Russian spies have returned to Europe and become ’even more dangerous’ - The Economist

Russian spies have returned to Europe and become ’even more dangerous’ - The Economist

The Economist writes that Russian spies have returned to Europe and have become “more dangerous than ever.”

According to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Russian intelligence services have learned the lessons of the last two years, when they were massively exposed by the EU and many special operations failed, and are “entering a new phase of political warfare against the West.”

To achieve this, according to the publication, at the end of 2022, Deputy Head of the Russian Presidential Administration Sergiy Kyriyenko was assigned to head “special influence committees” that coordinate operations against the West. After this, traces of Russian interference began to appear throughout Europe.

A large-scale reform in the MID began in 2019-2020, after the failed Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, but accelerated after the outbreak of war. General Andriy Averyanov was promoted to deputy chief of the MID and created a new "Special Activity Service". It began infiltrating ministries and private companies, as well as recruiting foreign students at Russian universities and paying them scholarships.

Russian agents create armies of bots on social networks, fake websites, carry out cyber attacks, conduct information campaigns against European authorities, establish channels for supplying equipment to Russian arms manufacturers, infiltrate their agents into a variety of institutions, undermine European support for Ukraine and destroy NATO from the inside.

Europeans fear that many Russians who escaped mobilization may be agents. Some, as the intelligence services believe, are recruited through threats against their relatives in the Russian Federation.