Recent Russian Intelligence Operations

[davidbfpo]

A short article on a "deep cover" Russian spy in Madrid, Spain for twenty years, using a New Zealand ID and a SIS approach - which was rejected:http://www.politico.eu/interactive/t...an-spy-moscow/

[SWJ Blog]

Milton Bearden's Requiem for a Russian Spy

An intriguing semi-obituary of a Soviet era KGB senior officer who committed suicide in March 2012, added here as the comments on the Soviet role in Afghanistan fit better: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._spy?page=full

Shebarshin's Afghan years convinced him of the futility of any occupation of that unruly, martial land and revealed the depth of the cooked intelligence that launched the Red Army's intervention and doggedly supported the failed military adventure for nine long years.
Even better is the tale of the crashed SU-25, which has a quirky end:

The Pakistanis, on America's behalf, made the colonel the usual offer: a condo in Phoenix, a Ford F-150 pickup truck, a good dog, and a good life.
______



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[OUTLAW 09]

So, a senior member of the Kremlin elite just publicly admitted, “Let’s be frank. #Snowden did share intelligence."
https://twitter.com/20committee/stat...67965799579648 …

HUGE: The Kremlin just admitted Snowden is a Russian agent
Deutsch: http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/e...1344.bild.html …
English: https://20committee.com/2016/07/02/t...russian-agent/ …

[AdamG]

Top notch OPSEC, Yuri.

Veteran spies in Russia have reacted in horror after a show of strength by newly graduated agents in a cortege of black Mercedes Gelandewagens.

The cavalcade by recently-qualified 007s from Vladimir Putin's espionage ranks has stunned Cold War specialists schooled in staying in the shadows.

The brash automobile parade through the streets of Moscow with horns blaring was variously reported as being by rookie agents from the foreign intelligence section of the FSB spy academy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ow-convoy.html

[OUTLAW 09]

Sanctioning the GRU, a decent step, but hamstrung by the need forSymmetry
by Mark Galeotti

The "Lame Duck" president has proven to have a surprisingly sharp and accurate peck, and as the USA strikes back against the Russian hacking and its role in the US elections with a welcome series of sanctions. Two point are worth bringing up: the way the issue instantly and depressingly becomes a partisan one.

It also suggests that the incoming administration is woefully ill-informed about the Russian intelligence community, or willing to leap through rhetorical hoops to protect it; and the needless and limiting philosophy behind the sanctions.

The Sanctions and the GRU

Kellyann Conway, counsellor to President-Elect Trump, told#CNN, while disparaging these so-called "symbolic" sanctions, that "the GRU doesn't really travel here, doesn't keep its assets here." OK, let's start with that.

If by "the GRU doesn't really travel here," she means senior officers such as the four figures directly sanctioned don't pop over to Epcot for family holidays, that is perfectly true. If by "the GRU ..., doesn't keep its assets here" she means the agency as a whole doesn't have McMansions in Texas and skiing chalets in Vermont, also technically true.

But.
First of all, the GRU has many assets in the espionage tradecraft terms in the USA: agents, networks, safehouses, dead drops, etc. This is an expansive and aggressive agency that while focusing on military intelligence has broadened out into covering a wide range of other missions, not least because of the competitive dynamic I outline in my recent ECFR report#Putin's Hydra.

So if we are talking about the GRU as a whole -- and Conway's phrasing suggests she was -- then of course the GRU has huge (even yuge) assets in the States, including its#rezidentura, its base within the embassy in DC.

Secondly, the point about sanctioning the guys at the top of the GRU is not because you're worried about them popping over the take advantage of the New Year sales on Fifth Avenue, but to demonstrate commitment. Yes, this is "symbolic" but much of politics is precisely about symbolism.
Punish the Criminal, Not the Instrument

However, here's my beef with the current philosophy of sanctions, the need artificially to create comparability and demonstrate direct connection. What does it matter if the hacks were done by the GRU (and as I understand it, they got the emails, but it was the FSB that pushed for their leakage and handled the dissemination and exploitation side of the operation)?

These are simply arms of a single, authoritarian state?

Why not hit people in the Presidential Administration, Duma, Senate, Putin's friends, his dogwalker, whoever?
When we convict a thug of punching someone, we don't punish him#by breaking his#arm, we punish the criminal as an entire person. By the same token, sanctions should target the state, not its individual instruments.

This is a reasonable set of sanctions, and can be welcomed. But for real effectiveness, for deterrent impact, arguably sanctions ought to be unreasonable, and directed at the source of the attack, not the instrument.

[OUTLAW 09]

BREAKING: Swedish police SPO says 30% of 100 employees in Russian embassy / Stockholm are spies. Threat to nat sec.
http://www.tv4play.se/program/nyhete...deo_id=3848612

[Azor]

Estonia has a very simple counterintelligence policy: it names and shames agents of the Kremlin annually:
http://thebea.st/2pgQblY

That's a public relations and counter-propaganda policy, not a counter-intelligence one.

[OUTLAW 09]

That's a public relations and counter-propaganda policy, not a counter-intelligence one.

THEN you do not understand the "Spy Wars".....

By naming and shaming you make both CI points and get PR....AND you effectively tell SVR/FSB that you have them in clear gun sights on every move they make....

The old style days of kicking out "suspected KGB Embassy officers" and vice versa was the 70/80s...this is a modern 21st century approach to the same process....

Do not think for a moment that those 35 Russian kicked out of the US recently were not somehow misidentified by the FBI.....

[OUTLAW 09]

I post this due simply to the fact that this journalist has broken correct and verified stories on the FISA warrant that was initially issued in the Russian connection investigations...

She is now building on the reporting being released in Europe from seven different European Intel services concerning Trump and Russian activities largely driven by the former head of MI6 who is highly respected in Europe for his level analysis...

The extremely interesting point is that all of this intelligence was passed to the FBI long before the actual US election and no action was undertaken by the FBI....it seems they were totally oblivious to Russian influence and hacking operations that were ongoing and still are ongong...

https://patribotics.blog/2017/04/16/...ed-with-trump/

Exclusive: Intelligence Sources: Flynn co-ordinated Russia's propaganda attack on the entire NATO alliance for Trump

Mike Flynn’s Treason Tour: Global Russian Propaganda Coordinated With#Trump
April 16, 2017 ~ patribotics

Sources linked to the intelligence community say that General Mike Flynn’s trips to Cambridge and across Europe will form a key part of Donald#Trump’s impeachment and the prosecutions of dozens of his associates.
According to several sources within the intelligence community, Michael Flynn was co-ordinating, with and for Russian agents, the drafting of messages that Vladimir Putin was using to attack democracy in not only the United States, but across Europe. Furthermore, Flynn was doing this with the full knowledge of the Trump campaign, including Donald Trump himself.
This news#directly relates to the data laundering performed by the Alfa Bank server on behalf of Donald Trump and Russia, where, as I reported, the Trump campaign colluded with the hacking of both the DNC and state voter databases.
The Alfa Bank server ‘washed’ that data together to tell Trump where to target it, sources say. But the messages and content#with which#targets were served was co-ordinated with Russia by General Flynn.
Furthermore, Flynn took the same hacking tools and artificial intelligence coded in Russia and helped far-right and Nazi parties across Europe use it in their own nations. Intelligence sources assert that multiple NATO partners have evidence of this and that it has been provided to the FBI.
If ‘data laundering’ is the first part of the Trump Russia incontrovertible evidence, ‘propaganda targeting’ is the second part. Flynn attacked not only the United States but all her Western allies on Russia’s behalf, with the full knowledge and connivance of Donald Trump.
Both halves of the social media impeachment will, sources assert, be key to Director Comey’s overall case. This is the ‘incontrovertible evidence’ to which Sir Richard Dearlove and others have referred.
Explaining Data Laundering and Fake News
The broad case of Russia’s hacking the US election can be divided into two relatively simple spheres. There is another branch of the criminal investigation that focuses on money-laundering and corrupt payments from Russia and Russian satellites to Mr. Trump and to his allies. But the actual hacking of the US election follows a relatively simple narrative line in two halves; hacking and targeting. Mr. Flynn’s activities spanned the two and link them to Russian active measures all across Europe, including the current attack on the French election.
As I previously reported in an exclusive story on this blog, the Trump server at Cendyn was communicating to Alfa Bank in Russia hacked data from state voter databases and the DNC’s own voter targeting engine, Vertica. The precise combination of these two databases allowed Cambridge Analytica and SCL both to create Russian-directed propaganda and target it at voting groups with extraordinary precision. Intelligence sources now tell me that SVB bank, the second bank named in the FISA warrant I exclusively reported on Nov 7th, was also involved in messaging Alfa Bank. There will be further explanation of that in another post.

Continued....

[Azor]

THEN you do not understand the "Spy Wars".....

By naming and shaming you make both CI points and get PR....AND you effectively tell SVR/FSB that you have them in clear gun sights on every move they make....

The old style days of kicking out "suspected KGB Embassy officers" and vice versa was the 70/80s...this is a modern 21st century approach to the same process....

Do not think for a moment that those 35 Russian kicked out of the US recently were not somehow misidentified by the FBI.....

It's PR not secret intelligence. I suppose it's a way to make up for years of Russia's soft power and the fact that it took a Russian invasion of Ukraine to scare Estonia into meeting its defense commitments to NATO.

[OUTLAW 09]

It's PR not secret intelligence. I suppose it's a way to make up for years of Russia's soft power and the fact that it took a Russian invasion of Ukraine to scare Estonia into meeting its defense commitments to NATO.

Simply put it is an embarrassment for the mighty FSB/SVR to have one of theirs outed in the media...and the long raining costs are lost forever as that agent is burned and cannot be used anywhere else in the world...

Main rule in spying to do not get caught in the first place...

[OUTLAW 09]

While this is not Russian hacking, propaganda and or disinformation it fits nicely into Russian Intelligence Service "active measures"...

"Revealed: Explosive Evidence Of A Russian Assassination On British Soil"
https://www.buzzfeed.com/heidiblake/...1N#.gi8774M6N#

[davidbfpo]

While this is not Russian hacking, propaganda and or disinformation it fits nicely into Russian Intelligence Service "active measures"...

"Revealed: Explosive Evidence Of A Russian Assassination On British Soil"

I have now read the first BuzzFeed article on murders in the UK with Russian links and found this passage was a useful summary for British action or inaction:

The core reason British authorities have turned a blind eye, a current senior national security adviser to the British government told BuzzFeed News, is fear. Ministers, he said, were not prepared to take the “political risk of dealing firmly and effectively in whatever way with the activities of the Russian state and Russian-organised crime in the UK” because the Kremlin could inflict massive harm on Britain by unleashing cyberattacks, destabilising the economy, or mobilising elements of Britain’s large Russian population to “cause disruption”. Deep law enforcement funding cuts mean “our capabilities are very weak”, he said. It was also impossible to rule out the risk of “general war with Russia” in the current climate, he said, and “if it were to happen it would happen very, very rapidly, and we would be entirely unprepared”. As a result, he concluded, ministers “desperately don’t want to antagonise the Russians” and senior figures in government had told him bluntly that there was “no political appetite to deal with the Russian Federation.

A strange explanation and totally ignores the UK's survival after the Litvenenko murder in London, with Polonium in 2006 and the rupture of official state-to-state relations.Yes there is a potential threat to the UK from Russian capabilities, but a "general war"?

As for the Russian population in the UK could 'cause disruption', really they are going to sell up and move? Leaving behind assets, schools and the comforts of Surrey. After all many are here to escape Russia and for reasons - that are obscure - get UK passports quickly.

Now there is HMG's inactivity on the "dirty" money from Russia; PM Cameron made a speech, in July 2015 on "cleaning up" London's property market and nothing then happened. Perhaps the influx of billions kept the post-crash property market was a policy consideration?

It does remind me of a discussion at a conference a few years ago when a retired Whitehall 'mandarin' explained that "Londonistan" was the result of low-level decisions, not those made at senior levels, let alone by politicians. An explanation that could be plausible, even when several European nations (France & Italy notably) expressed at a very senior level their concerns and the presence of many who were wanted for terrorist crimes - who were declined to extradite.

Would all these items reach policy makers, let alone elected politicians?

[AdamG]

The Russian spy ship first spotted near American waters last year is making its way back in the direction of the U.S., Fox News confirmed on Thursday.
The Victor Leonov is still in the Caribbean, according to officials, but heading north off the coast of Florida, home to a U.S. Navy base located in North Florida, east of Jacksonville.
The ship could be off the Florida coast by Friday if the ship maintains present course and speed, according to officials.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/01/18...to-region.html

[davidbfpo]

A developing story after ex-GRU Colonel Sergei Skripal, 66yrs, and his daughter Yulia, in her 30s, are critically ill in hospital after being found unconscious in Salisbury, Wiltshire. He was jailed for 13 years by Russia in 2006, convicted of passing the identities of agents working undercover in Europe to the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. In July 2010, he was one of four prisoners released by Moscow in exchange for 10 Russian spies arrested by the FBI as part of a swap. He was later flown to the UK.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43303651

There is speculation that their collapse in public was caused by an unknown substance; three emergency responders had mild symptoms.

For a comprehensive review Shashank Joshi, of RUSI has an article and BLUF:

Russia is happy to use assassination to satisfy political ends; Western countries have been insufficiently robust in the face of Russian provocation; If Russia poisoned Sergei Skripal, the attack represents a significant escalation

Link:https://capx.co/russia-sees-murder-a...litical-lever/

Mark Galeotti, a SME, has a commentary and here is a taster:

It seems to reflect a breakdown in the old etiquette of espionage, not only foreshadowing an even more vicious "shadow war" to come, but also challenging Western states to come up with new ways to respond to and deter these kinds of outrages.

Link:https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/former-russian-spook-incident-suggests-the-spy-rules-are-breaking-op-ed-60722?

The main thread on Russian intelligence operations has a two posts (47 & 48) on previous allegations, notably by BuzzFeed that the UK officially was not prepared to "take on" Russia over a series of unexplained deaths.
Link:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=14375&page=3

[Azor]

See here from BuzzFeed:

Now, BuzzFeed News can reveal that Puncher is among at least 14 people US intelligence officials suspect were killed in the UK by Russian mafia groups or secret services, two forces that sometimes work together, since Putin’s rise to power. Four American intelligence officials said US spies have gathered intelligence about the scientist’s death and believe that he “was assassinated”. They said they have passed MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence service, information connecting Puncher’s death – and 13 others – to Russia. Yet the British police have ruled out suspicions in all those cases and shut down any further investigation.

How can MI6 recruit agents in Russia when MI5 cannot protect defectors who become British citizens? Unfortunately, British intelligence probably has a similar reputation with disgruntled Russians as it did with disgruntled Soviets from the late 1940s to early 1960s.

Of course, having uncovered the most nefarious Russian intelligence operation since the penetration of the Manhattan Project, spymaster Christopher Steele is the jewel in Britain's crown, and his extensive training has enabled him, his family, and his pet(s) to escape the SVR and GRU...

[JHR]

After seven years.
If a message then to whom, for what?

[davidbfpo]

From the BBC and finally the 2017 Buzzfeed reports gain traction:

During the urgent question in the Commons, Labour's Yvette Cooper raised reports by BuzzFeed that 14 deaths in the UK had been linked to Russia by US spy agencies.
Ms Cooper, chairwoman of the Home Affairs select committee, asked Mr Johnson and the home secretary to order the National Crime Agency to urgently review the cases.
Mr Johnson said there were "a number of deeply troubling cases" and he would "certainly have that discussion with the home secretary".

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-43312625

[davidbfpo]

Citing JHR:

After seven years. If a message then to whom, for what?

I would contend some have been very patient and finally an opportunity came with the Colonel's daughter making a visit - she is normally resident in Moscow. IIRC the KGB and presumably the GRU had a stance on eliminating defectors; so has this stance remained in place? We are assuming this is not the action of unofficial persons.

For wiser words try this comment:https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...n-spy-agencies

[Windows97]

After seven years.
If a message then to whom, for what?

Quite possibly to send a message to anyone within the current regime or within the country itself who may be chafing under the Putin system that dissenters / turncoats / "traitors" will not be tolerated and can be reached regardless of where they are or when. After several years these current targets must have become complacent / lacked opsec so were probably easy targets, especially if thy hung around emigre circles.