Analysis: Did Ukraine try to assassinate Vladimir Putin?

May 4, 2023 by 2 Comments

KremlinOFFICIALS IN UKRAINE HAVE vehemently denied allegations by the Kremlin that the Ukrainian government tried to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin using two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A statement by the Russian government said that the Kremlin, which serves as the official residence of the Russian president in Moscow, came under attack by two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the early hours of Wednesday. According to the statement, the UAVs were shot down 16 minutes apart. The first UAV allegedly exploded mid-air at 2:27 a.m. local time over the old Senate building, which is located on the eastern side of the Kremlin. At 2:43 a.m. a second UAV exploded over the Kremlin, sending debris flying across the courtyard of the heavily fortified complex.

There were no injuries or material damages, according to the Russian Federal Protective Service, which is responsible for the protection of high-ranking state officials and government facilities, including the Kremlin complex. Within hours, Russia openly placed blame on the government of Ukraine for the alleged attack and claimed that it had been intended to kill President Putin. A subsequent statement praised the Russian armed forces for thwarting the alleged attack on Putin’s life with “timely actions”. Meanwhile, government officials in the United States said that the White House “had no foreknowledge of an impending drone attack on the Kremlin” and urged that Moscow’s allegations be treated with skepticism.

UKRAINE IS CAPABLE OF STRIKING INSIDE RUSSIA

The Ukrainian military and paramilitary forces are both interested in, and capable of, carrying out strikes inside Russia. In 2023 alone, there have been dozens of apparent acts of sabotage in European Russia, which have damaged bridges, disrupted railway transportation systems, and rendered weapons depots unusable. This week alone, a fuel depot in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai was extensively damaged by a fire, which local authorities claimed was caused by a kamikaze UAV attack. About 1,500 miles north in Bryansk Oblast, near Russia’s border with Belarus, two trains were derailed by blasts that, according to news reports “appeared to be separate but identical incidents”. Ukraine denies involvement in these incidents, but military observers remain suspicious.

Meanwhile, investigative work by news outlets such as The New York Times suggests that Ukrainian paramilitary units may have been behind acts of sabotage in Western Europe, and even assassinations of pro-Putin figures inside Russia. Some of these attacks —if that is indeed what they were— may have been carried out by teams of cover human operatives. Others may have been carried out by mechanical means, including UAVs. Certainly, the Ukrainian military has never been shy about its effort to develop a strong long-range strike capability using UAVs. There is also some evidence that it may have carried out at least one UAV-enabled attack near Moscow in recent months. It therefore stands to reason that Ukraine is both willing and able to launch strikes inside Russia. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , ,

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

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Comment: Is Germany’s external spy agency a liability for Europe?

February 6, 2023 by 3 Comments

BND GermanyGERMANY’S EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), constitutes a liability for Europe’s security and is in desperate need of a drastic and immediate overhaul. That is the conclusion of a blunt editorial penned last week by James Crisp, the Brussels-based Europe editor of Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Founded in the early stages of the Cold War under American tutelage, the BND operated for several decades on the frontlines of the existential clash between the United States and the Soviet Union. Deservedly, the agency received strong criticism about the Nazi past of some of its senior officials in the early days. Yet, like West Germany as a whole, by the 1970s it had largely managed to democratize its institutional structure and practices.

Crisp argues, however, that the BND, once one of Europe’s most important intelligence agencies, has been “hollowed out since the Cold War” and is today viewed by its European counterparts as “complacent and arrogant”. Consequently, the string of embarrassments that the BND has suffered lately, culminating in the discovery of an alleged Russian spy in its ranks, is hardly coincidental, according to Crisp. Even this recent discovery appears to have occurred only after the BND was tipped off by an allied intelligence agency.

The German spy agency has not fared much better in the American-led war in Afghanistan, or during the latest phase of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Unlike the American intelligence agencies, the BND did not subscribe to the view that Moscow would invade its neighbor to the west. Bruno Kahl, the agency’s president, was actually in Ukraine for consultations when Russian tanks began to head toward Kyiv. In what has rightly been described as a humiliation, Kahl was trapped inside Ukraine and had to be smuggled out of the country by a German special forces unit, just as Russian bombs began falling on the Ukrainian capital.

How does one account for the current state of the BND? To some extent, the spy agency’s culture has been shaped by that of the broader postwar German state, which has gone out of its way to reconcile with Russia. Successive German administrations have viewed their rapprochement with Moscow as a cornerstone of Europe’s security trajectory. Consequently, it can be said that Berlin has a history of underestimating the security threat posed by Russia. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

Analysis: A murky assassination that could radically alter Turkish politics

January 30, 2023 by 1 Comment

Sinan Ates Turkey Grey WolvesON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2022, an assailant on a motorcycle opened fire on Sinan Ateş, the leader of Turkey’s most feared paramilitary force, known as the Grey Wolves. By that evening, the 38-year-old Ateş had expired in an Ankara hospital, prompting analysts to forewarn that Turkish politics had entered new and unchartered territory. Indeed, some observers claim that Ateş’ assassination may impact Turkey’s upcoming presidential elections in unpredictable ways. The leading political figures in this strategically important NATO member-state, including its authoritarian leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, are paying close attention.

Turkey’s Far-Right Shock Troops

Known officially as the Idealist Clubs Educational and Cultural Foundation, the Grey Wolves organization is the paramilitary arm of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a militant political force that occupies most of the far-right space of Turkish politics. The MHP espouses authoritarian and anti-Western views and is violently opposed to negotiations with Turkey’s ethnic minorities, including the Kurds. Its politics appeal to ultra-conservative voters, who are usually male and over the age of 35. The Grey Wolves operate as the MHP’s shock troops, often engaging in bloody street fights against Kurds, leftists, and other popular forces that stand in opposition to the Turkish far-right. Known for their machismo and violent bravado, the Grey Wolves appeal to working-class men in their teens and twenties. In essence, therefore, the MHP and the Grey Wolves are two sides of the same coin.

In 2015, the MHP formed an electoral pact with President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). The formation of this pact, known as the People’s Alliance, marked the culmination of a long process of informal cooperation between the two sides, which had been going on since at least 2007. The People’s Alliance has been instrumental in preserving the AKP’s domination of Turkish political life in recent years, despite the loss of popularity that President Erdoğan has been experiencing. Currently the AKP relies directly on the MHP’s parliamentary support to rule Turkey with a minority government. The Grey Wolves, which tend to be more unruly than their parent organization, are nominally in support of Erdoğan, but tend to see him as too mellow and not sufficiently authoritarian.

The Fragmentation of the MHP

The MPH likes to project itself as a unified militant organization. In reality, it has always been the product of an uneasy alliance between disparate far-right groups. Its membership ranges from social conservatives to ultranationalists, Hanafi (Sunni) puritans and even neo-fascists. In 2017, when the MHP and the AKP formed the People’s Alliance, several of these groups voiced serious misgivings about aligning themselves with Erdoğan. Eventually, a vocal faction of pro-Western and secularist conservatives left the party over concerns that the MHP would be completely absorbed by the pro-Islamist and anti-Western AKP. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

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

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Analysis: HUMINT insights from the Muller/Cherkasov case

June 20, 2022 by 6 Comments

AIVD HollandAT A TIME WHEN dozens of countries are routinely expelling record numbers of Russian intelligence officers, news of the unmasking of yet another Russian spy is barely newsworthy. However, the case of Sergey Cherkasov/Victor Muller is different. That is because, unlike the vast majority of Russian spies with blown covers, he did not operate under diplomatic protection. This is not necessarily uncommon —in fact, there are probably dozens of Russian case officers operating internationally without diplomatic cover. What is unusual is that one of them has been publicly unmasked. What is more, the case offers some interesting pointers for those interested in contemporary human intelligence (HUMINT).

The Facts

According to the Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD), which publicized the case last week, a man using a Brazilian passport attempted to enter Holland in April of this year. His passport had been issued under the name Victor Muller Ferreira, allegedly born to an Irish father and a Spanish-speaking mother in Niteroi (near Rio de Janeiro) on April 4, 1989. However, according to the AIVD, the man’s real name is Sergey Vladimirovich Cherkasov, a citizen of Russia, who was born on September 11, 1985. Based on the information released by Dutch intelligence, Cherkasov is an intelligence officer of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as the GRU.

The AIVD claims that the reason for Cherkasov’s visit to the Netherlands was to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, as a paid intern. He eventually planned to transition into full-time employment in the ICC, where he “would be highly valuable to the Russian intelligence services”. The AIVD reportedly notified the Dutch Immigration and Naturalization Service, which detained Cherkasov upon his arrival at Amsterdam’s Schiphol International Airport. The Dutch government declared the alleged GRU officer persona non grata and promptly expelled him back to Brazil “on the first flight out”.

Cherkasov’s Cover and Legend

Cherkasov arrived in Holland with a cover, a term that refers to a fake operational identity used for purposes of espionage. It is unlikely that his cover was natural, meaning that he is probably not Brazilian by birth —though it is possible that at least one of his parents was/is not Russian by birth. What is more likely is that Cherkasov’s cover is contractual, meaning that it was crafted especially for him by the GRU after he was hired as an intelligence officer. This likely happened as many as 10 years ago, when Cherkasov was in his early 20s. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Analysis: What We Are Likely to See in the Coming Weeks in Ukraine

March 21, 2022 by 6 Comments

Ukraine Russia war“THERE ARE DECADES WHERE nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. These words by the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin offer a fitting description of the cataclysmic events witnessed since February 24. In the early hours of that day, the largest country in the world launched a strategic ground offensive against the largest country in Europe. What began as a “special military operation” has now escalated into the most extensive military conflict in Europe since World War II. It is clear that Russia’s original plan for this war collapsed within hours of the initial attack. But the correlation of forces continues to overwhelmingly favor the Russian side. Moreover, the bulk of the Russian forces are heading for Kyiv. This could result in the largest and most deadly urban battle since World War II.

Russia’s Original Strategy

The Kremlin’s decision to invade Ukraine was premised on a rapid military campaign, which was designed to trigger the collapse of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration within about a week. The original plan appears to have rested on quickly introducing non-conscript military units inside Kyiv, in order to force the government toQ Quote 1 flee to Lviv. At the same time, elite formations from the Main Directorate of the Armed Forces’ General Staff (GRU) and Spetsnaz (special operations forces) were sent to the Ukrainian capital to assassinate leading government figures.

Based on that assumption, Russia’s original strategy was to avoid engaging in clashes in major urban centers, barring those that are located along key transportation routes. That is because urban terrain heavily favors the defender and tends to result in mass invader casualties. The Russians can’t afford too many of those, given that the Russian expeditionary force of about 150,000 non-conscript troops is grossly insufficient to conquer—let alone occupy—a country the size of Ukraine, with a largely young population of well over 40 million. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

Analysis: A Western-supported anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine is unlikely

February 24, 2022 by 6 Comments

Ukraine RussiaAS THE FULL-SCALE invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Armed Forces continues to unfold, some Western commentators have begun to speculate about the possible launch of an anti-Russian insurgency by the Ukrainian population. This kind of speculation is not unreasonable. Indeed, given their enormous disparity in size and might, a symmetric confrontation between the two belligerents seems unthinkable. One simply cannot imagine that a direct military confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian military forces could result in anything other than a resounding victory for Moscow. However, although the rise of an armed anti-Russian insurgency in Ukraine is possible, it is unlikely to be large in scale, and even more unlikely to succeed.

On first glance, Ukraine seems like a textbook case for a possible insurgency. Russia aside, it is Europe’s largest country by landmass, with a population of nearly 50 million. Even under the most favorable conditions, the Russians would find it difficult to occupy and control it without the consent of the local populace. Moreover, Ukraine shares borders with seven countries, including Russia, four of which—Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Poland—are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The geographic proximity of a host of NATO bases would easily allow Western intelligence agencies to provide the local population with war materiel, including advanced military hardware and other supplies. Lastly, due to the protracted war in Donetsk and Luhansk, the Ukrainian military has amassed significant experience in insurgency over the past decade.

However, as Brown University visiting professor Lyle Goldstein cautions in a recent article, things are never simple in war. Although no fewer than four NATO states border Ukraine, the military alliance and its leading patron, the United States, will need to exercise immense caution. In using these states to arm Ukrainian insurgents, Western powers will need to ensure a maximum degree of plausible deniability. Should Russia determine that Western countries are using these NATO powers as front-line states in a new Cold War, it could be tempted to launch military operations against them—an act that could spiral into an out-of-control multi-state war. It is also likely that these front-line NATO member-states will resist calls to be involved in this conflict, in order to avoid being dragged into a wider regional war.

Moreover, although numerous regions of Ukraine appear to be under fire at the moment, it is doubtful that the Russian military will seek to occupy the entire country. Moscow is thus unlikely to try to extend its control past the largely pro-Russian regions of eastern and east-central Ukraine. Such a strategy would ensure that Russian troops would be able to operate in a largely friendly environment. It would also make it difficult for Ukrainian insurgents to operate effectively anywhere east of Kiev. Lastly, the Russian Armed Forces have amassed substantial counter-insurgency experience in the post-Cold War era, having fought in large numbers in Chechnya and Syria, as well as in various regions of Africa through the Wagner Group.

In short, unless the Russians over-play their hand and try to take over the entire country, Western powers are likely to find it difficult to organize, support and sustain a concerted armed insurgency on Ukrainian soil. This does not mean that the ongoing Russian military campaign in Ukraine will inevitably be successful. War is inherently unpredictable, so anything can happen in the coming weeks and months. However, defeating the Russians in any military context will require many years of extremely brutal, bloody and fierce war.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 24 February 2022 | Permalink

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

Opinion: The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan was neither unexpected nor sudden

August 17, 2021 by 3 Comments

Taliban

THE COMPLETE TAKEOVER OF Afghanistan by the Taliban was “sudden” and “unexpected” only for those who have not been paying attention to the implosion of the country in recent months. There were certainly outliers, among them an assortment of Foreign Policy columnists, who, as late as July 28, were urging readers to stop “assuming the Taliban will win”. But ever since October of 2020, when United States President Donald Trump announced that American troops would leave the country (a policy that the Biden Administration eagerly adopted), the vast majority of reports about the future of Afghanistan have been unanimous: following an American military withdrawal, the Taliban would take over the entire country with little delay, and almost certainly without facing significant resistance.

This was certainly the view on the ground in Afghanistan, where desperate families have been leaving the country for many months now. The recent shocking images of Afghan men clinging on to American transport aircraft, were not the beginning of a desperate exodus from the country. Rather, these were the last groups of people who, for a variety of reasons, did not abandon the capital earlier. The impending reality of the Taliban takeover has been recognized especially by women in urban centers. They have been preparing for months for the change in the nation’s leadership, by burning their Western attire and throwing away their make-up kits.

Meanwhile, countries like Russia and the United Kingdom have been actively preparing to deal with the Taliban as the government of Afghanistan. It was nearly five weeks ago when Ben Wallace, Minister of Defense of Britain, arguably the United States’ closest international partner, announced that London was prepared to “work with the Taliban, should they come to power”. Soon afterwards, Russia’s longtime Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the Taliban “rational actors” and warned the Afghan government that it risked losing control of the entire country by not entering into a negotiated settlement with the militants. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

We knew about the US-Danish spy collaboration. The revelations are still remarkable

June 1, 2021 by 2 Comments

DDIS DenmarkTHE FIRST CLAIMS OF an alleged secret collaboration between the signals intelligence agencies of the United States and Denmark surfaced in November of 2020. By January of this year, it was clear that the Danish government would, sooner or later, need to deal with the fallout of its controversial spy deal with Washington, under which Denmark enabled the US to spy on some of its closest European allies. Still, the news last weekend that Denmark helped the US spy on countries such as Germany, France, Sweden and Norway, is nothing short of remarkable, and has a huge symbolic significance that cannot be overlooked.

IntelNews regulars will recall that Lars Findsen, director of the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (FE, or DDIS in English) was unceremoniously “relieved of duty” in August of 2020. This was in response to a damning report by the Danish Oversight Board, known as TET, which is responsible for supervising the work of Denmark’s intelligence agencies. The Danish Ministry of Defense would not discuss the precise nature of the report, which at the time was believed to relate to vaguely described “improper intelligence collection practices”.

Then, in November of 2020 came news of an alleged secret collaboration between the DDIS and its American equivalent, the National Security Agency (NSA). According to Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten and Danmarks Radio —Denmark’s public-service broadcaster— the agreement dated to 2008, and involved the use by the NSA of a number of fiber optic Internet cables that pass through Danish territory, in return for the DDIS being given access to the content of intercepted traffic. This collaboration resulted in the interception of information belonging to the governments of Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and Holland, among others.

It is said among intelligence practitioners that “there is no such thing as a friendly foreign intelligence agency”. There is also no known agreement not to spy on each other between the United States and several core countries of the Western alliance, such as Denmark, France, Holland, Norway, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, or Spain (it is rumored that a “no-spy clause” exists between Five Eyes participants). Technically speaking, therefore, espionage between European powers, or between them and the US, is not in violation of some sacred agreement. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Analysis: Without fanfare, FBI places Putin’s right-hand man on most wanted list

March 1, 2021 by 3 Comments

Yevgeny PrigozhinWITHOUT MUCH FANFARE LAST week, the Federal Bureau of Investigation placed on its most wanted list Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest collaborators. Known as “Putin’s chef”, for providing catering services to the Kremlin, Prigozhin was indicted in February 2018 by United States prosecutors for his alleged role in Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential elections. According to the Special Counsel investigation, led by Robert Mueller, Prigozhin bankrolled the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which in turn played a central coordinating role in the effort to influence the outcome of the elections.

But it is one thing to be indicted by the US government, and quite another to be placed on the FBI’s most wanted list. What does this mean? And why did the FBI wait three years to place Prigozhin on its list of infamy?

With characteristic flamboyance, Prigozhin boasted victory against the FBI back in March of 2020, when US federal prosecutors requested that the Mueller-era criminal case against Concord Management and Consulting (CMC) be dismissed. Founded in 1995, CMC is Prigozhin’s flagship company. According to the US government, CMC was used to fund the IRA’s activities in the run-up to the 2016 US elections. Although some were surprised by that decision, it made sense from an intelligence point of view. US federal prosecutors said at the time that it would not be possible to prove the allegations against CMC due to a “classification determination”. The term basically meant that the US government could not prove the claims made against CMC without revealing “methods and sources”. The term refers to witnesses that have probably been recruited as US government assets, as well as to methods of surveillance that the government wishes to keep secret.

Even though the individual indictment against Prigozhin was never dropped, the flamboyant Russian boasted at the time that the dismissal of the case against CMC proved that he was not implicated in the US election meddling affair. He became even more boastful after September of last year, when Interpol removed his name from its international alert list. He reportedly began traveling outside Russia again, something that he had stopped doing after his 2018 indictment, out of an abundance of caution. At that time, everyone assumed that US prosecutors would eventually drop the case against Prigozhin too, for the same reason they had dropped the CMC case —namely a “classification determination”. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Analysis: Emergence of an armed insurgency is now a distinct possibility in the US

January 15, 2021 by 5 Comments

US CapitolWITH DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON RESEMBLING a large military encampment, a repeat of last week’s shocking assault on the Capitol Complex is highly improbable. But America could witness escalating levels of violence across many states, as supporters of the January 6 insurrection continue to organize themselves into a coherent armed movement. Their ability to threaten American national security will depend on whether they can overcome major internal divisions. It will also be determined by the speed with which United States authorities will respond to the rise of what is quickly becoming a dangerous militant movement.

Supporters of the nationalist insurrection that shook the nation on January 6 could possibly return to Washington in time to make a show of force during the Inauguration of Joe Biden. Intelligence reports by US federal agencies mention as many as 17 separate events being planned in the nation’s capital by a variety of militant groups. If these events materialize, the US is likely to witness the largest armed protests in its history. Other gatherings —many of them involving armed militants— are scheduled to take place in all 50 states between January 16 and 20.Q Quote 1

The militants who will descend on Washington in the coming days are unlikely to engage in all-out hostilities against as many as 20,000 members of the US National Guard. The latter have reportedly been given clear rules of engagement, which include the use of lethal force against assailants. The command and control capabilities that are needed to seriously threaten a 20,000-strong professional army, make it unlikely that the insurrectionists will attempt such a suicidal mission. Nevertheless, the possibility that one or more small groups of die-hard militants will descend on Washington determined to engage in direct combat against the US military should not be disregarded. Their chances of a martial victory are extremely slim, but victory can also be achieved through what their supporters will interpret as heroism and —ultimately— martyrdom.

What is far more likely to happen is that the insurrectionists will engage the forces of the government asymmetrically —that is, by resorting to strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare. Such scenarios are more likely to materialize in the coming months, or even years, in the countryside of so-called ‘red states’, where some supporters of President Donald Trump may be willing to help the insurgents by giving them protection and cover. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

Analysis: US Capitol attack marks the beginning of a prolonged period of insurrection

January 7, 2021 by 14 Comments

Rightwing militancy 2021IF WEDNESDAY’S ATTACK ON the United States Capitol Complex was part of a coup d’état, then the American political system should be considered safe for the time being. The mob that ransacked the Capitol was disordered, leaderless, and appeared to have no coordination, or even direction. However, the broader militant movement that it represents is evolving very rapidly. If left unchecked, it will be able to turn its weaknesses into strengths and spell major trouble ahead for the already stormy waters of American politics. The nation’s law enforcement and security agencies must therefore prepare for a period of widespread insurrection, some of which will be armed and lethal in nature. Insurrectionist acts are likely to occur across the nation, and may last for months, if not longer.

WHO CARRIED OUT THE ATTACK?

Wednesday’s attack was carried out by what can be described as the militant wing of the American nationalist-populist movement. This wing is not strictly representative of the US president’s broader political base. Its members see themselves as vanguard soldiers who are prepared to take extreme action to avert President Trump’s imminent departure from the White House. Such militant attitudes are not typical among Trump voters. Yet this vanguard is revered by Trump’s political base, a sizeable portion of which appears to be in support of Wednesday’s attack on the US Capitol. Indeed, early polling by YouGov suggests that over 40 percent of Republican voters strongly or somewhat support the attack on the US Capitol.Q Quote 1

Many members of this frontline force belong to organized militant cells, like the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, and —more recently— the Proud Boys. But these groups provide limited operational direction to their members, and were certainly not commanding Wednesday’s events. In fact, an audiovisual analysis of the attack shows that most of the assailants operated in makeshift groups and many didn’t even know each other’s names. There were no leaders directing the attacks on Wednesday. It is indeed likely that the militant figureheads of the movement were as surprised by the turn of events as the hapless members of the US Capitol Police.

HOW WAS THE ATTACK PREPARED?

Many of the assailants were armed with tactical equipment, as well as with clubs, shields, chemical irritants, knives and other weapons. It also appears that at least one group of insurgents arrived at the Capitol with ropes, which they subsequently used to scale its walls. This points to earlier planning and coordination, which likely involved at least some reconnaissance. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , ,

Analysis: Will COVID-19 cause food shortages in the United States?

April 8, 2020 by 2 Comments

National Guard COVID-19The food supply chain in the United States has so far been able to endure the pressures caused by SARS-CoV-2. Grocery stores across the nation remain generally well-stocked, even if in some cases (like in Nevada and Arizona), the National Guard has been brought in to help with restocking. Shortages in certain types of foods, such as canned soup or pasta, are the result of unprecedented demand, rather than a breakdown in the food supply chain. Overall, therefore, there are no signs of systematic food shortages across the nation. However, disruptions —some of them severe— are likely to be experienced in the coming weeks.

COVID-19 IMPACT ON FARMS

Disruptions are likely to be felt first in the area of fresh produce, for two reasons. First, because large agricultural facilities are beginning to experience major shortages in personnel, as seasonal farmworkers —most of them from Central and South America— are unable to travel north due to the cessation of international travel in the Americas. Second, because —just like medical personnel across the country— agricultural workers are facing severe shortages in personal protective equipment (PPE), which is essential for keeping them healthy in a pandemic. Until now, major Q QuoteCOVID-19 outbreaks have been occurring in densely populated urban centers. But as the disease continues to spread, it is only a matter of time before the virus reaches rural farming areas and enters farms, which are the beginning of the food supply chain. Many automated agricultural facilities, such as grain and soybean operations in the American Midwest, do not require large numbers of human laborers, and will thus suffer little disruption from the spread of the pandemic. However, this is not the case with fruits and vegetables, such as tomatoes or grapes, which require human pickers to extract them. The progression of the disease in rural regions of Florida and California, which produce over 20% of total US agricultural value, will be a critical factor. As an illustration, is worth pointing out that two farms in California supply over 85% of all carrots in the US market. If COVID-19 affects the production and distribution capacity of global producers of fresh fruits and vegetables, like the Florida-based Fresh Del Monte Produce, the ramifications are likely to be felt across the world for more than a year.

AGRICULTURAL DISRUPTIONS IN WESTERN EUROPE

Western Europe, which is ahead of the US in the spread of the disease, is already experiencing unprecedented disruptions in agricultural production. The closing of international borders has prevented millions of seasonal farmworkers from Eastern Europe, whom agricultural facilities in Western Europe rely on to pick fruits and vegetables each year, from traveling west. Italy and Britain havQ Quotee begun issuing calls for unemployed workers to form “land armies” and volunteer to pick produce in farms. The French government has called “for hairdressers, waiters, florists and others temporarily unable to work” due to the pandemic “to head to the nation’s fields and start picking”. And in Germany, the authorities have launched a website that solicits volunteers to work in farms across the nation. However, as only 16,000 have volunteered so far, the German government is now working on a plan to allow undocumented immigrants to make up the remaining 284,000 farmworkers that are needed to salvage this year’s crop.

DISRUPTION IN THE GLOBAL FOOD EXPORT SYSTEM

It is unrealistic to expect that these glitches will not eventually make their way to the US. Moreover, just like Western Europe, the US relies heavily on imported foods. The global nature of the pandemic is also beginning to cause major disruptions in food exports, as air and ship cargo dwindles dramatically. Already, the shortage of refrigerated containers used to transport meat and other food supplies from China to North America has prompted a drop in imports of over 25%. Meanwhile, India, which is the world’s largest exporter of rice, has completely halted exports due to logistical problems and labor shortages caused by the pandemic. The world’s second and third largest exporters of rice, Thailand and Vietnam, are likely to soon follow suit. Kazakhstan, which is among the world’s largest exporters of wheat flour, has now banned all exports of that product. Brazil, the largest exporter of coffee, sugar and soybeans in the world, has warned that it is facing an unprecedented shortage of farmworkers, truck drivers, and even spare parts for farm equipment. And Russia, which is the world’s largest exporter of wheat, has said that it will soon be forced to severely restrict exports for the same reasons as Brazil. These developments prompted the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization to warn last week that food shortages, coupled with growing trade barriers between nations, “will create extreme volatility” in global food supply. Read more of this post

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , ,

Coronavirus: Comparing America’s bungling fiasco with Taiwan’s stunning success

March 9, 2020 by 3 Comments

Coronavirus Task ForceThe coronavirus (COVID-19) is quickly becoming the greatest security challenge of our time. The ease of transmission and high death rate of this disease, coupled with the asymmetric challenges it poses to our planet’s social, economic and political structures, threaten the very cohesion of our global system. This is especially true of Western societies, whose highly sophisticated organizational features make them especially susceptible to all forms of large-scale disruption. Few of those of us who are alive today in the West have ever faced a threat with the all-encompassing characteristics, disruptive capacity and persistent nature of COVID-19.

But no American would get this impression by watching the daily briefings of the so-called White House “Coronavirus Task Force”. The uncomfortable smiles and awkward acquiescence of its members, part of an unconvincing effort to assure Americans that “all is well”, coupled with their seemingly unending competition to offer lavish praises to each other, make for a truly uncomfortable viewing experience. Such astounding manifestations of mediocrity would be somewhat tolerable if they came alongside actionable information that Americans could use to protect themselves and the future of their country —preferably something beyond “washing your hands for at least 20 seconds”.

On February 26, Americans were told by their president that “within a couple of days [COVID-19 cases in the US would] be down close to zero, that’s a pretty good job we’ve done”. By that time, China was feverishly implementing the largest quarantine in human history. Ten days later, Italy began to quarantine 16 million people —a quarter of its population— in its northern regions. Meanwhile, Britain has begun re-hiring retired nurses to prepare for the coming unprecedented wave of medical emergencies, while France has banned all large meetings in its territory. But in America it’s business as usual: the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) announced on Sunday that all its tournament games nationwide will be held with fans despite growing concerns about the coronavirus. Not a single senior government official has stepped forward to address Americans’ growing anxiety about the potentially unprecedented degree of disruption that the US economy, including the nation’s supply chain, healthcare, transportation, education, entertainment, and services sectors are going to be experiencing in the coming months.

Additionally, Americans expect the so-called “Task Force” to provide non-politicized explanations of the ongoing failures of the US government’s treatment to the COVID-19 crisis, which continue to allow the virus to spread in our communities unabated. For instance, why did the US decline to use the World Health Organization’s diagnostic test for the disease, which had been made available to dozens of nations by the end of January? Or why does access to testing kits remain at alarmingly low levels, so much so that a frustrated New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently described the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s response to COVID-19 as “flat-footed”? So grave is this situation, that on March 8 The Washington Examiner —arguably America’s leading conservative publication— opined that COVID-19 “is exposing how deeply unsuited [Donald Trump] is to deal with a genuine crisis that he can’t bluff his way through”.

The American government’s tragically incompetent response to COVID-19 (at this point just slightly better than the Islamic Republic of Iran’s) hurts even more when one compares it with that of Taiwan —an island nation of 23 million, which the US often views as a client state. In January, when COVID-19 began making news headlines, experts predicted that Taiwan would end up with the world’s second-highest number of COVID-19 cases. This was primarily due to the country’s geographical proximity to mainland China —just 81 miles from the Chinese shore— as well as the extensive transportation network that links the two nations. Over 1.2 million Taiwanese either live permanently or work in China, while nearly 3 million Chinese citizens visit Taiwan every year. Even more ominously, the COVID-19 outbreak occurred right before the Lunar New Year, which is the busiest travel season for both Chinese and Taiwanese holidaymakers.

But Taiwan has managed to spectacularly defy all early predictions about a potential COVID-19 epidemic. As a group of researchers from the University of California Los Angeles, Stanford University, RAND Corporation and the Koo Foundation in Taiwan, explain in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the reason dates back to 2003. That year’s severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak prompted the Taiwanese government to establish the National Health Command Center (NHCC). Since then, the NHCC has operated as a central command system that coordinates the activities of Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Center, the Biological Pathogen Disaster Command Center, the Counter-Bioterrorism Command Center, and the Central Medical Emergency Operations Center. Intelligence collected and analyzed by these centers is quickly distributed to central, regional and local authorities in all parts of the country.

The authors explain that, on December 31, the day when the World Health Organization notified national authorities of the first accounts of a severe pneumonia with unknown causes in the Chinese city of Wuhan, NHCC personnel began to board planes arriving from Wuhan. They began testing all passengers and crew on those planes for flu-like symptoms before allowing them to deplane. By January 5, NHCC personnel were reaching out to anyone who had traveled to Wuhan in the past fortnight and testing them for flu-like symptoms. By that time, the NHCC had already set up a nationwide toll-free hotline, which has since become decentralized to serve individual regions.

On January 27, the NHCC worked in collaboration with Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) to integrate the database containing the recent travel history of passengers with their NHIA identification card data. They also integrated the same database with national tourism and immigration data. Within 24 hours, the NHCC was reaching out to all citizens of Taiwan, as well as tourists and immigrants, who had traveled to the Wuhan region during the previous month. Using this big-data analytics approach, Taiwanese authorities were able to generate real-time alerts that were sent to individual doctors for use during clinical visits, so that clinical symptoms could be matched with patients’ travel histories.

Those who had traveled to regions of China that were considered high-risk, were immediately quarantined at home for 14 days. Their movements were tracked through their mobile phones to ensure compliance with quarantine instructions. Meanwhile, all those who exhibited flu-like symptoms but had tested negative for influenza in weeks prior, were re-tested for COVID-19.

Considering the above, it is hardly surprising that, by March 9, Taiwan —located just 81 miles off the coast of China— had just 45 confirmed COVID-19 cases, with a single death. Importantly, this is not because the Taiwanese are not testing their citizens —unlike the US or, even more outrageously, Turkey, which continues to report zero cases of COVID-19. Taiwan has tested more people than all of the nations of the Americas combined. The low number of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan is due to one thing, and one thing alone: a preemptive approach to the security of the nation by an enlightened leadership and a forward-thinking government system. Which is precisely what the US lacks at this grave time for the nation’s future.

* Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis is associate professor in the Intelligence and National Security Studies program at Coastal Carolina University in the United States.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 March 2020 | Permalink

Filed under A specialized intelligence website written by experts, since 2008 Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older posts

%d bloggers like this: