2024-03-10 10:37:28
After failing “several times”… How do the “Kremlin spies” try to correct their course?
The interception of a secret conversation between German officers regarding military aid to Kiev revealed active Russian espionage once morest the backdrop of the war once morest Kiev following Kremlin intelligence failed several times.
The first year of the conflict in Ukraine witnessed “mass expulsion campaigns” of Russian spies who were working under diplomatic cover in Europe, and their number is estimated in the hundreds.
“This had an impact on operations,” said investigative journalist Andrei Soldatov, founder of the website Agentura.ru, according to what was reported by Agence France-Presse.
The Military Intelligence Service, the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the successor to the Soviet Intelligence Service (KGB) misjudged the Ukrainian resistance following the invasion of February 24, 2022.
Russian intelligence services also did not expect an attempt to rebel once morest Moscow by the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in June 2023.
Undeniable successes
Andrei Soldatov said that “they were able, however, to correct their situation and now we are witnessing more and more operations being carried out in Europe, for disinformation, liquidation or infiltration of agents and espionage,” considering that it is “a very great effort on their part.”
Russian intelligence services have made headlines in recent weeks with undeniable successes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the end of February that Russia was able to uncover plans for the Ukrainian counterattack for 2023 even before it began. His failure was a severe blow to Ukraine.
Another success for Russian intelligence was the broadcast of a 38-minute video meeting on March 1 on the commercial channel Vibex, between German officers discussing the possible delivery of long-range Taurus missiles to Kiev.
This incident sparked discontent among Germany’s allies and caused a scandal at the level of the German state.
The German Defense Minister explained that one of the participants was in Singapore and participated in the meeting via an “unauthorized connection,” which led to Russian eavesdropping systems intercepting these discussions, referring to an “individual error.”
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, intelligence remained a priority for the Kremlin, especially since the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, the KGB man who was based in East Germany in the 1980s.
New faces and fake companies
Weakened by mass expulsions from Europe, Russians “now depend on foreign nationals,” Andrei Soldatov said. “We see Serbs, Bulgarians and other citizens, as well as Austrians, for example, participating in Russian operations.”
The former director of French military intelligence, retired General Christophe Gomard, said: “They are constantly adapting, and there is no doubt that they have exploited Ukrainian refugees and Russian exiles, including agents.”
The London-based research center Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) says that Russian military intelligence has reformed its operations management to improve the accuracy and evaluation of information. It sometimes recruits new faces through fake companies.
This study indicates that, according to the tradition of “illegal” informants, these recruits have no connection to official organizations, which makes it difficult for Western counterintelligence to detect them.
Some are even recruited from foreign students, from the Balkans, Africa or even Latin America.
Wartime and peacetime
Apart from the traditional mission of collecting sensitive information, the goal, experts say, is to destabilize European societies, weaken support for Ukraine, and push towards a division among the allies, and this is what the revelation of eavesdropping on German officers falls within the framework of.
Oleksandr Danylyuk, one of the report’s authors, noted that the Russians are “so good because Westerners have been naive since 1991 (the year the Soviet Union collapsed). “They do not understand the Russian threat, and they lack Russian-speaking experts and staff.”
General Gomard said, “The real problem for Westerners today is that they do not understand the risks well and show excessive confidence and laziness, which led to the Germans intercepting (the conversation)” because they did not use encrypted and protected means that are less easy to hack.
Andrei Soldatov considered that the main factor in explaining this is psychological. He said, “The Russian army lives in a state of war, while the Europeans technically live in peacetime.”
He added, “Changing a military culture in peacetime is very difficult.”
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