Air Force One, flying to Poland from Andrews AFB where a connecting train was used to make the final run into Kyiv.

In previous articles, we’ve looked in depth at what is required to obtain air superiority in certain areas and the effect that has on force projection and being able to contain certain areas and places. In our opinion that’s one of the things that made this trip particularly relevant. Traveling outside this area sent at least two clear messages around the world. First, it clearly shows belief in the capacity of the UA military, as despite POTUS being under secret service control they would be the first point of call should things escalate to the point of requiring containment. But more importantly not only was this trip not hidden from Russia, RU was pre warned prior to the flight occurring. This shows that the threats of escalation, so frequently heard by russian officials were treated with disdain by US officials and planners. Whilst rightly taking threats and risk assessment into the planning, POTUS and America at large did not bow to these threats. More importantly, by relying on UA forces to maintain security President Biden quietly elicited the wise words of another great president. Namely, big stick methodology, refined and used by Roosevelt. Not bowing to russian threats is sorely needed at this point.

However, what else do we take away from this??? Well firstly we we can point to the latest Military assistance package, which contains over half a billion dollars worth of support aid, including reload packages for whats become Ukraine’s favorite weapon, the HIMARS artillery system. We can also presume that to some extent, US officials are willing to test Russia’s resolve in regards to following through on their many threats. As we can see, the threats came to nothing with US officials even informing their russian counterparts as a de confliction measure. This isn’t the actions of a government that isn’t confident in protecting its officials, and it says volumes about the relationship with Biden’s America, as opposed to Putin’s Russia.

The biggest thing to take away from this trip however is solidarity, and it is present in many ways. With a wary weary Europe paired with a restless US population the trip sends a message to Ukraine that America continues to stand by them. Morale is a huge part of combat efficiency, and is one of the first things to be nurtured in any conflict, and some morale boosts can not be given via weapons, money or aid packages. The picture of the two presidents at the palace, and 46 in front of “Saint Javelin” says more than any words can in regards to the solidarity between America and Ukraine. And we think its pertinent to note one of the most well publicized comments from the trip, was “Kyiv Stands”. As we approach the one year mark of the conflict, the fact Kyiv stands at all is one thing the western world can be grateful for because as things are presently both western and Ukrainian resolve has been test but continues to stand up.

And we’ll close out the day with a tweet from the St Javelin twitter account we found amusing and decided to share

It took 80y/o President Biden around 16 hours to reach Kyiv. The russian military has tried for 361 days and is still stuck in the suburbs of Bakhmut. Lets hope it stays that way.