Analysis: Russia’s policy in Ukraine part of wider anti-NATO plan
May 8, 2014 Leave a comment
By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org
Russia’s tactical maneuvering in Ukraine is part of a wider strategy of pushing back Western influence from former Soviet territories, according to East European and Western officials. That is the conclusion in a lead article in the latest issue of Time magazine, which quotes several eponymous sources, including John McLaughlin, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Marina Kaljurand, Estonia’s ambassador to Washington. She tells the newsmagazine that Russia’s meddling in Ukraine forms part of a carefully organized and well-funded strategy that involves “overt and covert” operations throughout Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Kaljurand says the operations include “a range of Cold War espionage tools”, such as planted agents, citizen groups funded by the Kremlin, as well as recruitment of intelligence assets. The aim, she argues, is to “restore in one form or another the power of the Russian Federation in the lands where Russian people live”. Western officials quoted in the Time article seem to agree that the strategy has a long-term, wider goal, which is “to undermine and roll back Western power” in former Soviet lands. Currently, Russian push-back operations are not only underway in Ukraine, but also in Latvia, where nearly half of the population consists of ethnic Russians, as well as in Estonia, where one in four citizens is Russian in origin. As in all former Soviet republics, many ethnic Russians in Estonia are members of the Coordination Council of Russian Compatriots, a group that is coordinated, guided, and often funded, by the Russian embassy in the country. In a recent report, the Estonian Internal Security Service said the Russian embassy in Tallinn is “guiding the Russian-speaking population […] by using influence operations inherited from the KGB”. IntelNews regulars will recall the case of Herman Simm, the high-level official at the Estonian Ministry of Defense, who once headed the country’s National Security Authority. He was arrested in 2008 and later convicted for —among other things— giving classified North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) material to Russia. Two years later, Estonia had been subjected to a sustained cyberattack after its government removed a statue commemorating the Soviet military contribution to World War II from downtown Tallinn. Read more of this post
Efforts to restore US-German intelligence cooperation collapse
May 9, 2014 by Joseph Fitsanakis Leave a comment
Negotiations aimed at restoring the intelligence relationship between America and Germany, following revelations last year that Washington spied on the communications of German leaders, collapsed before German Chancellor Angela Merkel met US President Barack Obama last week. The two leaders had planned to make a public statement during Mrs. Merkel’s official visit to Washington last Friday, announcing a new intelligence agreement between their respective countries. But the announcement was never made, as Ukraine dominated the political agenda. IntelNews readers will recall the dramatic way in which Germany and the United States fell out in October of last year, after American intelligence defector Edward Snowden revealed an invasive intelligence-gathering operation by the US National Security Agency (NSA). The program targeted the private communications of senior German officials, including those of Mrs. Merkel, for nearly a decade. The New York Times said last week that the collapse of the bilateral intelligence negotiations between Washington and Berlin prompted “bitter recriminations on both sides” about who was responsible for their failure. It appears that German officials insisted on drafting a “no-spy” agreement between the two countries, which would prevent them from conducting espionage operations on each other’s territory. American officials, however, rejected the proposal, arguing it would create a precedent that every other European and Asian American ally, including France, Britain, Japan, South Korea, and others, would wish to replicate. Earlier this year, President Obama assured the German side that the NSA would never again target the communications of Chancellor Merkel. But German officials noted that the President said nothing about targeting other senior German officials, nor did he mention anything about the NSA’s other operations on German soil. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with communications interception, Edward Snowden, Germany, intelligence cooperation, Martina Renner, News, United States