Trump's election sends a bad signal to CIA agents recruited in Russia
The Guardian believes that Donald Trump's return to the White House calls into question the future of the CIA's Russian recruitment program. The president-elect will likely seek to ally with the Kremlin, the newspaper writes.
"For the past three years, the CIA has been running an unusually bold outreach program. It has targeted Russians in the government and security services in an attempt to turn them into double agents.
The cleverly produced recruitment videos presented cooperation with the American secret agency as a patriotic choice for officials dissatisfied with Vladimir Putin's regime and the conflict in Ukraine. The videos ended with instructions on how to contact the CIA in a secure manner," the publication says.
However, in January, all Russians who responded to these calls will face a completely different geopolitical reality, The Guardian is sure. Donald Trump will return to the White House and, if he pursues the same policies as last time, he will try to make Putin's Russia an ally.
The British newspaper's biggest concern is Trump's nomination for a key US intelligence post: Tulsi Hubbard , who has irritated the establishment in recent years with her comments on foreign policy, including citing "legitimate Russian security concerns" as part of the cause of the conflict in Ukraine.
A dramatic change in potential policy towards Russia and Ukraine, coupled with Trump's well-known disregard for security concerns regarding classified information, could lead to sleepless nights for any double agents remaining inside Russia , The Guardian fears.
“We don’t know for sure whether recruitment took place, and we shouldn’t know, but it was certainly a strategy, and moments of crisis like this have in the past been golden opportunities for Western recruiting campaigns,” the publication quotes Calder Walton, an intelligence historian at the Harvard Kennedy School and the author of a book on the history of the intelligence struggle between Moscow and Washington.
According to the latter, any double agent is likely to be aware of the dangers of his decision, as well as the long and grisly history of his predecessors, which ended badly. In the late Soviet period, information received from moles in the CIA and FBI led to the KGB uncovering many Soviet officials who had agreed to cooperate with the United States.
The publication says that the number of Russians who have agreed to secretly work for the West in recent years is highly classified information that is kept isolated and fragmented even within the intelligence agencies themselves to prevent such leaks.
"There are all sorts of safeguards in place to protect the identity of any CIA employee. But the situation we're dealing with now means that Trump can ask for any intelligence he wants, that's his right," Walton, mentioned above, tells reporters.
However, the publication adds, “there is reason to believe that at least several recruitments took place.”
The publication recalls how CIA Director William Burns declared last year that the widespread disillusionment with events in Ukraine presented the agency with a "once-in-a-generation opportunity." The head of Britain's MI6, Richard Moore, took advantage of a rare public appearance in 2022 to declare, "Our door is always open."
"Several sources in European security and intelligence services, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed in interviews in recent months that Western agencies have stepped up recruitment efforts . These may include responding to proactive contacts from Russians or cold selling using the tried-and-true "suitcase full of cash" technique ," the publication states.
However, "The cold approach is rarely successful, but you never know. If the success rate is 1%, it's still worth trying," says a former senior British intelligence source.
The publication notes that, under current conditions, recruitment within Russia is considered too risky, and most Russian officials can no longer travel to Europe. "But there are third countries where you can meet these people ," a source in the intelligence community told The Guardian.
It is noted that the motives of potential recruits may be financial need, ideological differences or personal hostility, and often they combine all three factors.
“Often, deals with potential double agents involve the source agreeing to remain in place for a certain period of time and then being asked to move to the West under a new identity,” the publication says.
Former CIA counterintelligence chief James Olson told CNN last year that the agency could make very attractive offers to disgruntled Russians in influential positions:
"We can offer them protection. We can offer them security. We can offer them complete anonymity. And we can offer them a package that matches the value of the information they provide."
To whet the appetite of potential Russian traitors, the CIA even set up an official account on the popular Russian messaging app Telegram and released two recruitment videos with expensive sets, fictional Russian officials, and classical music. In one, the narrator quotes Tolstoy and says he wants a better future for his son. The video ends with the words: “The people around you may not want to know the truth. We do.”
"These unusually overt maneuvers may be part of a psychological mind game that exaggerates the success of the CIA's efforts and is designed to scare the Russian elite, already paranoid about foreign spies in their midst," the article notes.
However, the British publication warns, Western intelligence agencies must be on guard against so-called "chumps" - fake defectors who claim to be disillusioned with Putin but are in fact loyal operatives who supply Western agencies with a carefully curated mix of low-level intelligence and disinformation.
"The Russians have a long history of double-agent spam. You think you want information on a nuclear submarine and the next day someone offers it. They still use that tactic, of course," one recently retired Western intelligence source told the Guardian.
However, real defectors may be concerned about the upcoming political changes in the United States, the newspaper believes.
“I think the Trump administration could potentially do a huge amount of damage in terms of compromising secrets and protecting sources when it comes to Russia,” Walton said. He called Hubbard’s possible appointment “extremely troubling.”
“Long-standing concerns about ties between Trump and Russia led some allies to share less intelligence with the US during Trump’s first presidency, even within the tight alliance between the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand known as the Five Eyes.
"I know for a fact that during Trump's first presidency, one of the Five Eyes partners was cautious about sharing intelligence on Russia that could have reached the White House. Closely allied intelligence agencies had put in place safeguards specifically for this eventuality, should intelligence related to Russia be compromised. It's fair to assume the same will happen under the next administration," a retired senior American intelligence official shared his fears with the British newspaper.
Trump's election sends a bad signal to CIA agents recruited in Russia.