Russian spies are back—and more dangerous than ever

The last few years were terrible for Russian spies. In 2020, operatives of Russia’s security service, the FSB, poisoned Alexei Navalny, the most vocal opposition activist. They mocked him for spilling Novichok on his underwear. The FSB then gave the Kremlin a rosy view of how the war would play out, exaggerating Ukraine’s internal vulnerabilities. It failed to prevent Western agencies from stealing and publicizing Russia’s plans to invade Ukraine. And it was unwilling or unable to stop a brief rebellion last year by Yevgeny Prigozhin, leader of the Wagner mercenary group. The SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, saw its presence in Europe reduced, with approximately 600 officials expelled from embassies across the continent. Devastatingly, at least eight “illegals” – intelligence officers operating without diplomatic cover, often posing as non-Russians – were exposed.

RUSI’s study, written by a pair of the organization’s analysts, Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds, and Oleksandr Danylyuk, a former adviser to both Ukraine’s defense minister and foreign intelligence chief, is based on documents “obtained from Russian special services.” Interviews with “relevant official bodies” – possibly intelligence agencies – in Ukraine and Europe. In late 2022, Russia realized it needed more honest reporting from its agencies. It put Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko in charge of “committees with special influence”. They coordinate and then evaluate operations against the West.

The personnel change appears to have led to more consistent promotional campaigns. For example, in Moldova, a once widespread disinformation effort against the country’s bid for EU membership became more consistent and focused last year. It linked the merger bid to the president personally, while also blaming him for Moldova’s economic problems. Campaigns aimed at reducing European support for Ukraine have also intensified. In January German experts published details of bots spreading hundreds of thousands of German-language posts a day on X (Twitter as it was) from a network of 50,000 accounts a month. On February 12, France uncovered a large network of Russian sites spreading disinformation in France, Germany and Poland.

disgusting them

Meanwhile, Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU is also reevaluating its tradecraft. In recent years, many of the personnel, activities, and facilities of its Unit 29155—which attempted to assassinate former GRU officer Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, UK in 2018—were exposed by Bellingcat. The investigative group draws on public information and leaked Russian databases for its revelations.

The GRU concluded that its personnel were leaving behind a lot of digital breadcrumbs, especially by taking their mobile phones to sensitive sites linked to Russian intelligence. It also realized that the expulsion of Russian intelligence officers from Europe made it harder to deploy operations and control agents abroad – one reason why the invasion of Ukraine failed.

The result was wholesale reforms, which began in 2020 but accelerated after the war began. The head of Unit 29155, General Andrei Averyanov, despite his hard work, was promoted to deputy head of the GRU and a new “Service for Special Activities” was established. The personnel of Unit 29155 – once exemplified by Alexander Mishkin and Anatoly Chepiga, the ill-fated poisoners of Mr. Skripal, who insisted that they had gone to Salisbury to see the cathedral’s famous spire – were now their personal or does not carry working phones into its facility, instead using landlines Training is conducted not on site but in a variety of safe houses While half the personnel once came from Spetsnaz, Russia’s special forces, most are new recruits. no longer have military experience, making it difficult for Western security services to identify them through old photographs or leaked databases.

A separate branch of the service for special activities, Unit 54654, is designed to create a network of illegals that Russia calls “full legalization” – capable of passing muster even under the close scrutiny of a foreign spy agency. Capacity. It recruits contractors from shell companies, keeps their names and details out of government records, and assigns its executives to ministries or private companies unaffiliated with defence. The GRU has also targeted foreign students studying at Russian universities, offering scholarships to students from the Balkans, Africa and elsewhere. In the developing world.

For another example of how Russian spies have turned disaster into opportunity, consider the case of the Wagner Group, a chain of major companies overseen by Mr. Prigozhin. Wagner initially served as an unaccountable branch of Russian influence, providing strength and firepower to local autocrats in Syria, Libya, and other African countries. In June 2023, angry at the mismanagement of the war by Russia’s defense minister and army chief, Mr Prigozhin marched on Moscow. The rebellion stopped; Mr. Prigozhin died two months later when his plane exploded in midair.

Russia’s special services quickly divided Mr. Prigozhin’s vast military-criminal enterprise among themselves. The FSB will maintain domestic businesses and the SVR media weapons, such as the troll farms that interfered in the US presidential election in 2016. The GRU received foreign military parts, divided into a volunteer corps for Ukraine and an expeditionary corps, managed by General Evrenov, for the rest of the world. RUSI says it missed its target of recruiting 20,000 soldiers by the end of last year, although its strength is “continuing to grow”. There have been some hiccups: Mr. Prigozhin’s son, who is mysteriously alive and free, offered Wagner troops from the Rosgvardia, Russia’s national guard, which sparked the war between the Guard and the GRU, according to the RUSI authors.

The net result of this consolidation is a revived Russian threat in Africa. Shortly after Mr Prigozhin’s death, General Evrenov visited various African capitals in what RUSI describes as a “regime survival package”. In theory the proposals include providing the GRU with military strength and propaganda against local rivals and local elites. In return Russia would gain economic concessions, such as lithium mines and gold refineries, and thus gain an advantage over enemies, perhaps the ability to isolate France from uranium mines in Niger (France needs uranium for its nuclear power stations). Need)’s malicious influence is alive; ,

Russian intelligence, though hurt, is firmly on its feet after its latest humiliation. In recent weeks the Riga-based investigative website Insider has published a series of stories documenting Russian espionage and influence across Europe. They include details of how a GRU officer in Brussels was providing European equipment to Russian arms manufacturers, and the revelation that a top aide in the Bundestag and a Latvian member of the European Parliament were both Russian agents, the latter probably from Even for more than 20 years.

“It’s not as bad for them as we think,” says Andrei Soldatov, an investigative journalist who believes Russian services are “back with a vengeance” and increasingly inventive. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president and one-time (mediocre) KGB officer, is “trying to restore the glory of Stalin’s formidable secret service,” explains Mr Soldatov. He points to a case from April 2023 when Artem Us, a Russian businessman, was arrested. Milan was deported back to Russia with the help of a Serbian criminal gang – a common intermediary for Russian services – on suspicion of smuggling US military technology into Russia.

In the past, says Mr. Soldatov, there was a clear division of labor among the FSB, SVR and GRU. not anymore. All three agencies have been particularly active in recruiting amid the flood of exiles leaving Russia after the war. It is easier to hide agents in a large group and intimidate those who still have family in Russia.

mission Possible

Furthermore, Russian cyber-activity continues to grow stronger. In December the US and Britain issued public warnings over “Star Blizzard”, an elite FSB hacking group that has been targeting NATO countries for years. The following month Microsoft said that “Cozy Bear”, a group associated with SVR, had infiltrated email accounts belonging to some of the company’s most senior executives. This came on top of a sophisticated GRU cyberattack against Ukraine’s power grid, causing a blackout apparently coordinated with Russian missile attacks on the same city.

The upgrade of Russia’s intelligence apparatus comes at a critical moment in the East-West competition. An annual report by Norway’s intelligence service, published on 12 February, warned that, in Ukraine, Russia was “seizing the initiative and gaining the upper hand militarily”. Estonia’s counterpart report, released just a day later, said the Kremlin was “anticipating potential conflict with NATO within the next decade”.

The priority of Russian spies is to prepare for that conflict not only by stealing secrets but also by increasing rifts within NATO, undermining support for Ukraine in the US and Europe, and undermining Western influence in the global South. In contrast, Russia has carried out very little sabotage against Ukrainian supplies to Europe. One reason for this is the Kremlin’s fear of increasing tension. The second thing is that the Russians cannot do everything at once, everywhere.

Meanwhile, the detectives will continue the fight against their comrades. Estonian foreign intelligence services published in their report the identities of Russians working on behalf of the country’s intelligence services. Estonian spies said, “For those who prefer not to find their names and images in our publications with links to the FSB or other Russian intelligence officers, which could potentially affect their relations with the West, we contact ” Confident that mutually beneficial arrangements can be negotiated!”

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Published: 26 April 2024, 09:12 PM IST