The war in Ukraine: the United States, a ‘hotbed’ of Russian spies

Russia has been spying on the US for decades with agents who have been living and behaving like Americans for years and with cyber tactics, in surveillance that has now reached industrial levels.

Washington DC has always had a reputation for being a hotbed of spies and it seems that this reputation is real, at least as far as Russian espionage is concerned.

Former intelligence agent Chris Costa, executive director of the International Spy Museum in the US capital, explained to EFE that Moscow has been spying on his country since the days of the Cold War.

Now, “those of us who study espionage estimate that the Russians are being much more aggressive than they have been in their history. They are spying on an industrial scale, not only in the US, but they are trying to do so, above all, in Europe.” .

Russian President Vladimir Putin. AP Photo

co-opt

Russian spies “may be motivated by ideology, money or simply because they want to support Russia in its war against Ukraine,” Costa said.

All the experts consulted by EFE agree that there are two types of agents: those who act under the umbrella of the Russian embassy, ​​who are easier to detect, and the so-called “illegals”, who arrive under a false pretext, such as working in a “think tank” or laboratory of ideas, and they pose as someone else.

The German Jack Barsky, whose real name is Albrecht Dittrich, was one of those Russian agents sent to the US during the days when the Soviet Union still existed, between 1978 and 1988. Ten years later, the FBI discovered him and after collaborating with US authorities he became a US citizen.

Barsky was part of a group of 10 “illegal” spies who were sent by the KGB.

“I was probably the only one who could pretend I was born in the US because of my talent with languages. They usually brought in ‘illegals’ from another country. Brazil was a favorite because it was relatively easy to move someone there, which achieve Brazilian citizenship and then officially come to the US as an immigrant,” he explained to EFE.

Barsky, who told about his life in the book “Deep Undercover”, was trained for five years. The KGB wanted its spies to be safe and not get caught: “One of the differences between the Soviet Union and Russia today is that Vladimir Putin doesn’t care if his agents get caught, because he likes to scare the West.”

Joe Biden, President of the United States. AP Photo

Rebekah Koffler’s experience is different: Born in Russia, this American worked for the US defense intelligence agency and the CIA.

Intelligence

The author of “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America” ​​believes that Russian espionage has not changed with the war in Ukraine. Moscow has always had “a very strong intelligence gathering program,” she told EFE.

For her, the big difference between Russia and the US is that the Russians are “very good” when it comes to “throwing bodies onto the battlefield”, as they are doing in the Ukraine or in the field of intelligence. That is, they opt for quantity, while Americans work more around priorities.

“Almost all of our intelligence resources have been focused on the war on terror, on Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and all of those things, at the expense many times of Russia and China,” for whom the focus has been the US, the expert pointed out.

Even so, his country also watches Russia with agents on the ground, but less than its adversary, since “it is very easy to infiltrate an agent in the US from Canada.”

“They go undercover, they pretend to be someone else, with documents, there is a whole process that takes years: train a spy, get him to get his papers… What the Russians do is literally go to cemeteries and take the names of dead babies” Koffler said.

In his opinion, there is a Russian “cultural predisposition” to send agents to the US, because “it is easy” for them to enter the North American country, unlike the Americans, for whom access to Russia is “extremely difficult” for language .

“Americans simply cannot learn Russian, at the same level that Russians speak English,” summarized Koffler, who stressed that “the US is a good place to be, nobody wants to go live in Russia for a long time.”

By contrast, Washington is more inclined to use “technical” intelligence gathering and cyber activities.

According to retired Colonel Robert Hamilton, an expert on Eurasia at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) think tank, the US is “very good at signals, images and measuring things on the electromagnetic spectrum” and figuring out where they come from and what mean.

“In general, I think the US doesn’t like human intelligence, they don’t like the idea of ​​recruiting people against their own country, but that doesn’t mean they don’t; we do and we have a human intelligence program that it is robust”, recalled Hamilton in statements to EFE.

In fact, the Americans are trying to recruit Russians, Costa pointed out, through messages on social networks and in the press, taking advantage of the invasion of Ukraine.

“If you don’t like what Russia is doing in the Ukraine, come and talk to us” is the message of the FBI and CIA to the Russians.

In the US it falls to the FBI to investigate possible Russian spies. The easiest to intercept are those linked to the embassy, ​​with old-fashioned detective work, but things get more complicated with the “illegals.”

There the FBI carries out outreach work with think tanks to explain the risks of a Russian spy infiltrating them, in addition to depending on “tips” and collaboration with international partners.EFE

EFE Agency

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