Managing multiple audiences: dual-track signals and the silencing of Russia’s globalized elites before the invasion of Ukraine

Why did Russia’s globally integrated elites – technocrats, oligarchs, and policy professionals – remain passive and unprepared before the 24 February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, despite escalating belligerence from the Kremlin? I argue that a deliberate strategy of dual-track signaling – hawkish public mobilization for mass and nationalist audiences, paired with private reassurances and costly “business-as-usual” cues to globally exposed insiders – systematically depressed elites’ perceived probability of war and neutralized potential opposition. The analysis traces 2020–2022 signals across channels and codes, triangulating leaked conversations, elite testimonies, official denials and ultimatums, sequencing of coercive diplomacy, energy and fiscal moves, and behavioral indicators. This evidentiary record shows that technocrats and business leaders were actively misdirected, not merely uninformed, and that minimal preinvasion hedging was followed by a sharp postinvasion scramble. I distinguish dual-track signaling from ordinary secrecy by demonstrating purposive misdirection targeted at a domestic subaudience, and assess rival explanations – repression, overconfidence, resignation – as contributing but insufficient absent the informational trap. Theoretically, the study advances research on multivocal propaganda and authoritarian coalition management by specifying a mechanism linking audience segmentation to elite quiescence – and by identifying its tradeoff: secrecy and compartmentalization that preserve domestic calm ex ante but degrade deliberation and planning ex post.

Continue reading the article by Mikhail Troitskiy in Post-Soviet Affairs.