Leaked counterintelligence document reveals Russian concerns about Chinese spying
June 9, 2025 6 Comments
A LEAKED REPORT AUTHORED by Russia’s primary counterintelligence agency reveals deep concern in national security circles about the intensity of Chinese spying against Russian interests, according to The New York Times. The paper said last week that the leaked report, which was produced by Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) between 2023 and 2024, offers “the most detailed behind-the-scenes view” of Russia’s counterintelligence concerns about China.
Following the death of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin, the two communist countries became sworn enemies and nearly went to all-out war against each other. But in recent years Moscow and Beijing put aside their differences, prompted by their mutual desire to challenge the geopolitical supremacy of the United States and bring about a multipolar world. Since 2022, when Moscow resumed its military invasion of Ukraine, Beijing has stood firmly by the Kremlin. China has become the largest importer of Russian energy and has provided the Russian military with much-needed advanced technology. The relationship between the two neighboring nations appears to be deeper than ever before.
But according to a recently leaked report, Russia’s national security establishment is deeply concerned about Chinese efforts to dominate its ally by spying against it. The eight-page report outlines “ENTENTE-4”, a counterintelligence program run by the 7th Service of the FSB’s Department for Counterintelligence Operations. The department is known by its Russian acronym, DKRO. The DKRO’s 7th Service is tasked with counterintelligence planning and operations against Asian countries, with China being its primary target.
According to The Times, the DKRO produced the report sometime between 2023 and 2024. The document appears to have been intended for distribution to the FSB’s field offices across Russia. It was acquired by ARES Leaks, a cyber criminal syndicate, which posted images of the document on the Telegram messenger application. The paper said it shared the leaked document with “six Western intelligence agencies”, all of which assessed it to be genuine. Read more of this post
TWO RUSSIAN SPIES USED forged documents acquired in Brazil in order to live in Portugal for years and use it as a base from where to conduct espionage, according to an investigation by Portuguese counterintelligence. The spies were husband-and-wife team Vladimir Aleksandrovich Danilov and Yekaterina Leonidovna Danilova, both in their 30s. 
DANIEL KHALIFE, A BRITISH soldier who spied for Iran, has been found guilty of espionage and terrorism, in a case that has revealed serious vulnerabilities in the British security clearance-vetting system. The then-20-year-old Khalife was arrested in January 2022 while serving on active duty in Staffordshire, in Britain’s Midlands region. He was charged with violating the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the Terrorism Act 2000.
THE ISRAELI SECURITY AGENCY (ISA) has announced the 
TANG YUANJUN WAS 
THE NETHERLANDS’ NEW PRIME minister has officially banned the use of all wireless devices from cabinet meetings, reportedly to defend against espionage operations from foreign actors. The move comes following 
A RUSSIAN WOMAN IS under arrest in Denmark, reportedly in connection with a surreptitious legal fund that is allegedly connected to intelligence operations conducted by the Kremlin. The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) 
THE SPY CONFLICT BETWEEN China and the United Kingdom escalated last week, as the Chinese government accused a married couple of carrying out espionage missions on behalf of British intelligence. In a rare statement to the press, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) 
ON GOOD FRIDAY, MARCH 29, Egisto Ott, a former member of Austria’s now-dissolved domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism (BVT), was arrested in his house in Carinthia, Austria’s southernmost state. Ott had frequently been at the center of media attention in the past year, in connection with the network surrounding the fugitive 
These included contacts in friendly foreign police services, whom Ott knew from his time as a liaison officer in Italy and Turkey. According to Gridling, these contacts were unaware that Ott had been removed from the BVT under suspicion of being unreliable and potentially even working for Russia. They therefore continued to help him when asked. Ott allegedly deceived his contacts by claiming that he needed information on cases relating to different kinds of extremism. As it turned out, according to the leaked arrest warrant, several of the individuals referred to by Ott as “suspects” in terrorism investigations were in fact Russian dissidents or intelligence defectors who were living as protected persons in Austria and elsewhere outside Russia.
AGENTS OF THE CUBAN government have “penetrated virtually every segment of the United States national security structure,” enabling Havana to share actionable intelligence with Russia and China, according to a new report. Citing former United States and Cuban intelligence officers, The Wall Street Journal 
AN AFGHAN-BORN MAN, who became a naturalized British citizen and worked for British intelligence for over a decade, is attempting to regain his British citizenship, which was revoked after he was accused of being a Russian spy. The man, who is identified in court documents only as “C2”, was born in Afghanistan and grew up under the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan he left the country alongside the Russian forces and resettled in Russia, where he attended university and married a Russian woman.
BEIJING HAS ACCUSED “FOREIGN governments” of collecting data on China through hundreds of fake meteorological stations that have been illegally installed throughout Chinese territory. The announcement appears to form part of a broader “people’s anti-espionage war” that the Communist Party of China 
AUTHORITIES IN BRITAIN HAVE charged three Bulgarian nationals with spying for Russia, as part of “a major national security investigation” that led to at least five arrests as early as last February. Two of the Bulgarians appear to be legally married. They have been identified as Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, and Katrin Ivanova, 31, who live in Harrow, a northwestern borrow of Greater London. The third Bulgarian, Orlin Roussev, 45, was arrested in Great Yarmouth, a seaside town in the east coast identity dof England. None of the suspect appears to have a formal diplomatic connection to either Bulgaria or Russia.
AUTHORITIES IN BRAZIL HAVE launched a nationwide probe into the abuse of the country’s citizenship documentation system by Russian spies, who are allegedly using it to build forged identities. 
intelNews.org 
Soldier with far-right links becomes first convicted spy in New Zealand history
August 19, 2025 by Joseph Fitsanakis 1 Comment
According to reports, a member of the New Zealand Defence Force, who has not been named, drew the attention of the authorities in the aftermath of the 2019 Christchurch shooting. The attack was carried out by Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant, who stormed a mosque with an automatic weapon, killing 51 and injuring nearly 100 people. The terrorist attack sparked a widespread investigation into far-right militancy in the Australian and New Zealand armed forces, which continues to this day.
The soldier was found to have contacts with a number of local far-right groups, including the Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia. Government prosecutors said that, while observing the soldier’s activities, government agents found out that he had “made contact with a third party, indicating that he was a soldier” and signaling his desire to defect to a foreign country. They eventually approached the soldier using an undercover officer who pretended to be a representative of the country whose officials the soldier had previously contacted. The soldier told the undercover officer that he was prepared to “get a covert device into army headquarters” and offered to provide “mapping and photographs” of classified government facilities.
During his trial, the soldier pled guilty, admitting that he had tied to spy for a foreign government, and adding that his ultimate goal was to “leave New Zealand and get to what I thought was safety”. Following the soldier’s conviction, the three-judge military panel said it would announce the sentence later this week. The country for which the convicted soldier offered to spy has not been named.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 August 2025 | Permalink
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