Apparently not much has changed since the cold war. If you are a spy and you happen to speak Russian, business is still booming.
According to Nikolai Patrushev, Director of the FSB, the British, in league with their American chums, have been egging on the Poles, the Georgians, criminals in Russia and those evil, evil NGOs to try and meddle in Russian politics.
In an interview with Argumenty y Fakty magazine (translated by EurasiaNet), Patrushev claimed that the British were the most active, and reprehensible spies in Russia today:
…one should specially single out Britain, whose special organs not only conduct intelligence in all areas but also seek to influence the development of the domestic political situation in our country.
[…] Since the times of Queen Elizabeth I SIS officials have been guided by the principle that “the end justifies the means.” Money, bribery, blackmail, and release from punishment for crimes committed are their principal recruitment methods.
Apparently the Turkish and Pakistani secret services are also particularly active at the moment.
But don’t worry - everything’s ok. Russian counter-intelligence is on the case:
During the period since 2003 more than 270 active cadre officers and 70 agents of foreign intelligence services have been uncovered, including 35 Russian citizens.
Clearly foreign intelligence need to train their spies better.
October 12th, 2007 at 5:45 am
I like the design of the above posted emblem.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:48 am
“Apparently not much has changed since the cold war.”
‘Cold Sore’ again? Very old skool. Still, after the ‘peace dividend’ where spying budgets were slashed, economic espionage grew exponentially and in the last few years, budgets for ‘classic’ non-commercial espionage have boomed.
Russia in particular has put significant resources back into HUMINT (HUManINTelligence = spies), though considering what a pitiful state the FSB had been in for the last 15 years, its now back to ‘normal’. Still, the Russians aren’t nearly so clearly as obsessed as the West (the US in particular) with high-tech multi-billion dollar projects when a man(or woman) or two on the ground can do the same thing. Their buck goes further in that sense, though cheap microprocessors and intelligent software is often a very good alternative (the Russian government has recently announced that it will fund to the tune of a couple of billion dollars some latest generation silicon processing/microprocessor fabs (0.45 process)).
One day, we will find out how much the West managed to purloin from Russia during the dark years of the 1990s. We know of intelligence fronts like Edmund Pope, a ‘former’ intelligence officer (who are they kidding?) who were arrested and finally sent home, but not much at all about all the others.
The use of ‘fronts’ also makes it very difficult for legitimate researchers to do their jobs. For example the case of the former north sea fleet submariner Nikitin(sp?) who work/ed for the Bellona foundation researching radioactive leakages from old subs.
Unfortunately, it seems as if most of the ‘old rules’ about spy covers has gone out the window such as not using journalists as spies or members of the UN (particularly Bosnia & Kosovo where they gathered targeting data and spied on each other too), NGOs and supposedly ‘neutral’ organisations but this has always happened to a degree.
The big increase by far is in economic espionage, the US being famously uncovered for bugging various delegations during talks on globalization, the french nicking economic data, confidential airbus documents going missing etc. etc.
What is also interesting (but not surprising) is that no mention is made on the level of chinese espionage against Russia. Every now and then there is a ’small’ story of industrial/military espionage, but nothing that they have considered for a good rattling in the media.
October 12th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Aleks:
Not so lang ago, David Shambaugh, (who might be the leading American expert on the PRC armed forces) said that Russia isn’t selling China some of its more sophisticated weaponry for reasons which might relate to possible Russian fears about how such weapons might be used in the future.
The ability to qualitatively copy civilian technology doesn’t often match a similar talent when it comes to weapons systems.