'Recommendation 2: Zero tolerance for Russian intrusions. There is always a debate as to how firmly and how publicly to respond to Russian intelligence operations, especially given Moscow’s propensity for tit-for-tat retaliation. In the current environment, European governments must not be held hostage by this risk or by the desire to improve the relationship. Rather, they should respond firmly and publicly to all such intrusions, regardless of the immediate practical and rhetorical consequences. Estonia, for example, has already put this into practice, with its policy of publicly naming or prosecuting spies rather than quietly expelling them.''..Europe should base its actions on what the agencies are, not what Europe fears they may be. This paper calls on European Union governments to adopt a zero-tolerance attitude to Russian intelligence operations in Europe, enhancing capacity sharing and counterintelligence and tracking the illicit movement of funds that lies behind these activities. By showing that aggression abroad has major costs, Europe can push the intelligence services to take a more cautious approach.
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For all their belief in their role as defenders of the state, many officers still eagerly exploit the legal and illegal economic opportunities at their disposal. Corruption remains endemic within the state apparatus, and the additional lack of transparency and control makes this a particular problem in the agencies.
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The overall result is a culture of corruption that permeates the agencies..
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As far back as 2010, the British Security Service (MI5) warned that “the threat from Russian espionage continues to be significant and is similar to the Cold War [...] the number of Russian intelligence officers in London is at the same level as in Soviet times.” Since then, security services across Europe have been registering a continued uptick in the scale and aggressiveness of Russian operations. For example, the head of the Norwegian Police Security Service warned that “Russian intelligence has the largest potential to damage Norwegian interests”, while Sweden’s security service, SÄPO, has characterised Russian espionage as its greatest challenge and warned of “preparation for military operations against Sweden”. The Russians are engaging in massive and voracious intelligence-gathering campaigns, fuelled by still-substantial budgets and a Kremlin culture that sees deceit and secret agendas even where none exist.
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Every external operation is first and foremost a domestic one: the single most important role of the agencies is to secure the regime. So it was under the tsars, then the Bolsheviks, and now the new Russians: defending not a constitutional order but a particular incumbent. This means carrying out operations to prevent foreign “interference” as the Kremlin sees it, as well as dividing strategic rivals such as the EU.
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Overall, Russia’s intelligence and security communities are extremely active in their operations and unusually broad in their responsibilities. They are directly wired into a much wider array of state activities than in the West and have revived their Soviet-era role as the multi-purpose Swiss Army Knife of the Kremlin. What is less clear, though, is how far this is of their own volition, and how far it is because they are available and trusted, and cannot say no. Did the Foreign Intelligence Service, for example, really want to get involved in the Czech nuclear reactor contract? Do people really join the FSO to parse opinion poll data? In other words, are the agencies Putin’s boyars, or his serfs?
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Under Putin, policy has swung in directions congenial to the security community as a whole and reflects many of the attitudes they hold. However, this is more likely to be because policy is shaped in the image of Putin the KGB veteran, and because of other, broader issues, such as the elite’s troubles adjusting to the loss of great power status, and genuine differences in expectations between Moscow and the West. A liberal and reformist minority has largely been forced out of the centre ground of politics, but there is no evidence that this was at the hands of the Chekists.
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The very personal way of conveying intelligence means that much depends on the decision-maker’s willingness to entertain unwelcome information and the agencies’ willingness to risk, as one interlocutor put it, “bringing bad news to the tsar’s table”. Since his return to the presidency in 2012, Putin appears to have been increasingly hostile to questioning. This has been visible in the shrinking of his personal circle and the alienation of more liberal and freethinking former allies, such as former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin.
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For Europe, the challenge is how best to resist the incursions of the Russian “special services” while maximising the cost to Moscow.
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Crucially, this also means enhanced counterintelligence activities and greater capacity-sharing, especially for smaller nations with limited resources in this area. The push to ensure that NATO members reach the alliance target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defence should not be at the expense of counterintelligence. Indeed, for countries facing especially fierce Russian active measures, such as the Baltic states, the latter ought to take priority. Other allies can provide military protection, but only the Baltics themselves can combat Russian intelligence activities and information operations in their countries.
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Recommendation 2: Zero tolerance for Russian intrusions. There is always a debate as to how firmly and how publicly to respond to Russian intelligence operations, especially given Moscow’s propensity for tit-for-tat retaliation. In the current environment, European governments must not be held hostage by this risk or by the desire to improve the relationship. Rather, they should respond firmly and publicly to all such intrusions, regardless of the immediate practical and rhetorical consequences. Estonia, for example, has already put this into practice, with its policy of publicly naming or prosecuting spies rather than quietly expelling them.
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European governments should re-focus their analytical efforts on the policy environment that Russia’s intelligence services operate in. Not only would this open up further tactical options – such as the capacity to exploit the rivalries between agencies – but, more importantly, it would provide an additional source of insight into Russian policymaking. The Kremlin is a rational actor, but its decisions are based on the information at its disposal. The better European authorities understand the sources, biases, and limitations of that information, the more accurately they can predict Russian actions.
..Europe’s governments should think ahead to rebuilding relations with Russia in the inevitable post-Putin era. There is room for greater basic awareness of the problems, including ensuring that European visitors to Russia are less vulnerable to recruitment..'
- Mark Galeotti,
Putin's hydra: Inside Russia's intelligence services, May 11, 2016
Context'..the Soviet Union was cut off from Western financial markets and was effectively under permanent sanctions..'