In a rare public statement last week, British spymaster Sir Richard Moore called on Russians “who are silently” appalled by the war in Ukraine to spy for the UK.
The leader of Secret Intelligence Servicecommonly referred to as MI6, even revealed that “many” Russians had already “given their hand” to the English since Putin launched hostilities.
He added: “They watch in horror as their soldiers ravage a brother country. They know in their hearts that Putin’s justifications for attacking another Slavic nation are lies.”
Moore assured the defectors they could have “sacred trust” that the UK would protect them. We will see later that it is not always so sure as that.
The CIA’s call to all
A few weeks ago, it was the CIA which called in a video the Russians to provide it with information via the encrypted Telegram network.
The skillfully produced two-minute video with dramatic music appeals to their patriotism and highlights the oppression they face under Putin. “Are you a military officer? Do you work in intelligence, diplomacy, science, high tech, or do you deal with people who do?” asks the CIA. “Do you have any information about the economy or the top leadership of the Russian Federation? Contact us.”
It explains how information can be encrypted and transmitted using the TOR (The Onion Router) browser to access the Dark web. Telegram is popular among Russians for learning about politics and the war in Ukraine. Many senior Russian officials have Telegram accounts.
Asked to comment on the CIA and MI6 tenders, the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that there would be “an appropriate effective response”.
Sowing discord with a paranoid Poutine
It’s not for nothing that the CIA and MI6 are calling for defectors now.
This is the perfect time given the chaos in Russia’s military-security complex and – more importantly – Putin’s growing paranoia. The video will certainly make him even more anxious sowing suspicion and mistrust in the Kremlin. He will wonder who in his entourage gives information to the West as Gleb Karakulov did.
In charge of Putin’s secure communications, Karakulov defected last year to reveal that Putin’s paranoia had deepened as his armies suffered setbacks. Other sources also describe the little tsar as pathologically afraid of being assassinated. Increasingly isolated, he reportedly refuses to use a cellphone and the internet and strangely insists on having access to Russian state television wherever he goes.
Putin kills those who betray him
Putin’s Russia is as relentless as the old Soviet Union in punishing those who “cross over to the West”. In 2018, Sergei Skripal, a former GRU military intelligence officer who took refuge in England, and his daughter survived poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok. Alexander Litvinenko, another Russian spy in the service of the British, was assassinated in London in 2006 using radioactive polonium-210 dissolved in his cup of tea.
In 2016, a former top KGB official, considered “the keeper of Kremlin secrets”, General Oleg Yerovinkin was found dead in his car in Moscow while Putin had his file on his desk. Suicide, murder or cardiac arrest? Mystery.