Germany charges two with ‘high treason’ for spying for Russia

September 12, 2023 by Leave a comment

FSB RussiaGERMANY HAS CHARGED TWO men, among them a German intelligence officer, with spying for Russia, in a case that has shocked German public opinion and alarmed Germany’s allies. The two men have been identified only as “Carsten L.” and “Arthur E.”, in compliance with Germany’s privacy laws. Carsten L. is accused of having provided the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) with intelligence about the Russo-Ukrainian war, in return for nearly $500,000. Arthur E. is believed to have been Carsten L.’s accomplice and to have acted as an intermediate between him and his Russian handlers.

The German prosecutor general has charged both men with “high treason in a particularly serious case”. However, there is no public information about the timeline of Carsten L.’s recruitment by the FSB and his espionage for the Russians. He reportedly met his accomplice, Arthur E., a Russian-born German diamond trader, in Bavaria in 2021. After being recruited by Carsten L., Arthur E. is believed to have traveled frequently between Germany and Russia. During those trips, he is thought to have met with FSB officers in order to provide them with intelligence and receive payments.

When they announced the arrests of the two men back in January of this year, German officials said they had been tipped by a foreign intelligence agency. The foreign intelligence agency had allegedly found a document from the BND’s internal files in the possession of an unnamed Russian spy agency. However, the identity of the intelligence agency that provided the tip to the Germans is among several important details about this case that remain unknown for the time being. Among them are the estimated duration of Carsten L.’s alleged espionage for Moscow, the damage he caused to German intelligence, as well as his motives for spying for the FSB.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 September 2023 | Permalink

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Alleged Israeli spies with Russian citizenship arrested in Lebanon

September 4, 2023 by Leave a comment

Rafic Hariri International Airport Beirut LebanonLAST WEEK, LEBANON’S GENERAL Security Directorate charged two Russian citizens with spying for Israel. The two Russians, who appear to be legally married to each other, were detained by authorities at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport as they were attempting to leave the country. The detentions were reported by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, which is affiliated with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

According to the Al-Akhbar report, one of the suspects admitted that he had been recently recruited into Israeli intelligence. He also reportedly admitted that, as part of his espionage activities, he received maps of sites and instructions about gatherings at facilities in Lebanon belonging to the Hezbollah organization. He added that he had been instructed to access, inspect and, if possible, photograph these facilities. He also reportedly admitted that he had visited southern Lebanon and entered Hamas-controlled areas of southern Beirut, where he had collected data and verified it against the information available to his handlers.

The report added that the suspect’s wife, who was also arrested, admitted under interrogation that she was aware of her husband’s work and that she had assisted him in his tasks. According to the report the General Security Directorate had suspected the Russian citizen, because he had traveled in southern Lebanon several times. Lebanese authorities were able to track his movements and connections, eventually tracing his place of residence. He was arrested along with his wife soon after being notified by his handlers that he should leave the country immediately.

Al-Akhbar added that, prior to the arrest, the General Security Directorate had informed the Russian Embassy in Beirut of its intention to arrest the Russian citizens. The agency’s Director, Elias Elbisri, said following the arrest: “A spy ring for the benefit of the Israeli enemy was foiled at the Beirut airport, consisting of two people who tried to leave Lebanon”. According to Elbisri, “we carried out the necessary investigations; this cell posed a threat to Lebanon”.

Israeli authorities did not respond to news about the incident. It should be noted that, if Russian citizens were indeed recruited and employed by Israeli intelligence, this development could further-damage the relationship between Israel and Russia, which is already fragile due to ongoing developments in Syria and Ukraine. Israel regularly launches attacks on Iranian facilities and equipment in Syria —a Russian ally. Israel is also believed to provide security assistance to Ukraine, which is engaged in a bloody war over territory with Russia.

In recent days, there have been leaks in Israel that an intense debate took place in the Israeli Security Cabinet, following the rise in Palestinian acts of terrorism in Israel, which, according to Israeli security agencies, are guided by Hezbollah and Hamas. As a result, Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip are taking protective actions, fearing the renewal of targeted killings by Israeli forces. Salah al-Aruri, commander of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, who is directing his forces against Israel from abroad, could also be a target for the Israeli intelligence community.

► Author: Avner Barnea | Date: 04 September 2023 | Permalink

Dr. Avner Barnea is research fellow at the National Security Studies Center of the University of Haifa in Israel. He served as a senior officer in the Israel Security Agency (ISA). He is the author of We Never Expected That: A Comparative Study of Failures in National and Business Intelligence (Lexington Books, 2021).

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UK charges three Bulgarians with spying for Russia in ‘major national security’ case

August 15, 2023 by 4 Comments

Bizer Dzhambazov and Katrin IvanovaAUTHORITIES 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.

The Bulgarians were reportedly arrested in February of this year by the Counter-Terrorism Command of the Metropolitan Police, whose law enforcement mandate includes working on counterespionage cases. Two other individuals who were arrested at the time have not been charged or named. The three suspects have been charged under Section 4 of the United Kingdom’s Identity Documents Act 2010, which prohibits the possession of fake identity documents with “improper intention” and with the owner’s knowledge that they are fake. According to British government prosecutors, the suspects possessed forged passports and identity cards for Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Croatia, Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia.

Dzhambazov and Ivanova are believed to have moved to the United Kingdom as a couple in 2013. Both worked in the British healthcare sector —Ivanova as a laboratory assistant for a private company and Dzhambazov as a driver for a hospital. Roussev moved to the United Kingdom in 2009 and worked on the technical side of the financial services industry. He claims to have worked as an adviser for the Ministry of Energy of Bulgaria. He also claims to have previously owned a private company that operated in the area of signals intelligence (SIGINT), which involves the interception of electronic communications.

Bulgaria was one of the Soviet Union’s closest allies during the Cold War. Relations between Bulgaria and Russia plummeted in the 2000s, but pro-Russian sentiments continue to survive among some nationalist segments of the Bulgarian electorate. In June of this year, Kiril Petkov, the leader of Bulgaria’s We Continue the Change party, which today backs Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Nikolai Denkov, spoke publicly about “Moscow-backed agents” operating inside Bulgaria’s intelligence services. Petkov proposed an ambitious plan to reform the Bulgarian intelligence services in order to “diminish the influence of Russia”. He proposed to do this through the administration of “integrity and ethical tests” to intelligence personnel.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 15 August 2023 | Permalink

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Brazil judges block international requests to extradite alleged Russian spy

July 31, 2023 by 1 Comment

GRUTHE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT IS blocking requests from the United States and Russia to extradite an alleged Russian deep-cover spy, whose forged Brazilian identity papers were discovered by Dutch counterintelligence. Sergey Cherkasov was expelled by authorities in the Netherlands in June 2022, after he attempted to enter the country using a Brazilian-issued passport under the name of Victor Muller Ferreira.

Within a few days of his expulsion, Dutch and American counterintelligence had outed Cherkasov as an intelligence officer of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as GRU. Cherkasov is alleged to have built his forged identity over several years, while operating in Brazil and the United States. Upon returning to Brazil, Cherkasov was sentenced to 15 years in prison for using forged Brazilian identity documents.

Last week, Cherkasov’s sentence was reduced to 5  years, after a court in Brazil dropped some of the initial charges that had been filed against him by the Brazilian government prosecutor’s office. Cherkasov’s lawyers are now arguing that their client does not pose a flight risk and should therefore be allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence outside of prison, wearing an electronic tagging device.

These recent developments are of concern to authorities in the United States. The latter have filed an extradition request for Cherkasov, claiming that he spent several years as a graduate student in an American university while using his forged Brazilian identity papers. During that time, Cherkasov is alleged to have repeatedly communicated with his Russian intelligence handlers, supplying them with information about American politics and policy.

However, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security of Brazil said on Friday that Washington’s extradition request had been denied and that Cherkasov would remain in Brazil. The apparent reason for the denial is that Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court had already approved a similar extradition request for Cherkasov, which was filed in April by the Russian government. Moscow claims that Cherkasov is wanted in Russia for narcotics trafficking. The Russians also deny that the alleged spy worked for the GRU or any other government agency.

Yet, despite claims to the contrary, the Brazilian government appears to be essentially stalling on Moscow’s extradition request. On Friday, Flávio Dino, who serves as Minister of Justice under the administration of President Inácio Lula, stated that Cherkasov would continue to serve his prison sentence in Brazil until further notice. In the United States, CBS News reported that Cherkasov’s extradition to Russia would take place “only […] after the final judgment of all of his cases here in Brazil” has been issued, according to the accused spy’s lawyers.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 31 July 2023 | Permalink

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Revealed: Little-known Russian counterintelligence unit that targets foreigners

July 12, 2023 by 3 Comments

FSB - JFAN INVESTIGATIVE REPORT BY the Wall Street Journal discusses a little-known Russian counterintelligence unit that targets foreign diplomats in ways that often “blur the lines between spycraft and harassment”. Among other activities, this secretive unit is likely behind a string of operations targeting American citizens, which have led to the arrest of at least three of them since 2018. These include the Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich, who earlier this year became the first American reporter to be held in Russia on espionage charges since the Cold War.

The Journal Text highlights the activities of the Department for Counterintelligence Operations, or DKRO, a highly clandestine unit belonging to the counterintelligence arm of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). It is believed that the DKRO is responsible for monitoring the activities of foreigners living in Russia. The unit reports to Vladislav Menshchikov, director of the counterintelligence arm of the FSB. Prior to his current post, Menshchikov headed the Office of Special Presidential Programs, a Kremlin outfit that operates and safeguards secret underground facilities in Russia’s metropolitan areas.

According to the paper, the DKRO consists of sub-units that focus on various nationalities of foreigners living in Russia, including diplomats. Its first and largest section, known as DKRO-1, focuses on Americans and Canadians. The operations of this sub-unit have intensified significantly in recent times, as relations between Washington and Moscow have worsened. The Journal’s information reportedly came from “dozens of interviews” with senior Western diplomats in Europe and the United States, American citizens that were previously detained and imprisoned in Russia, as well as Russian analysts and journalists who now live abroad.

In addition to Menshchikov, the DKRO has been behind operations that led to the arrests of two other Americans, Paul Whelan (arrested in 2018) and Trevor Reed (arrested in 2019), both of whom were charged with carrying out espionage for the United States. However, most of the activities of the DKRO focus on monitoring the activities of foreign subjects inside Russia. These include journalists and diplomats. Many of the DKRO’s targets have been subjected to campaigns of harassment and intimidation, the Journal claims. Examples include following diplomats’ children to school, breaking into diplomats’ residences to plant recording devices, sabotaging diplomatic vehicles, and even “cutting the power to the residence of the current U.S. Ambassador”.

The paper also reports that, according to American diplomatic staff, the Russian police officers that are posted along the perimeter of the United States embassy in Moscow are in fact “DKRO officers in disguise”. The Journal said it reached out to the FSB and the Kremlin for comment on these allegations, but received no response. The paper also reached out to the United States embassy in Moscow and to the State Department, but officials there declined to comment.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 12 July 2023 | Permalink

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German spy services had foreknowledge of Wagner mutiny, report claims

July 11, 2023 by 1 Comment

BND GermanyCONTRARY TO EARLIER CLAIMS that the German intelligence agencies failed to anticipate last month’s showdown between PMC Wagner and the Kremlin, German intelligence did in fact have foreknowledge of the mercenary group’s uprising, a new investigative report has concluded. The report further claims that German intelligence had unique and real-time insights into the negotiations between Wagner PMC leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, who intervened in the dispute.

In the days following the June 23 mutiny by soldiers of the Russian private military firm Wagner Group, German intelligence agencies were publicly criticized for allegedly failing to warn Berlin about the unprecedented incident. Specifically, it was claimed that Germany’s primary foreign intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service (BND), did not issue an actual warning about the mutiny until Saturday —a full 12 hours after the first clashes had erupted between Wagner mercenaries and forces loyal to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Much of the criticism came from the ranks of the center-left German Social Democratic Party (SPD), which is the primary political party behind the government of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. However, criticism also came from the Green Party, which supports Scholz’s administration, and the liberal center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP), which also supports Scholz’s government. The criticism intensified after June 28, when, during a live television interview, Chancellor Scholz appeared to confirm speculation that the BND had left his administration in the dark about the Wagner mutiny until it was too late.

Late last week, however, a joint investigation by two of Germany’s most respected public television broadcasters, the Hamburg-based NDR and the Cologne-based WDR, concluded that the BND had been far more informed about the Wagner mutiny than its critics have claimed. The investigation concluded that, not only did the BND have foreknowledge of the mutiny nearly a week before it materialized, but that it was able to listen-in to the frantic telephone conversations between Prigozhin and Belarussian President Lukashenko, as the latter tried to dissuade the Wagner leader from storming the Russian capital with his heavily armed band of mercenaries.

According to the NDR-WDR report, the BND had been able to hack into Wagner’s internal communications system up for over a year. However, its operation was betrayed by “Carsten L.”, a German intelligence officer who was arrested late last year for spying for Russia. However, the German spy service was able to continue to monitor the internal affairs of Wagner through other sources and had access to channels of information within Wagner in the months leading up to the mutiny. Thus, according to the report, the BND had “vague indications of an imminent uprising by Wagner” about a week prior to June 23.

However, the agency was unsuccessful in verifying these indications through other sources, including its foreign counterpart agencies. For this reason, it chose not to notify the German Chancellery in concrete terms.

Nevertheless, the BND did issue a warning on Friday evening, a few hours before the Wagner mutiny began. The warning was issued a full day prior to the takeover of Wagner’s armed takeover of the Russian armed forces’ operational headquarters in Rostov, which occurred on Saturday. The two state broadcasters reportedly reached out to the BND for confirmation of the report’s findings. However, a BND spokesperson declined to comment on the matter, saying simply that the BND “generally does not comment publicly on matters relating to intelligence findings or operations”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 11 July 2023 | Permalink

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Brazil launches investigation into illegal activities of Russian deep-cover spies

July 3, 2023 by 1 Comment

José Giammaria Mikhail MikushinAUTHORITIES 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. According to The Wall Street Journal, Brazil was placed “in an uncomfortable international profile” in the past year, after at least three alleged Russian deep-cover spies were outed by intelligence services in the Netherlands, Norway and Greece.

In June of 2022, authorities in the Netherlands expelled Sergey Cherkasov after he attempted to enter the country using a Brazilian-issued passport under the name of Victor Muller Ferreira. As intelNews explained at the time, Dutch and American counterintelligence outed Cherkasov as an intelligence officer of the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, which is commonly known as GRU. Cherkasov is alleged to have built his forged identity over several years, while operating in Brazil and the United States. Cherkasov is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence in Brazil for using forged identity documents. He is wanted in the United States for espionage. The alleged spy has reportedly admitted to the use of forged documents, but is denying he worked as a Russian intelligence officer.

In October of last year, the Norwegian police arrested another Brazilian citizen, José Assis Giammaria (pictured), accusing him of operating under deep cover on behalf o the GRU. According to the Office of the Norwegian state prosecutor, the suspect’s actual name is Mikhail Mikushin. He is believed to have been operating as a deep-cover spy in Brazil, Canada and Norway since 2006. Mikushin is now facing charges of “aggravated intelligence-gathering activity targeting state secrets”, which carry a maximum prison term of 10 years.

In early 2023, Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich, a resident of Rio de Janeiro, disappeared while traveling abroad. A few months later, he was connected to Irena Shmyrev, a Russian deep-cover spy who was living in Greece under an assumed Greek identity, until she disappeared without trace, reportedly leaving the country in a hurry. According to Greek counterintelligence investigations, Wittich was Irena A.S.’s Russian husband who, like her, worked as a deep-cover intelligence operative out of Brazil.

According to The Wall Street Journal, an official investigation is currently underway in Brazil into how many Russian deep-cover intelligence operatives may be using forged Brazilian citizenship documents to “lurk undetected within the country or around the world”. The paper says that Brazilian investigators have shared “few public details about their probe”. However, it cites “people familiar with the matter” in claiming that the probe centers on “security gaps within Brazil’s documentation system”, which appear to be exploited by undercover spies. Such security gaps allegedly include the ability to obtain a Brazilian identity card and a passport with the use of a single document, namely a birth record.

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

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Switzerland overrun with foreign spies, Swiss intelligence service warns

June 28, 2023 by 1 Comment

Russian embassy SwitzerlandINTENSIFYING COMPETITION BETWEEN THE superpowers has turned Switzerland into an espionage battlefield, with more foreign spies being active there than in most other European countries, according to a new report. The report, published earlier this week by the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), notes that Russian operatives are particularly active in the alpine country. Many Russian intelligence officers have relocated there after being expelled by a host of European countries in the past 18 months, according to the report.

Traditionally neutral Switzerland has not joined most other European countries in expelling Russian intelligence officers —posing as diplomats— following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Therefore, as Russia tries to rebuild its shattered intelligence-gathering networks in Europe, it is using Switzerland as a forward-operating base, according to the FIS. As of 2023, the number of Russian intelligence personnel stationed on Swiss soil, and the ensuing espionage activity, “is notably high”, states the report.

According to the FIS report, that the lion’s share of Russian intelligence officers —“several dozen”— are stationed “at the Russian diplomatic and consular missions in Geneva”. A major international diplomatic hub, Geneva is an “ideal operational environment” for foreign intelligence agencies. It hosts a significant number of international organizations —including one of the four major offices of the United Nations. Additionally, it is situated close to the largely unmonitored French border. This allows intelligence operatives to move seamlessly in and out of European Union soil.

Furthermore, as Western intelligence agencies increase their presence in Switzerland, in order to counter Russian intelligence activities there, “espionage levels […] are continuously rising”, according to the FIS report. This situation is unlikely to change in the coming year, as “intensifying competition between superpowers” is expected to continue to involve Switzerland as an espionage battlefield that draws in rival intelligence agencies, the FIS report concludes.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 28 June 2023 | Permalink

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Analysis: Prigozhin’s goal was to survive, not to remove Putin from power

June 26, 2023 by 8 Comments

Yevgeny PrigozhinIN THE EARLY HOURS of June 23, PMC Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin declared the launch of an armed campaign against the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. Within hours, several thousand soldiers belonging to Wagner, one of the world’s largest private military companies, had abandoned their positions in eastern Ukraine and were en route to Moscow. Their mission, according to Prigozhin, was to arrest Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, and try them for mismanagement and corruption.

In the ensuing hours, National Guard units along the M-4, a 1,100-mile-long expressway that connects the northeastern shores of the Black Sea to Moscow, began blocking or destroying critical junctures across that vast road network, in an attempt to obstruct the Wagner convoy. In a televised nationwide address, a visibly shaken Vladimir Putin accused Prigozhin of leading an armed insurrection, and warned those who followed him that they would be treated as traitors. Meanwhile, tickets on flights from Moscow to several visa-free international destinations were sold out within hours, as Muscovites braced for the outbreak of civil war.

Yet, within fewer than 24 hours, Prigozhin, who had repeatedly vowed to reach Moscow or die trying, was on his way to Belarus. He had seemingly accepted a deal to abandon his loyal troops in exchange for amnesty and a life in exile. Prigozhin’s sudden about-face surprised many observers, who had expected to see firefights between Spetsnaz units and Wagner forces in Moscow’s southern districts by Sunday afternoon. Even some of Prigozhin’s own troops took to social media to openly accuse their former leader of betrayal, and vow revenge.

PRIGOZHIN: A RATIONAL AND CALCULATED ACTOR

How are we to explain this unexpected turn of events? The difficulty of such a task is amplified by the lack of reliable reporting from Russia, along with the inherent chaos of war and the rapidly changing nature of events. It must be stressed, however, that Prigozhin is neither impulsive nor irrational. His maneuvers over the past week were calculated and almost certainly pre-planned and choreographed —most likely long in advance. His ultimate decision to seek political asylum in Belarus —one of the few countries in the world that is unlikely to turn him over to the United States— makes sense under one premise: that the motive behind his “justice march” to Moscow was not to challenge Putin, but to save his life.

To begin with, the bitter feud between Prigozhin and the Russian Ministry of Defense is not new. It has been raging for years. It both precedes and exceeds Russia’s ongoing military campaign in Ukraine. The Wagner leader has repeatedly expressed his dismay at being viewed as an outsider by the Ministry of Defense, which it views as an elitist and incompetent bureaucracy. His experience in Ukraine, where Wagner’s forces faced stiff resistance from the local population and the Ukrainian military alike, added fuel to his rage against a host of Russian defense officials. Prigozhin has been voicing his denunciations of the way these officials have managed the war since March of 2022, just two weeks into the invasion of Ukraine.

PRIGOZHIN’S DISILLUSIONMENT

The disastrous Russian military campaign in Ukraine only served to sharpen Prigozhin’s criticism of his country’s defense establishment. One can observe this in the evolution of his critiques over time. In recent months, the Wagner leader has not only criticized the Ministry of Defense, accusing his leadership of corruption, but he has increasingly directed his ire against broad segments of Russian society. In his video tirades, he often decries what he describes as “the Russian elite” and the “oligarchy”, whom it accuses of living in luxury, while Russia’s working class fights and dies in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and elsewhere. Read more of this post

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Russian intelligence planned to assassinate SVR defector living in the United States

June 21, 2023 by 1 Comment

Aleksandr PoteyevTHE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES planned to assassinate a Russian former intelligence officer, who had defected to the United States and was living in an apartment complex in Florida, according to a new report. The alleged assassination plan is discussed in the forthcoming book Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West (Simon and Schuster), authored by Harvard University academic Calder Walton.

According to Dr. Walton, Russian intelligence targeted Aleksandr Poteyev, who served as Deputy Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) from 2000 until 2010. Poteyev was reportedly in charge of the SVR’s Directorate “S”, which oversees the work of illegals —a term that refers to SVR operations officers who work in without official cover around the world. It is believed that Poteyev began working for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1999, as an agent-in-place.

By 2010, when he openly defected to the United States, Poteyev had provided the CIA with information that led to the high-profile arrest of 10 Russian illegals by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Some believe that the SVR defector was also responsible for the arrests of Russian spies in Germany and Holland. In 2011, a Russian court tried Poteyev in absentia and sentenced him to 25 years in prison. Poteyev remains at large and is believed to be living in the United States under the protection of the CIA’s National Resettlement Operations Center.

On Monday, The New York Times reported that it had independently confirmed Dr. Walton’s claims, with the help of “three former senior American officials who spoke” to the paper “on the condition of anonymity”. According to The Times, a 2016 report by the Moscow-based Interfax news agency, which claimed that Poteyev had died in the United States, was part of a deliberate disinformation operation by the SVR, which was aimed at enticing the defector to emerge from his hideout.

When that attempt failed, the SVR allegedly recruited a Mexican scientist who lived in Singapore, Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, to travel to Miami, Florida, in 2020, in order to locate Poteyev. But Fuentes attracted the attention of the authorities while driving around in Miami and was subsequently detained by US Customs and Border Protection agents as he was trying to board a flight to Mexico City. Fuentes then provided details of his mission to the FBI. The Bureau eventually determined that the goal of the SVR had been to assassinate Poteyev.

According to The New York Times, the realization that the SVR had planned to carry out an assassination operation on American soil “spiraled into a tit-for-tat retaliation by the United States and Russia”, which included cascading sanctions and diplomatic expulsions on both sides. The paper reports that, in April 2021, the White House ordered the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats from the United States, including the SVR’s chief of station, who had two years left on his Washington, DC, tour. The Kremlin responded by expelling an equal number of American diplomats from Russia, including the CIA station chief in Moscow.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 June 2023 | Permalink

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Ukrainian drone strikes may have targeted Moscow homes of Russian spies

June 8, 2023 by 1 Comment

Rublyovka, MoscowA SERIES OF COORDINATED drone strikes that struck Moscow last week were not random, but may in fact have targeted the homes of senior Russian intelligence officials, according to a new report by an American television network, which cited knowledgeable sources and data by an open-source research firm.

In the early morning hours of May 30, a fleet of at least six unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) struck what appeared to be residential apartment blocks in Moscow’s southeastern suburbs. The targets were all located in Moscow’s Rublyovka area, which contains some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Russian capital. Many expressed surprise at the airborne assault, as it was the first known attack against residential targets in Moscow since the latest phase of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022.

Upon initial inspection, the targets of the early-morning attack appeared to have been chosen at random. Yesterday, however, the American television network NBC claimed that the targets of the attack had been carefully selected as “a part of Ukraine’s strategy of psychological warfare against Russia”. Citing “multiple sources familiar with the strikes”, including a senior United States official and a congressional staffer, NBC said that the targets of the attacks were all residences of Russian government personnel.

The television network also cited data by Strider Technologies, an open-source strategic intelligence company located in the American state of Utah, according to which at least one of the buildings that were struck by the UAVs housed a Russian state-controlled military contractor. According to Strider Technologies, the contractor provides services to a military unit that is known to be a front for Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). NBC further claimed that other targets in the alleged Ukrainian operation targeted the residences of senior Russian intelligence personnel.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 08 June 2023 | Permalink

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Ukraine is running networks of saboteurs inside Russia, report claims

June 6, 2023 by 3 Comments

Security Service of Ukraine SBUTHE UKRAINIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES are training and arming cells of saboteurs inside Russia, who are responsible for several acts of sabotage on Russian soil, including a recent attack on the Kremlin, according to CNN. In an exclusive report published on Monday, the American television channel cited “multiple people familiar with US intelligence on” the activities of Ukrainian “agents and sympathizers” inside Russia.

According to the report, pro-Ukrainian saboteurs may be responsible for a growing number of incidents involving mysterious explosions, fires and malfunctions of Russian critical infrastructure. In recent months, such incidents have caused serious damage on Russian military warehouses, energy pipelines, fuel depots and refineries, railway networks, and military enlistment offices. Last month saw a widely reported attack by a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on the Kremlin, which serves as the official residence of the Russian president in Moscow.

The CNN report claims that the UAV attack on the Kremlin, and possibly other similar incidents that have taken place inside Russia in recent months, represent the “culmination of months of effort” by the Ukrainian government. The latter has now allegedly assembled and is operating semi-autonomous sabotage cells inside Russia. These cells are said to consist of Ukrainian nationals operating in an undercover capacity, as well as of Russian nationals who sympathize with Ukraine. They also include Russians who are militantly opposed to the administration of President Vladimir Putin.

These cells have been “well-trained” in sabotage and have been provided with lethal hardware —including UAVs or UAV components— by the Ukrainian government, CNN said. These provisions reach the saboteurs through “well-practiced smuggling routes” that the Ukrainians have established across the Ukrainian-Russian border. The latter is “vast and very difficult to control”, and has been so for decades, according to the report. In most cases, the weaponry used in acts of sabotage is assembled and operated from within Russia, rather than from command centers in Ukraine, the CNN report claims.

The broad strategic parameters of the saboteurs Russia have reportedly been established by the highest echelons of the Ukrainian government, under the direct supervision of President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officers who handle, train and arm the saboteurs have deliberately given them significant autonomy in terms of targeting and tactics. CNN said it contacted the Ukrainian government for comment on this report. The SBU did not confirm or deny that it was involved in handling cells of saboteurs inside Russia. However, a SBU spokesperson told CNN that “the mysterious explosions and drone strikes inside Russia would continue”.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 06 June 2023 | Permalink

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Russia says it uncovered U.S. operation to compromise Apple phones

June 2, 2023 by 1 Comment

Apple iPhoneRUSSIAN OFFICIALS SAID THEY uncovered a sophisticated espionage effort by the United States government, which targeted the smartphones of thousands of Apple users living in Russia, including foreign diplomats. According to the Russians, the operation was carried out by the National Security Agency (NSA), an American intelligence agency that specializes in gathering foreign signals intelligence and securing the United States government’s information and communication systems.

The source of the allegation is the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s primary counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency. On Thursday, the FSB said that “an intelligence action of the American special services” had been uncovered by FSB officers with the assistance of the Federal Protective Service. Known in Russia by its initials, FSO, the Federal Protective Service operates federal emergency communications systems and provides personal security for high-ranking government officials.

According to the FSB, “several thousand Apple telephones” were targeted in the alleged NSA operation, including devices belonging to “domestic Russian subscribers”, as well as devices belonging to foreign diplomats stationed in Russia. The latter allegedly include diplomats from Israel, Syria and China, according to the FSB. The Russian agency also claimed that Russia-based foreign diplomats from North Atlantic Treaty Organization member-states had their phones targeted, as well as diplomats from former Soviet states.

In the same press release, the FSB accused the NSA and Apple of working in “close cooperation” with each other —an allegation that the Russian government has been making for several years. In a follow-up media statement, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the United States of engaging in “hidden data collection” and dismissed Apple iPhones as “absolutely transparent”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov urged Russians to avoid using Apple products and lamented reports that one in three Russian government workers continue to utilize Apple products for their personal use. When asked by reporters if the Russian government had plans to outlaw the use of Apple products by government employees, Peskov responded that the Kremlin did “not have the power to even recommend that”, except for those government employees with access to classified information.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 02 June 2023 | Permalink

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Albanian court releases Russian and Ukrainian bloggers suspected of espionage

May 29, 2023 by 3 Comments

Gramsh AlbaniaA COURT IN ALBANIA has ordered the release from prison of two Russians and one Ukrainian national, who were arrested nearly last August on suspicion of carrying out military espionage. On August 20, 2022, Albania announced the arrests of Russian nationals Svetlana Timofeeva and Mikhail Zorin. Arrested alongside the two Russians was a Ukrainian citizen, who was identified in media reports as Fedir Alpatov.

Albanian authorities said the three foreigners had been arrested while attempting to enter the Gramsh military installation, a defunct small-arms factory, which is located 50 miles south of the Albanian capital Tirana. During the Cold War, the Gramsh factory specialized in producing Soviet-designed AK-47 assault rifles. After the collapse of Albania’s communist system in the early 1990s, the factory was turned into a storage facility and was subsequently used to deactivate and decommission expired munitions.

Following their arrest, the three foreign nationals said they were “urban explorers” who engaged in “industrial tourism”, a type of travel that centers on entering and photographing dilapidated industrial facilities around the world. Soon after her arrest was announced, the United States government-funded Radio Free Europe (RFE) confirmed that Timofeeva, was indeed “one of Russia’s most famous urban explorers”. According to RFE, Timofeeva, 34, was known under the nom de guerre “Lana Sator” and maintained an Instagram page that was followed by over 250,000 users.

The plot thickened in March of this year, when Timofeeva, while still in detention, applied for political asylum in Albania. It emerged that Timofeeva was wanted by the Russian government on charges of “illegally obtaining information constituting a state secret”. In February of this year, the Ministry of Justice of Albania approved a request by Moscow to extradite Timofeeva to Russia, in order to face espionage charges. However, this decision was later overturned by an Albanian judge, a development that reportedly angered Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Timofeeva’s lawyers argued that she had openly opposed the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and had voiced public criticism of President Putin. As a result, Timofeeva had left Russia and had been living in exile in Georgia at the time of her arrest. Some observers, however, suspected that at least one of those arrested had links to Russian intelligence. It was reported that Zorin had admitted being an informant for the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). However, the precise conditions under which Zorin’s alleged admission was made are not known.

In a statement released to the media last week, Albania’s Elbasan Trial Court said that, even though Timofeeva, Zorin and Alpatov would be released from detention, the investigation against them on suspicion of espionage would continue for the time being.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 29 May 2023 | Permalink

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U.S. charges Greek businessman with smuggling military and dual-use goods to Russia

May 22, 2023 by Leave a comment

Rijen NetherlandsThe United States Department of Justice has charged a Greek national with wire fraud and smuggling sensitive military-grade and dual-use goods from the United States to Russia. The suspect, Dr. Nikolaos “Nikos” Bogonikolos, 59, was arrested in Paris, France, on May 9, at the request of the United States, and is currently in custody pending extradition proceedings.

Bogonikolos is a mathematician and self-described “serial entrepreneur”, with business activities dating back to 1987. He has authored and co-authored academic articles, holds a number of patents, and has published a book entitled Total Process Security Reengineering. Following the ECHELON revelations in the late 1990’s, he authored a report (.pdf) entitled “The Perception of Economic Risks Arising from the Potential Vulnerability of Electronic Commercial Media to Interception” as part of a study for the European Parliament.

In 2005, Bogonikolos received his PhD from the Kharkov National Economic University in Ukraine, focusing on applications of artificial intelligence in the field of economics. According to his own claims, he has been active as an entrepreneur or researcher in some 40 countries, including Russia. Bogonikolos is the founder of a Greek-based company called Aratos Group. In 2016, Aratos Systems BV was registered as legal entity in The Netherlands. Since 2020, the company has been located in the town of Rijen, which is also home to the main operational military helicopter base of the Royal Netherlands Air Force.

Aratos Systems BV describes itself on its website (currently offline) as an “independent and leading member of the Greek Aratos Group”. Its activities, as declared to the Netherlands chamber of commerce, are “the collection, processing, protecting, and selling of earth observation data to public and private parties”. Aratos Systems also “owns and runs a fully equipped Satellite Ground Station constantly connected with EUMETSAT” —the latter being the European operational satellite agency for monitoring weather, climate and the environment from space.

Last week, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service and the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service raided the Aratos Systems offices in Rijen. According to the unsealed complaint (.pdf) it is believed that Bogonikolos was contacted in December 2017 by representatives of an illicit Russian procurement network that acquires sensitive military-grade and dual-use technologies, under the direction of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR). Elements of that network are often referred to by Western government officials as “the Serniya Network” or “Sertal”, among other names. In December 2022 the United States charged five Russian nationals, including a suspected intelligence officer, believed to be part of that network, as well as two United States nationals.

In December 2017, Bogonikolos allegedly accepted an invitation to travel to Moscow alone for a meeting. The complaint cites an email exchange between senior members of Sertal and Serniya Network, including Yevgeniy Grinin and Aleksey Ippolitov, who are both wanted by the FBI. In the email exchange, it is suggested that Bogonikolos is a “supporter of the Orthodoxy” and that he sees it as “the basis of friendship with Russia”.

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