Quote Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09 View Post
Sorry disagree with you...European intel services are indicating the Russian influence ops against the US dates back to 2004 maybe 2005 if one really takes the time to track the info and cyber ops side...

If one assumes the Russian spy term "agent of influence" then is in fact correct as to how they define it..........Trump was in the Soviet Union for the first time in 1987....

Soviet KGB and GDR MfS tracked my movements from 1971 onwards....and I knew they were watching from 1972 onwards....remember I probably have far more border crossing stamps in my passport into the former East Bloc than you have entry stamps into the US....when you inherently knew the GDR/Czech/Polish/Soviet border crossing procedures and then are suddenly and totally strip searched for no reason other being told to..... you fully understand that you are being monitored....

Soviet and now Russian intel services are like elephants....slow and thoughtful in planning.......very long in memory. They did not approach me until 1988 and then they got burned badly for their miscalculation.....so what is that say 17 years.....???
If you were known to the KGB and StaSi, and were being monitored, then how effectively could you have executed your tasks when the time came?

Correct me if I am wrong, but your unit was tasked with subversion and guerrilla warfare in general, and more specifically, to assassinate key Soviet and East German military and intelligence officers, as well as to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. If you were known to the enemy, they would obviously seek to eliminate you first, and of course, had their own SOF/intelligence teams in Western Europe with the same mission sets in mind.

You may also correct me if I say that the Soviets were not your priority. You were in West Berlin, and "unifying" the capital was the preserve of the NVA, not the Soviets. This is not to say that you wouldn't have jaunted over to Karlshorst or Zossen-Wuensdorf to pay your respects to the Ivans, time permitting, but your targets were unreconstructed militant Germans who had traded brown for red, no?