Recent Russian Intelligence Operations

[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...

[Azor]

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...

Thus far, the outed agents seem to all be low-end provocateurs and legal agents with diplomatic status.

Russia has some of the best HUMINT capabilities in the world, and decades more experience than anyone else.

I have no doubt that they gave Manning and Snowden the necessary nudges.

[OUTLAW 09]

Thus far, the outed agents seem to all be low-end provocateurs and legal agents with diplomatic status.

Russia has some of the best HUMINT capabilities in the world, and decades more experience than anyone else.

I have no doubt that they gave Manning and Snowden the necessary nudges.

I will digress a moment....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...

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 I West Berlin....

What is interesting is that every German and foreigner who was in West Berlin has the right to have the Stasi records searched for any reference to yourself.....but that search does not extend to the MfS spy records returned to the US....

But what was never told to the US population was the fact that there were approximately 100 identified spies...who never were clearly identified either because you could not get a feel for where the documents came from nor get a feel of the person meaning name...or birth date or US addresses....

Why was that ..once recruited by MfS and if they returned to the US their handlers would become GRU or KGB resident US agents....even the 70/80s the GRU/KGB agents in the US gave the FBI CI a true run for their money.....

BUT a side effect was Soviets and now Russians tend to get into a spy rut and get into habits that if known usually out them....

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 persons life story....

Now things are much harder due to the ease of travel and lessen visa requirements..here in Berlin Russians are literally everywhere and are buying up property at an amazing rate with black money..so are they spies..good businesspeople with black money or just out right criminals...

Will digress again concerning German records keeping..amazing..simply amazing....here in Germany there is a standard Police requirement to register with them every time you move or change residence....

Most Americans would revolt and claim police state..but those records do go back physically on mirco fiche to the 1850s...as many were not destroyed by WW2.....the US captured for example 98% of the entire NSDAP membership records....95% of all the SS membership records....and had the entire records of all transports to the German concentration camps by rail car number...number of individuals inside each and by name...

AND if you are a German retiree of the WW2 period..your name is automatically checked in this record center prior to receiving your pension and the same now goes for MfS records if you are retiring from this period of time....

That is how studious Germans are with their paperwork and the Stasi was no different for 45 years....

[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.

[AdamG]

Under the guise of a journalist, the assassin, Artur Denisultanov-Kurmakayev, tried to murder Ms. Okuyeva and her husband, Adam Osmayev, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.

The plot went awry because Ms. Okuyeva was also armed, and the details of the attack and its aftermath are now shedding light on Kiev’s role as a testing ground for what Ukrainian officials say are hybrid war activities by Russia, including assassinations.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/0...a-okuyeva.html

[Azor]

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/0...a-okuyeva.html

I would be careful about ascribing this attempted assassination to Putin. Most likely its sponsor was Kadyrov. Kadyrov spent a number of years murdering members of rival Chechen clans or faction, including in Moscow, and many exiles from these groups have joined the war in Donbas on behalf of Ukraine, while the Kadyrovtsi have joined the (pro)Russian side.

[davidbfpo]

A fascinating short article 'Ivan Maisky’s diaries offer a spying masterclass that is still relevant today' on Stalin's Ambassador in London (1932-1943) and how he conducted his diplomacy - with clear parallels to his Russian successor in Washington DC today.

It is a historical article, but there is no suitable place in the Historians arena.

An earlier 2015 article on Maisky's diaries (since published):https://theconversation.com/diary-of...d-war-ii-47054

The current article:https://theconversation.com/ivan-maiskys-diaries-offer-a-spying-masterclass-that-is-still-relevant-today-78866?

[AdamG]

Got OPSEC?

No, no you don't....
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/us-...ion-by-jogging