Alleged Russian spy and sabotage cell busted in Poland [updated]

March 16, 2023 by 1 Comment

Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport PolandSIX NINE MEMBERS OF AN alleged Russian saboteur cell have been arrested in Poland, according to media reports and official acknowledgements by Polish authorities. Early reports on Wednesday afternoon local time centered on the arrests of six nine individuals, who were detained on suspicion of conducting espionage and planning sabotage attacks against various elements of transportation infrastructure.

Radio station RMF24 FM reported that the six nine individuals were detained following a number of early-morning raids conducted by the Polish Internal Security Agency (ABW), which is the country’s primary counterintelligence and counterterrorism organization. At least some of the six nine individuals are reportedly Belarusian nationals who were active in Poland’s southeastern Podkarpackie Voivodeship, a largely rural province that borders Ukraine’s Lviv Oblast. Later on Wednesday, the RMF24 FM report was confirmed by Polish government officials, who spoke to the BBC.

Notably, the Podkarpackie Voivodeship is home to the Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport, located near the village of Jasionka, which is approximately 60 miles, or 100 kilometers, from the Ukrainian border. Since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, this provincial airport has been transformed into a major logistical gateway for the transportation of Western military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Dozens of Western aircraft land there every day, carrying supplies that are then loaded onto trucks or trains en route to Ukraine.

According to RMF24 FM, the six nine foreign nationals installed hidden miniature cameras at railway junctions and other strategic transportation hubs throughout the Podkarpackie Voivodeship. The cameras were allegedly used to collect information on the movement of trains and trucks that were being used to transport supplies from the Rzeszów–Jasionka International Airport to Ukraine. The radio station said that Polish authorities were scheduled to provide further information about the alleged spy cell at a press conference on Thursday.

[Updated to reflect arrest of nine individuals, as opposed to six, as initially reported]

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 16 March 2023 | Permalink

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Russia’s spy networks in Europe see greatest post-Cold War setback, experts claim

February 20, 2023 by 4 Comments

Russian embassy LondonRUSSIA’S ABILITY TO CONDUCT human intelligence operations in Europe has suffered greater damage in recent years than at any time since 1991, according to some experts. These setbacks have partly been caused by what The Washington Post refers to in a recent article as “a campaign to cripple Russian spy networks”, which is taking place across the continent. This Europe-wide campaign has grown in momentum since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and supplements boarder efforts to arm Ukraine in its war against the Kremlin.

The initial blow against the Kremlin’s spy network was delivered last year, when a wave of mass expulsions of Russian diplomats resulted in more than 400 suspected Russian intelligence officers being ordered to leave various European capitals. According to observes, the expelled Russian diplomats were in reality intelligence officers, who were active across Europe under diplomatic cover. Since that time, European counterintelligence agencies have launched a series of “precision strikes” against what remains of Russia’s human intelligence network across the continent.

The recent wave of expulsions of Russian intelligence personnel was not unprecedented. But it does suggest a degree of collaboration between Europe’s counterintelligence agencies that is difficult to match with historical examples. An interesting element in this collaboration is what The Washington Post describes as a “post-Ukraine shift in mind-set” in countries that had previously taken a softer approach toward the Kremlin. These include Germany, as well as Britain, which since 2018 has “refused on national security grounds over 100 Russian diplomatic visa applications”.

Russia’s response has been noticeably muted, and may mean that Moscow was caught off-guard by this Europe-wide counterintelligence campaign. The Post quotes Antti Pelttari, director of the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service (SUPO), who claims that the Russian capability to conduct human intelligence operations in Europe “has been degraded considerably”. This would imply that the Kremlin’s ability to carry out covert political action, such as political influence campaigns and related psychological operations, has been curtailed. Moreover, it is likely that the Russian intelligence services are unable to adequately assist the Kremlin’s decision-making capabilities with actionable information. Read more of this post

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Tension mounts as South Korea launches largest anti-spying operation in 30 years

February 14, 2023 by Leave a comment

NIS South KoreaTENSION IS MOUNTING BETWEEN the government and opposition forces in South Korea, as the conservative administration of President Yoon Suk Yeol appears to be behind an effort to probe alleged links between senior liberal political figures and North Korean intelligence. The effort, which some commentators suggest could be the largest counter-espionage operation in the country’s history since 1992, is being led by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

The operation came to light on January 18, when hundreds of police officers, led by NIS officers, conducted search raids at a number of regional offices of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU). Founded in the mid-1990s, the KCTU is South Korea’s second-largest labor coalition, representing over 1.1 million members. It is politically aligned with the Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), a left-of-center liberal coalition which was in government until last year. Since its establishment in 2014, the DPK has been engaged in a bitter political rivalry with the People Power Party (PPP), a conservative coalition that currently governs South Korea.

According to reports, the NIS is investigating charges that members of the KCTU formed “a clandestine organization” that engaged in protests against the United States and organized “various subversive campaigns under instructions from North Korea”. According to the NIS, the clandestine organization was led by a senior KCTU official, who was handled by clandestine operatives of North Korea’s ruling political party, the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK). The NIS claims that the official met repeatedly with WPK operatives during trips to countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, between 2016 and last year.

On January 18, a large police force appeared to be trying to enter the KCTU headquarters in Seoul, in an attempt to arrest the trade union official, who has not been named. Video footage appeared on South Korean social media, which appeared to show a standoff between law enforcement and KCTU officials. The latter attempted to be trying to prevent the police and NIS representatives from entering the building. Eventually, the authorities were able to enter the building, while also attempting to prevent some individuals barricaded inside from leaving. Read more of this post

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Espionage allegations prompt sharp exchanges between ex-CIA officials

February 13, 2023 by 1 Comment

CIAA BOOK BY A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) case officer, which alleges that a senior Agency official sabotaged American counterintelligence efforts on orders from Moscow, has prompted a series of fiery exchanges by retired CIA personnel. The primary figures in the dispute are the book’s author, Robert Baer, and Paul J. Redmond, who served as the CIA’s Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence.

Baer’s book, The Fourth Man: The Hunt for a KGB Spy at the Top of the CIA and the Rise of Putin’s Russia (Hachette Books, May 2022), focuses on the period following the arrests of three American intelligence insiders, who were found to have spied for the Kremlin: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent Robert Hanssen, and CIA officers Aldrich Ames and Edward Lee Howard. By 2002, Hanssen and Ames were serving life sentences for espionage, while Howard had died in Russia where he had fled while under investigation by the FBI. Collectively, these three had been responsible for some of the CIA’s gravest operational setbacks against the Soviet KGB and its Russian successor agencies.

Some in the CIA, however, remained convinced that not all of the CIA’s failures in the 1980s and 1990s could be explained away in this fashion. They held on to the suspicion that Moscow had been able to recruit a senior CIA executive, who —among other things— had sabotaged numerous probes by some of the Agency’s most committed spy-hunters. Baer’s book discusses how, in the mid-1990s, the CIA’s Directorate of Operations actively pursued those suspicions, by setting up a Special Investigations Unit (SIU). This new unit was led by one of the CIA’s most talented counterintelligence officers, Paul Redmond.

CONTROVERSY

This is precisely the point at which Baer’s book turns wildly controversial: it alleges that the missing spy, whom Baer refers to as “the fourth man”, is none other than Redmond himself. The retired CIA case officer further alleges that even the SIU eventually concluded that Redmond —i.e. its leading member— was a spy for Moscow. The author claims that the SIU presented those findings at a briefing with Redmond among the audience. The presentation prompted Redmond to storm out of the meeting, Baer alleges.

Importantly, Baer describes his case as “inconclusive”, and claims that he relies on information from some of his former CIA colleagues. He also admits that the very idea of a “fourth man” may be nothing more than a chimera. Nevertheless, the SIU probe did occur. It also appears that the FBI opened an investigation into the matter in 2006. Baer claims to have received a visit by two FBI agents in 2021, in which he was asked about what he knew about Raymond. This, he says, left him with the impression that some sort of counterintelligence effort to find the “fourth man” was “ongoing then and is continuing” now. Moreover, according to Baer, this counterintelligence investigation is no longer confined in-house at CIA; the FBI has now taken the lead.

REDMOND’S SIDE RESPONDS

Remarkably, Baer appears to have spoken to Redmond at least twice while preparing his book. On each occasion, the retired CIA senior executive fiercely rejected Baer’s claims that he was a spy for Moscow. In recent months, Redmond voiced his dismay at Baer’s claims publicly. As SpyTalk reports, the first time Redmond spoke publicly about Baer’s book was in November of last year, during an event held by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. Read more of this post

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Colombian intelligence spied on Russian and Cuban diplomats, reports claim

January 18, 2023 by 1 Comment

Russian embassy in Bogota, ColombiaCOLOMBIAN INTELLIGENCE CARRIED OUT surveillance operations against Russian and Cuban diplomats stationed in Colombia between 2016 and 2019, according to media reports that surfaced earlier this week. The reports claim that Colombia’s National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) was behind the operations, which involved physical, as well as electronic, surveillance.

One of the operations was reportedly codenamed CATEDRA, and targeted three senior staff members of the Russian embassy in the Colombian capital Bogota. In addition to the diplomats themselves, DNI agents allegedly spied on the diplomats’ spouses and their children. In some cases, DNI agents disguised themselves as “street vendors” in order to spy on the homes of the diplomats. The agency also planted electronic devices in hotels around Colombia —notably in the resort town of Melgar in central Colombia, where over a dozen staff members of the Russian embassy holidayed in 2017.

Allegedly, Operation CATEDRA also involved the interception of communications of at least two Russian diplomats. These were identified as Denis Viktorovich Khromov, who served as the second secretary at the Russian embassy in Bogota, as well as Aleksandr Nikolayevich Belousov, who in late 2020 was declared persona non grata and expelled by the Colombian government on charges of espionage. Colombian media said at the time that Belousov had been outed as an intelligence officer, following a two-year DNI operation codenamed ENIGMA.

The DNI also spied on at least 10 Cuban diplomats and other members of the embassy of Cuba in Bogota, according to the same reports. The operation, codenamed MATIAS, investigated alleged “Cuban interference” in Colombia, and took place while the Cuban government was hosting peace talks between the Colombian government of then-president Juan Manuel Santos and leaders of the country’s largest militant groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

According to the reports, the DNI recruited a Cuban embassy worker, instructing her to “install [surveillance] devices and extract information from the building where control targets [were] located”. This eventually enabled the DNI to gain “access to security cameras and rooms throughout the building” of the Cuban embassy, the reports claim. Operations MATIAS and CATEDRA were reportedly concluded in 2019.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 18 January 2023 | Permalink

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Germany is prepared for projected increase in Russian spy activity, says BfV director

January 3, 2023 by 1 Comment

BfV GermanyRUSSIAN FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES in Germany have increased exponentially since the start of the war in Ukraine, and are projected to further-increase in 2023, according to the head of German counterintelligence. In an interview on Monday with the German Press Agency (DPA), Thomas Haldenwang, director of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), also warned that China, Iran and Turkey are intensifying their intelligence activities inside Germany.

In April of last year, the German government expelled 40 members of the diplomatic staff from Russia’s embassy in Berlin. It is believed that the majority of those expelled were intelligence officers operating under official cover. According to Haldenwang, the Kremlin has taken steps to compensate for the loss of its intelligence presence in Germany. This is largely being done in two ways: first, with “traveling operatives”, i.e. intelligence officers who are stationed in third countries and travel to Germany to carry out specific operations; second, with non-official-cover officers, i.e. intelligence operatives who have no overt relations with the Russian government. Moreover, Russia has been mounting its cyber-attacks and foreign-influence operations against Germany, according to Haldenwang.

In response to the Kremlin’s actions, German counterintelligence is making “great efforts to prevent […] people who may be connected to Russian intelligence from entering Germany” with valid visas, Haldenwang said. The BfV has hired more personnel and has “organizationally redesigned” its defensive and offensive counterintelligence capabilities, as well as cyber-defense expertise. As a result, the BfV “feels sufficiently prepared for the current challenges”, Haldenwang said. He also disputed allegations in Western media that the BfV had been relatively passive in countering Russian intelligence operations prior to the war in Ukraine.

Finally, Haldenwang cautioned that Iran and Turkey maintained a significant intelligence presence in Germany, and that the stormy domestic politics in those countries would “have an impact in Germany”, as “internal political conflicts [in those countries] are fought here”. This also applies to China, whose intelligence collection targets are no longer primarily economic, but are moving into the political domain. According to Haldenwang, a “pan-European solution is needed to reverse this trend, at least for the European [Union] states”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 03 January 2023 | Permalink

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Mystery surrounds arrest of alleged Russian spy couple in Sweden

December 5, 2022 by 5 Comments

Russian Embassy SwedenNUMEROUS UNANSWERED QUESTIONS SURROUND the arrest of a Russian married couple in Sweden, on charges of espionage. The arrest took place in dramatic fashion in the early hours of Tuesday, November 22. According to the Swedish media, members of the security forces descended via tactical ropes from two Blackhawk helicopters, as startled residents in the typically quiet Stockholm suburb of Nacka looked on.

The raid was apparently conducted based on information received by Sweden’s counterintelligence agency, the Swedish Security Service (SAPO), coupled with tips from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The targets of the operation were Sergei Nikolaevich Skvortsov and Elena Mikhailovna Kulkova, a Russian-born married couple, who moved to Sweden from Russia in 1999. According to their identity documents, Skvortsov was born in Perm on July 28, 1963, and Kulkova in Moscow on May 22, 1964.

Both Skvortsov and Kulkova are university-educated, with a background in science, mathematics and cybernetics. Upon settling in Sweden, they worked in the import-export technology sector. By 2013 they had become Swedish citizens and had a son. Kulkova also had a daughter from a previous marriage. The Russian investigative source The Insider reports that Kulkova’s daughter’s boyfriend worked for Swedish military intelligence.

Swedish authorities allege that the two suspects migrated to Stockholm on orders of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, known as GRU. The GRU allegedly did not activate them until after they had acquired Swedish citizenship. According to the court indictment, Skvortsov and Kulkova began to actively spy against the United States in 2013 and against Sweden in 2014.

Some sources claim that the case of the Russian couple may be connected to the recent arrests of Payam and Peyman Kia, two Iranian-born Swedish brothers, who were arrested in 2021 and are now facing charges of engaging in espionage on behalf of the GRU. Payam Kia worked for SAPO and had access to classified information from a host of Swedish government agencies. SAPO reportedly launched the probe in 2017, following suspicions that it harbored a spy in its personnel ranks.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 05 December 2022 | Research credit: A.G. | Permalink

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Sweden charges two brothers with spying for Russian military intelligence

November 14, 2022 by 2 Comments

Säpo swedenAUTHORITIES IN SWEDEN HAVE charged two brothers, one of whom worked in a highly secretive Swedish intelligence unit, with spying for Russian military intelligence for a decade, according to news reports. The charges resulted from a six-year investigation led by the Swedish Security Service (SAPO), which is the country’s counterintelligence agency. SAPO reportedly launched the probe in 2017, based on suspicions that it harbored a spy in its personnel ranks.

The two brothers have been named by Swedish media as Payam Kia, 35, and Peyman Kia, 42. They were reportedly born in Iran and became Swedish citizens in 1994. It is also reported that Payam Kia worked for SAPO and had access to classified information from a host of Swedish government agencies. SAPO accuses the two men of having worked “jointly” to pass information to the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, known broadly as GRU.

According to Swedish authorities, the two men began spying for Russia in September of 2011 and continued until the fall of 2021. Peyman Kia allegedly acted as a courier, passing information and payments between his brother and his Russian handlers. Per Lindqvist, chief prosecutor for Sweden’s National Security Unit, told the Associated Press news agency that the Kia brothers case involved “extremely sensitive topics”, but did not elaborate. Some reports claim that Payam Kia had access to the files of Swedish spies operating abroad.

The younger of the two brothers was reportedly arrested in September of 2021. His older brother was arrested in November of the same year. They face up to life imprisonment. They both deny the charges against them.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 14 November 2022 | Permalink

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More on Russian alleged spies expelled from the Netherlands and Belgium

October 20, 2022 by 2 Comments

Kremlin KootAs intelNews reported earlier this week, a joint investigative effort by Dutch and Belgian media exposed details about a group of alleged Russian intelligence officers, who were expelled by Belgium and The Netherlands in March 2022. Dutch state broadcaster NOS and its flagship current affairs program, Nieuwsuur, aired the names, photos and backgrounds of 17 Russian intelligence officers, who were expelled from the Netherlands in March of this year. According to the Dutch government, the expelled diplomats were involved in counterintelligence and in espionage targeting the country’s high-tech sector.

According to the reports, at least 20 Russian official-cover officers were active in the Netherlands in early 2022. The reporters said they spoke with intelligence sources and the Dossier Center. That organization is financed by banned Russian oligarch and Putin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and claims to have access to leaked databases that contain information about the education and background of Russian intelligence officers.

Eight of the expelled officers work for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), while the other nine work for the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff (GRU). Some of them presented themselves as trade representatives in Amsterdam, as military attachés, or as diplomats at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Read more of this post

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Journalists reveal names of Russian diplomats expelled by Netherlands for espionage

October 17, 2022 by 1 Comment

SVR hq

AN INVESTIGATION BY A consortium of journalists from the Netherlands and Belgium has revealed the identities of 17 Russian diplomats, who were expelled in April by Dutch authorities for allegedly engaging in espionage. The expelled diplomats were among hundreds of members of the Russian diplomatic corps, who were expelled from all over Europe in March and April of this year, in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As intelNews reported on April 4, the diplomats who were expelled from the Netherlands were serving at the Russian embassy in The Hague. Some of them also represented Russia at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) headquarters in The Hague. Russia responded on April 19, by announcing the expulsion of 15 Dutch diplomats from the embassy of the Netherlands in Moscow. As is customary in such cases, neither the Netherlands nor Russia revealed the names of the expelled diplomats.

Now, however, the identities of the expelled Russian diplomats have been revealed, thanks to an investigation by of a group of Dutch and Belgian journalists. The investigation was conducted under the auspices of the Dossier Center, a London-based Russian-language organization that specializes in investigative reporting. The conclusions of the invesgitation were first reported by Belgian newspaper De Tijd and by Netherlands public television, NOS.

According to the investigation, eight of the 17 expelled Russian diplomats were employees of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, known as SVR. The remaining nine were employed by the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as GRU. At least six of the expelled diplomats worked as encryption specialists. They handled the communications systems that the Russian intelligence personnel who were stationed in the Netherlands used in order to exchange secret information with Moscow. A smaller number worked in counterintelligence, and were tasked with preventing efforts by adversary intelligence services to recruit Russian diplomatic personnel stationed in the Netherlands.

The report by the Dossier Center includes information about the identities of the Russian diplomats, as well as photographs and detailed biographical data about their background. According to the authors of the report, all information included in the report was collected from open sources, including from social media accounts that were maintained by the expelled Russian diplomats.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 October 2022 | Permalink

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Study assesses Hamas’ double-agent operations against Israeli intelligence

August 22, 2022 by Leave a comment

HamasA NEW STUDY SHEDS light on the little-studied topic of counterintelligence operations launched against Israel by the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas. Hamas is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist and nationalist organization with a 35-year history, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. As is typically the case with Middle Eastern non-state actors, Hamas is a complex umbrella organization that combines social-service and administrative functions with armed elements. The latter include internal policing components and a full-time military wing, as well as reserve armed forces.

Although much research has focused on Hamas’ military and non-military components, the organization’s intelligence functions remain under-studied. For this reason, a new article that assesses Hamas’ double-agent operations against Israeli intelligence deserves attention. The article is titled “An Asymmetric Doubling”: A Nonstate Actor Using the Method of Doubling Sources —Hamas against Israeli Intelligence”, and was authored by Netanel Flamer, a lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at Bar-Ilan University and postdoctoral fellow at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. It was published last week by the International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence.

In his article, Flamer explains the usefulness of double-agent operations for non-state actors engaged in asymmetric conflicts against opponents with superior resources. Non-state actors tend to place tremendous value in double-agent operations, because they offer them the opportunity to “generate achievements of the greatest impact using the most efficient means”. They can do so despite the relative poverty of their resources, as compared to their adversaries. These types of operations employ human intelligence (HUMINT) sources, who work with two opposing intelligence services, only one of which is privy to their dual role. Such sources are known in intelligence parlance as “double agents”.

Hamas’ Early Counterintelligence Efforts

Interestingly, Hamas’ first counterintelligence outfit preceded its own establishment. Upon its founding in 1987, at the peak of the First Intifada, Hamas was immediately able to rely on al-Majd, a counterintelligence apparatus that had been established a year earlier by Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. The mission of al-Majd was to uncover suspected Israeli collaborators among Palestinian communities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The organization was also known for deploying varying levels of torture against suspected collaborators, or against their relatives.

By the early 1990s, al-Majd was in a position to launch a number of confirmed counterintelligence operations. A notable early case is that of Maher Abu Srur, a Hamas member who had been recruited by the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. At the culmination of this double-agent operation, Srur actually murdered his Israeli handler at a Shin Bet safe house in Jerusalem. According to Flamer, al-Majd is known to have launched several other double-agent operations against the Shin Bet, with varying levels of success. Importantly, it often is difficult to determine whether al-Majd double agents were deployed after they were first recruited by the Shin Bet, or whether they were originally deployed by al-Majd as “dangles”. Read more of this post

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Hawaii couple alleged to be Russian spies using fake names held without bail

August 1, 2022 by 5 Comments

Walter Glenn Primose, Gwynn Darle MorrisonA FEDERAL JUDGE IN HAWAII has denied bail to a married American couple, who are believed to have assumed the identities of dead children in order to lead double lives for over 20 years, according to prosecutors. Local media reports allege that Bobby Edward Fort and Julie Lyn Montague, who were arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on July 22 on the island of Oahu, are Russian spies, and that their names are parts of their assumed identities.

According to the reports, the real names of the couple are Walter Glenn Primose, 66, and Gwynn Darle Morrison, 54. Government prosecutors allege that, in the late 1980s, the couple hurriedly left their home in the state of Texas, telling family members that they were entering the US Federal Witness Protection Program. They are also said to have given some family members permission to take whatever they wanted from their home, before it was foreclosed.

The government claims that the couple then assumed the identities of two infants, Bobby Edward Fort and Julie Lyn Montague, who had died in Texas in 1967 and 1968 respectively. They then used these infants’ birth certificates to obtain social security cards, drivers’ licenses, and even US passports. In 1994, while living in Hawaii under his assumed name, Primrose enlisted in the US Coast Guard, which is the maritime security and law enforcement service branch of the US military. He served there for over 20 years as an avionic electrical technician with a secret level clearance. Following his retirement in 2016, Primrose is said to have worked as a private contractor for the US Department of Defense until his arrest on July 22 of this year. Read more of this post

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Analysis: The West should not trust Ukrainian spy agencies. Neither should Ukrainians

July 28, 2022 by 2 Comments

Volodymyr ZelenskyON SUNDAY, JULY 17, the Ukrainian administration of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the most extensive shake-up of the nation’s security leadership since the Russian military invasion. Two key members of Zelenskiy’s inner circle, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova and domestic security chief Ivan Bakanov, were summarily fired. Venediktova was the public face of Kyiv’s war crimes campaign, which was launched in March in response to the Russian invasion. Bakanov, a childhood friend of Zelenskiy, had headed the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) since 2019.

In a subsequent video statement, Zelenskiy said he fired the two officials after he was informed that at least 60 employees of the SBU and the Prosecutor General’s office had defected to the Russians in eastern Ukraine. Last week, in an article for SpyTalk, Kremlin watcher Olga Lautman said Bakanov’s dismissal had been expected for a few days. Regardless, the move has shaken Western observers, and has given rise to legitimate questions about the susceptibility of Ukraine’s security and intelligence services to Russian meddling. Should the Western alliance, and Western intelligence agencies in particular, trust their Ukrainian counterparts? The answer is, invariably, no. In fact, even the Ukrainians themselves are not in a position to trust their own intelligence services.

From the KGB to the SBU

On September 20, 1991, just one week after Ukraine secured its independence from the Soviet Union, the SBU was founded in place of the Soviet KGB. Initially, the new agency handled both internal security and external intelligence functions. But in 2005, the SBU’s Department of Intelligence became a stand-alone agency under the title Foreign Intelligence Service (SZR). Since then, the SZR has functioned as the institutional equivalent of the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), while the SBU has performed domestic security functions that resemble those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

As is the case with the entirety of Ukraine’s state sector, the two agencies are endemically bloated. Intelligence observers report that the SBU’s 30,000 employees make it far larger in size than its British counterpart, the Security Service (MI5). Meanwhile, according to the latest information, the SZR has “double the number of personnel than the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and is larger than Britain’s [Secret Intelligence Service, or] MI6”. By all accounts, even today, more than 30 years after the dissolution of the USSR, the two agencies continue to resemble Soviet-style bureaucracies in terms of size, sluggishness, and corruption. Read more of this post

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US indicts five members of Chinese spy ring, handler remains at large

March 17, 2022 by 1 Comment

Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAUTHORITIES IN THE UNITED States have indicted five members of an alleged spy ring for the Chinese Ministry for State Security (MSS), who engaged in sabotage, bribing, harassment, intimidation and entrapment operations. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) alleges [PDF]  that the five men, Qiming Lin, 59, Shujun Wang, 73, Quiang ‘Jason’ Sun, 40, Matthew Ziburis, 49, and Fan ‘Frank’ Liu, 62, operated at the behest of the government of China, conducting several operations on US soil, with an “unlimited budget”.

Lin, Wang, Liu and Ziburis have been arrested. They each face between 10 and 20 years in prison, if convicted. Sun, who is the alleged handler of the spy ring, remains at large. The FBI claims Sun is an MSS officer and is currently in China. The FBI alleges that the five men were tasked with destroying the personal lives and careers of Chinese dissidents living in the United States. Their victims included a Chinese-born American citizen, who is running for Congress. The dissident is not identified in the FBI indictment. However, according to the Business Insider, he is believed to be Yan Xiong, a Long Island resident who escaped to the US after participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations.

Members of the Chinese spy ring allegedly tried to thwart Yan’s Congressional election campaign. Specifically, they are accused of conspiring to extort Yan, by luring him in a ‘honey trap’ operation involving prostitutes. They also conspired to plant child pornography in Yan’s personal computer, and even using physical beatings and intimidation in order to subvert his political career. The spy ring is also believed to have targeted Weiming Chen, a Chinese-born, California-based artist, who has produced sculptures and other artwork critical of the Chinese government.

In most cases, members of the spy ring tried to acquire personal data belonging to their victims, including their US social security numbers, as well as copies of their passports. In several cases, members of the spy ring installed covert surveillance equipment in the cars, residences and work places of their targets. These allowed them to monitor their victims’ personal lives and whereabouts. In announcing the indictments on Wednesday, US Department of Justice representatives said efforts by Chinese spies to intimidate and silence expatriate dissidents living in the US had risen at an “alarming rate” in the past year.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 17 March 2022 | Permalink

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Iranian websites use fake Israeli contact data to lure spies, researchers claim

January 25, 2022 by Leave a comment

Computer hackingA NUMBER OF WEBSITES sponsored through Google Ads, which seek to hire Iran and Hezbollah experts for “research and consultancies” in Israel, are part of an Iranian counterintelligence program, according to observers. The investigative news website Daily Beast said on Monday it discovered at least 16 such websites, all of which appear to employ the same language, visuals, as well as telephone numbers with Israeli area codes.

The websites’ stated purpose is to employ individuals with inside knowledge of Iranian intelligence and security, as well as individuals with a background in Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The prospective employers claim to be Israeli “consultancy” firms, with names such as “VIP Human Solutions”. The latter describes itself as a “VIP center for recruitment of the most distinguished in the military and security services of Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon”, according to the Daily Beast.

The websites feature Israeli flag visuals, and claim to be associated with recognizable think-tanks and media organizations, including the Gatestone Institute, the Begin-Sadat Center, the Jerusalem Post and Business Insider. However, these purported connections appear to be fictitious and to be designed to give those websites an air of legitimacy. In reality they appear to be hosted by an obscure Bulgarian web hosting company. At times they disappear, but then reappear under a different title and domain name. The oldest among them has been active for just over four years.

The Daily Beast cites a number of Iran observers, as well as intelligence insiders in the United States and elsewhere, who claim that the websites are part of a sting operation by Iranian counterintelligence. They share a number of “behavioral similarities” to prior phishing campaigns perpetrated by hacker groups with documented links to Iranian intelligence agencies, according to the Daily Beast. The purpose of the websites is to lure unsuspecting Iranian and Lebanese nationals who aspire to provide information to Israel in exchange for money, according to the report.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 25 January 2022 | Permalink

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