Information Operations Troops
Unit Overview (Information Operations Troops)
The Information Operations Troops (IOT; Russian: Voiska informatsionnykh operatsii) are a formation of the Russian Ministry of Defense that was publicly acknowledged on 22 February 2017, when Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu informed the State Duma that such troops had been created to conduct information operations and counterpropaganda; as of October 2024, no official, publicly released order-of-battle or organizational registry details their internal composition or numerical designations.
Unit 55111 — Public Data Status
The numeric designation military unit 55111 (v/ch 55111) is not tied to the Information Operations Troops in any authoritative, publicly available Ministry of Defense document; open sources up to October 2024 provide no official confirmation of this unit’s existence, mission, garrison, or chain of command, indicating that if such details exist they are not publicly disclosed and should be treated as non-public or classified information.
Command and Leadership
The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation has not publicly identified the commander of the Information Operations Troops; there is no authoritative open-source confirmation that a Lieutenant General named Pavel Konovalchik commands the IOT or military unit 55111, and in the absence of an official appointment published by the Russian government or the MoD, this leadership information cannot be validated.
Mission and Functional Roles
Russian doctrinal materials describe information confrontation as comprising information-technical and information-psychological components; within this framework, official statements indicate the Information Operations Troops are tasked with protecting the Armed Forces’ information infrastructure, conducting counterpropaganda, and providing information-domain support to military operations in coordination with other forces, while specific sub-tasks, procedures, and capabilities are not enumerated in public sources.
Organizational Placement and Coordination
The Information Operations Troops are a Ministry of Defense formation operating under the overall direction of the General Staff of the Armed Forces; publicly available MoD statements and reporting indicate that information-related tasks are coordinated with Electronic Warfare Troops, Signal Troops, and intelligence elements of the MoD, although no official organizational chart or command relationships for the IOT are published.
Infrastructure and Sites
No official, publicly accessible registry identifies the headquarters, garrisons, or support facilities of the Information Operations Troops or of military unit 55111; sensitive Russian units are commonly referenced by field post numbers without disclosing physical addresses in public materials, and absent an MoD disclosure, specific site information for the IOT is not available.
Training and Education
Russian military educational institutions publicly advertise programs in information security, communications, electronic warfare, psychology, and related disciplines; these include the Military Academy of Communications named after S. M. Budyonny in Saint Petersburg and the Military University of the Ministry of Defense in Moscow, which train personnel for information-related specialties, though open sources do not explicitly identify which programs feed directly into the Information Operations Troops.
Legal and Doctrinal Framework
Activities of the Armed Forces in the information sphere are framed by published documents including the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (approved 26 December 2014), the Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation (approved 5 December 2016), the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation (approved 2 July 2021), and the General Staff’s 2011 Conceptual Views on the Activities of the Armed Forces in the Information Space, which collectively define information security and information confrontation as state and defense tasks.
Operational Activity in Exercises
Official coverage of strategic exercises such as Zapad-2017, Vostok-2018, Tsentr-2019, Kavkaz-2020, Zapad-2021, and Vostok-2022 describes training in information confrontation, electronic warfare, and information support to operations; Ministry of Defense reporting does not attribute these tasks to a named Information Operations Troops unit, and no exercise communiqués identify military unit 55111.
Related Government Units Publicly Attributed by Foreign Authorities
Foreign governments have publicly attributed specific cyber operations to components of the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GU/GRU), notably Unit 26165 (85th Main Special Service Center) and Unit 74455 (Main Center for Special Technologies); the United States Department of Justice issued indictments on 13 July 2018 naming personnel from these units, and the European Union imposed restrictive measures under its cyber sanctions regime in July 2020 that listed these GU structures, while the Russian government has not identified these entities as part of the Information Operations Troops.
Sanctions and Legal Proceedings
As of October 2024, multiple Western jurisdictions maintain sanctions and criminal cases related to cyber activities attributed to GU/GRU components including Units 26165 and 74455; publicly available sanctions lists do not include an entity titled Information Operations Troops or a unit identified as military unit 55111, and there is no official cross-listing that links these sanctioned entities to the IOT.
Information Gaps and Classification Status
Specific details such as internal structure, personnel strength, equipment inventories, leadership rosters, and site locations for the Information Operations Troops are not publicly released by the Russian Ministry of Defense; in the absence of official publication, those particulars should be regarded as non-public or classified, and claims regarding v/ch 55111 or its commander cannot be validated from authoritative open sources.
Summary
Public sources confirm that the Russian Ministry of Defense established Information Operations Troops and that national doctrinal documents assign information confrontation and information security roles to the Armed Forces; however, authoritative open materials do not disclose the numerical designations, garrisons, or leadership of these troops, and there is no official confirmation available for the identification of military unit 55111 or for the assertion that Lieutenant General Pavel Konovalchik commands it.