Recent Russian Intelligence Operations

[Azor]

…the former KGB and now FSB were and are still solid intel groups…but in some aspects the GDR MfS (Stasi) took it to new levels in their BRD influence ops several of which led to deaths of politicians still not fully explained to today...

I assume that you mean the GRU/KGB and the GRU/SVR, respectively. FSB now handles counter-intelligence and domestic intelligence, albeit it has been involved in Ukraine. Having said that, Moscow considers various parts of Ukraine to be part of Russia, so the FSB would be involved there as opposed to say developing and managing assets in the United States.

The HVA was certainly not above direct assassination or the use of terrorist proxies. Yet in the end, the MfS failed in its primary mission to protect the SED and the DDR. The reunification process was rather lenient on a service whose activities went well beyond espionage, and which deliberately committed murders and terrorist atrocities.

I have heard it argued that the greatest success of the Warsaw Pact intelligence services was to promote anti-nationalism, anti-Christianity, political correctness and multiculturalism in Western Europe, in a bid to sap patriotic sentiment, demoralize the population and thereby undermine the ideologies most resistant to Communist rule. As an example, it was said that Olaf Palme was under such influence. I have not investigated this line of thought, so it may well be wrong.

Given the relatively recent discoveries of Herman Simm, Aleksei Dressen, Shigehiro Hagisaki and Jeffrey DeLisle, I would say that the Russians are still quite capable of turning key NATO insiders. The fact that two of these names are Estonian should put to bed your praise for Estonian intelligence, as it takes more than a few years to recover from such blows; moreover, they are indicative of deeper rot. Incidentally, the former President of Estonia under whose watch these traitors were operating became quite agitated when reminded of them by yours truly.

Secondly, the US was able during the confusion immediately after the fall to "acquire" most of the MfS Foreign spy service documents and were able to identify a number of recruited US spies usual business people and military that had been in West Berlin...

I have no doubt that the CIA created a dragnet across East-Central Europe in the early 1990s. I would imagine that the CIA and other Western intelligence services have replaced the FSB/GRU/SVR in Ukraine: those parts under Kiev’s control.

German CI types knew for example that a true mole could only recall their full new cover story for roughly 15 years and then the story would start to alter...that is why they demand a regular series of re-reviews of the security clearance paperwork...and usually that tends to point them to subtle changes in a person’s life story...

Interesting. I think the same checks should be applied to spouses. After fifteen years they can be very different from when they were on honeymoon. Of course, with no-fault divorces and little recognition of prenuptial agreements, CI is difficult…

Most Americans would revolt and claim police state...but those records do go back physically on mirco fiche to the 1850s...
That is how studious Germans are with their paperwork and the Stasi was no different for 45 years...

Germany is by comparison a police state. The fact that the police happen to wear green and are generally friendly is irrelevant. I worry about German liberal democracy, as it is largely an Anglo-American imposition from 1945 to present, irrespective of the failed Liberal Revolutions and the brief interwar experiment.

I am highly suspicious of a society that can turn on a dime in lockstep, as Germany has been wont to do.