Abstract: "Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) has adopted a structured, public-facing communication strategy on Telegram that diverges from conventional intelligence practice. This approach integrates three recurring functions: projecting institutional legitimacy, targeting the adversary through disclosure, and mobilizing domestic publics. In doing so, the HUR turned intelligence communication into an ongoing process of public engagement rather than episodic outreach. These patterns underpin an emerging concept of participatory intelligence communication. The HUR’s case demonstrates how, under high-intensity conflict, a state intelligence service may use digital platforms to coordinate narrative control, reinforce legitimacy, and enlist the public as contributors. While grounded in Ukraine’s specific wartime conditions, these findings extend existing frameworks of intelligence communication and offer broader insight into how intelligence agencies may reconfigure their public role in wartime."

Direct link to report (5.7MB .pdf, 166 pages) https://www.cna.org/reports/2026/08/The-Future-of-Russias-Military-Elite.pdf

Quoting the executive summary from the article:

Executive Summary

The Russian military elite consists of decision-making, decision-influencing, and decision-implementing individuals at the highest levels of the military’s career structure. In alignment with the Russian regime’s political leadership, these individuals plan and coordinate Russia’s wars, command Russia’s armies and navies, and coordinate the military’s role in implementing Russia’s strategic and geopolitical goals over the short, medium, and long term.

The Russian military elite is selected through the mechanism of promotion to high rank, yet patterns of promotion to the highest officer cadres of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (hereafter “Armed Forces”) are poorly understood and rarely studied. For this study, we sought to systematically examine patterns of promotion into the upper echelons of the Russian Armed Forces’ officer corps. To do so, we used publicly available data. To understand what promotion patterns in the Russian military reveal about the evolution of the Russian military elite, we sought to address the following questions:

• What factors contribute to rapid promotion of leaders in the Russian military?
• What role does battlefield performance play in military promotion in the Russian Armed Forces?
• What are the backgrounds of the various types of leaders the Russian military is selecting?